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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23810-0.txt b/23810-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ad07ff --- /dev/null +++ b/23810-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7205 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of At Fault, by Kate Chopin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: At Fault + +Author: Kate Chopin + +Release Date: December 10, 2007 [EBook #23810] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT FAULT *** + + + + +Produced by Bernard Koloski + + + + + +[Transcriber’s note: There was no table of contents in the original +book; one has been added in this project to ease the navigation.] + + + + +At Fault + +by Kate Chopin + + + + +Part I. + + I. The Mistress of Place-du-Bois. + II. At the Mill. + III. In the Pirogue. + IV. A Small Interruption. + V. In the Pine Woods. + VI. Melicent Talks. + VII. Painful Disclosures. + VIII. Treats of Melicent. + IX. Face to Face. + X. Fanny’s Friends. + XI. The Self-Assumed Burden. + XII. Severing Old Ties. + + +Part II. + + I. Fanny’s First Night at Place-du-Bois. + II. “Neva to See You!” + III. A Talk Under the Cedar Tree. + IV. Thérèse Crosses the River. + V. One Afternoon. + VI. One Night. + VII. Melicent Leaves Place-du-Bois. + VIII. With Loose Rein. + IX. The Reason Why. + X. Perplexing Things. + XI. A Social Evening. + XII. Tidings That Sting. + XIII. Melicent Hears the News. + XIV. A Step Too Far. + XV. A Fateful Solution. + XVI. To Him Who Waits. + XVII. Conclusion. + + + + +PART I + + + + +I + +The Mistress of Place-du-Bois. + + +When Jérôme Lafirme died, his neighbors awaited the results of his +sudden taking off with indolent watchfulness. It was a matter of +unusual interest to them that a plantation of four thousand acres had +been left unincumbered to the disposal of a handsome, inconsolable, +childless Creole widow of thirty. A _bêtise_ of some sort might safely +be looked for. But time passing, the anticipated folly failed to +reveal itself; and the only wonder was that Thérèse Lafirme so +successfully followed the methods of her departed husband. + +Of course Thérèse had wanted to die with her Jérôme, feeling that life +without him held nothing that could reconcile her to its further +endurance. For days she lived alone with her grief; shutting out the +appeals that came to her from the demoralized “hands,” and unmindful +of the disorder that gathered about her. Till Uncle Hiram came one day +with a respectful tender of sympathy, offered in the guise of a +reckless misquoting of Scripture--and with a grievance. + +“Mistuss,” he said, “I ’lowed ’twar best to come to de house an’ tell +you; fur Massa he alluz did say ‘Hi’urm, I counts on you to keep a eye +open endurin’ my appersunce;’ you ricollic, marm?” addressing an +expanse of black bordered cambric that veiled the features of his +mistress. “Things is a goin’ wrong; dat dey is. I don’t wants to name +no names ’doubt I’se ’bleeged to; but dey done start a kiarrin’ de +cotton seed off de place, and dats how.” + +If Hiram’s information had confined itself to the bare statement of +things “goin’ wrong,” such intimation, of its nature vague and +susceptible of uncertain interpretation, might have failed to rouse +Thérèse from her lethargy of grief. But that wrong doing presented as +a tangible abuse and defiance of authority, served to move her to +action. She felt at once the weight and sacredness of a trust, whose +acceptance brought consolation and awakened unsuspected powers of +doing. + +In spite of Uncle Hiram’s parting prediction “de cotton ’ll be a goin’ +naxt” no more seed was hauled under cover of darkness from +Place-du-Bois. + +The short length of this Louisiana plantation stretched along Cane +River, meeting the water when that stream was at its highest, with a +thick growth of cotton-wood trees; save where a narrow convenient +opening had been cut into their midst, and where further down the pine +hills started in abrupt prominence from the water and the dead level +of land on either side of them. These hills extended in a long line of +gradual descent far back to the wooded borders of Lac du Bois; and +within the circuit which they formed on the one side, and the +irregular half circle of a sluggish bayou on the other, lay the +cultivated open ground of the plantation--rich in its exhaustless +powers of reproduction. + +Among changes which the railroad brought soon after Jérôme Lafirme’s +death, and which were viewed by many as of questionable benefit, was +one which drove Thérèse to seek another domicile. The old homestead +that nestled to the hill side and close to the water’s edge, had been +abandoned to the inroads of progressive civilization; and Mrs. Lafirme +had rebuilt many rods away from the river and beyond sight of the +mutilated dwelling, converted now into a section house. In building, +she avoided the temptations offered by modern architectural +innovations, and clung to the simplicity of large rooms and broad +verandas: a style whose merits had stood the test of easy-going and +comfort-loving generations. + +The negro quarters were scattered at wide intervals over the land, +breaking with picturesque irregularity into the systematic division of +field from field; and in the early spring-time gleaming in their new +coat of whitewash against the tender green of the sprouting cotton and +corn. + +Thérèse loved to walk the length of the wide verandas, armed with her +field-glass, and to view her surrounding possessions with comfortable +satisfaction. Then her gaze swept from cabin to cabin; from patch to +patch; up to the pine-capped hills, and down to the station which +squatted a brown and ugly intruder within her fair domain. + +She had made pouting resistance to this change at first, opposing it +step by step with a conservatism that yielded only to the resistless. +She pictured a visionary troop of evils coming in the wake of the +railroad, which, in her eyes no conceivable benefits could mitigate. +The occasional tramp, she foresaw as an army; and the travelers whom +chance deposited at the store that adjoined the station, she dreaded +as an endless procession of intruders forcing themselves upon her +privacy. + +Grégoire, the young nephew of Mrs. Lafirme, whose duty on the +plantation was comprehended in doing as he was bid, qualified by a +propensity for doing as he liked, rode up from the store one day in +the reckless fashion peculiar to Southern youth, breathless with the +information that a stranger was there wishing audience with her. + +Thérèse at once bristled with objections. Here was a confirmation of +her worst dread. But encouraged by Grégoire’s reiteration “he ’pear to +me like a nice sort o’ person,” she yielded a grudging assent to the +interview. + +She sat within the wide hall-way beyond the glare and heat that were +beating mercilessly down upon the world out of doors, engaged in a +light work not so exacting as to keep her thoughts and glance from +wandering. Looking through the wide open back doors, the picture which +she saw was a section of the perfect lawn that encircled the house for +an acre around, and from which Hiram was slowly raking the leaves cast +from a clump of tall magnolias. Beneath the spreading shade of an +umbrella-China tree, lay the burly Hector, but half awake to the +possible nearness of tramps; and Betsy, a piece of youthful ebony in +blue cottonade, was crossing leisurely on her way to the poultry yard; +unheeding the scorching sun-rays that she thought were sufficiently +parried by the pan of chick feed that she balanced adroitly on her +bushy black head. + +At the front, the view at certain seasons would have been clear and +unbroken: to the station, the store, and out-lying hills. But now she +could see beyond the lawn only a quivering curtain of rich green which +the growing corn spread before the level landscape, and above whose +swaying heads appeared occasionally the top of an advancing white +sun-shade. + +Thérèse was of a roundness of figure suggesting a future of excessive +fullness if not judiciously guarded; and she was fair, with a warm +whiteness that a passing thought could deepen into color. The waving +blonde hair, gathered in an abundant coil on top of her head, grew +away with a pretty sweep from the temples, the low forehead and nape +of the white neck that showed above a frill of soft lace. Her eyes +were blue, as certain gems are; that deep blue that lights, and glows, +and tells things of the soul. When David Hosmer presented himself, +they were intense only with expectancy and the color was in her cheek +like the blush in a shell. + +He was a tall individual of perhaps forty; thin and sallow. His black +hair was streaked abundantly with grey, and his face marked with +premature lines; left there by care, no doubt, and, by a too close +attention to what men are pleased to call the main chances of life. + +“A serious one,” was Thérèse’s first thought in looking at him. “A man +who has never learned to laugh or who has forgotten how.” Though +plainly feeling the effects of the heat, he did not seem to appreciate +the relief offered by the grateful change into this shadowy, sweet +smelling, cool retreat; used as he was to ignore the comforting things +of life when presented to him as irrelevant to that dominant main +chance. He accepted under protest a glass of ice water from the +wide-eyed Betsy, and suffered a fan to be thrust into his hand, +seemingly to save his time or his timidity by its possibly unheeded +rejection. + +“Lor’-zee folks,” exclaimed the observant Betsy on re-entering the +kitchen, “dey’se a man in yonda, look like he gwine eat somebody up. I +was fur gittin’ ’way quick me.” + +It can be readily imagined that Hosmer lost little time in preliminary +small talk. He introduced himself vaguely as from the West; then +perceiving the need of being more specific as from Saint Louis. She +had guessed he was no Southerner. He had come to Mrs. Lafirme on the +part of himself and others with a moneyed offer for the privilege of +cutting timber from her land for a given number of years. The amount +named was alluring, but here was proposed another change and she felt +plainly called on for resistance. + +The company which he represented had in view the erection of a sawmill +some two miles back in the woods, close beside the bayou and at a +convenient distance from the lake. He was not wordy, nor was he eager +in urging his plans; only in a quiet way insistent in showing points +to be considered in her own favor which she would be likely herself to +overlook. + +Mrs. Lafirme, a clever enough business woman, was moved by no undue +haste to give her answer. She begged for time to think the matter +over, which Hosmer readily agreed to; expressing a hope that a +favorable answer be sent to him at Natchitoches, where he would await +her convenience. Then resisting rather than declining all further +hospitality, he again took his way through the scorching fields. + +Thérèse wanted but time to become familiar with this further change. +Alone she went out to her beloved woods, and at the hush of mid-day, +bade a tearful farewell to the silence. + + + + +II + +At the Mill. + + +David Hosmer sat alone in his little office of roughly fashioned pine +board. So small a place, that with his desk and his clerk’s desk, a +narrow bed in one corner, and two chairs, there was scant room for a +man to more than turn himself comfortably about. He had just +dispatched his clerk with the daily bundle of letters to the +post-office, two miles away in the Lafirme store, and he now turned +with the air of a man who had well earned his moment of leisure, to +the questionable relaxation of adding columns and columns of figures. + +The mill’s unceasing buzz made pleasant music to his ears and stirred +reflections of a most agreeable nature. A year had gone by since Mrs. +Lafirme had consented to Hosmer’s proposal; and already the business +more than gave promise of justifying the venture. Orders came in from +the North and West more rapidly than they could be filled. That +“Cypresse Funerall” which stands in grim majesty through the dense +forests of Louisiana had already won its just recognition; and +Hosmer’s appreciation of a successful business venture was showing +itself in a little more pronounced stoop of shoulder, a deepening of +pre-occupation and a few additional lines about mouth and forehead. + +Hardly had the clerk gone with his letters than a light footstep +sounded on the narrow porch; the quick tap of a parasol was heard on +the door-sill; a pleasant voice asking, “Any admission except on +business?” and Thérèse crossed the small room and seated herself +beside Hosmer’s desk before giving him time to arise. + +She laid her hand and arm,--bare to the elbow--across his work, and +said, looking at him reproachfully:-- + +“Is this the way you keep a promise?” + +“A promise?” he questioned, smiling awkwardly and looking furtively at +the white arm, then very earnestly at the ink-stand beyond. + +“Yes. Didn’t you promise to do no work after five o’clock?” + +“But this is merely pastime,” he said, touching the paper, yet leaving +it undisturbed beneath the fair weight that was pressing it down. “My +work is finished: you must have met Henry with the letters.” + +“No, I suppose he went through the woods; we came on the hand-car. Oh, +dear! It’s an ungrateful task, this one of reform,” and she leaned +back, fanning leisurely, whilst he proceeded to throw the contents of +his desk into hopeless disorder by pretended efforts at arrangement. + +“My husband used sometimes to say, and no doubt with reason,” she +continued, “that in my eagerness for the rest of mankind to do right, +I was often in danger of losing sight of such necessity for myself.” + +“Oh, there could be no fear of that,” said Hosmer with a short laugh. +There was no further pretext for continued occupation with his pens +and pencils and rulers, so he turned towards Thérèse, rested an arm on +the desk, pulled absently at his black moustache, and crossing his +knee, gazed with deep concern at the toe of his boot, and set of his +trouser about the ankle. + +“You are not what my friend Homeyer would call an individualist,” he +ventured, “since you don’t grant a man the right to follow the +promptings of his character.” + +“No, I’m no individualist, if to be one is to permit men to fall into +hurtful habits without offering protest against it. I’m losing faith +in that friend Homeyer, who I strongly suspect is a mythical apology +for your own short-comings.” + +“Indeed he’s no myth; but a friend who is fond of going into such +things and allows me the benefit of his deeper perceptions.” + +“You having no time, well understood. But if his influence has had the +merit of drawing your thoughts from business once in a while we won’t +quarrel with it.” + +“Mrs. Lafirme,” said Hosmer, seeming moved to pursue the subject, and +addressing the spray of white blossoms that adorned Thérèse’s black +hat, “you admit, I suppose, that in urging your views upon me, you +have in mind the advancement of my happiness?” + +“Well understood.” + +“Then why wish to substitute some other form of enjoyment for the one +which I find in following my inclinations?” + +“Because there is an unsuspected selfishness in your inclinations that +works harm to yourself and to those around you. I want you to know,” +she continued warmly, “the good things of life that cheer and warm, +that are always at hand.” + +“Do you think the happiness of Melicent or--or others could be +materially lessened by my fondness for money getting?” he asked dryly, +with a faint elevation of eyebrow. + +“Yes, in proportion as it deprives them of a charm which any man’s +society loses, when pursuing one object in life, he grows insensible +to every other. But I’ll not scold any more. I’ve made myself +troublesome enough for one day. You haven’t asked about Melicent. It’s +true,” she laughed, “I haven’t given you much chance. She’s out on the +lake with Grégoire.” + +“Ah?” + +“Yes, in the pirogue. A dangerous little craft, I’m afraid; but she +tells me she can swim. I suppose it’s all right.” + +“Oh, Melicent will look after herself.” + +Hosmer had great faith in his sister Melicent’s ability to look after +herself; and it must be granted that the young lady fully justified +his belief in her. + +“She enjoys her visit more than I thought she would,” he said. + +“Melicent’s a dear girl,” replied Thérèse cordially, “and a wise one +too in guarding herself against a somber influence that I know,” with +a meaning glance at Hosmer, who was preparing to close his desk. + +She suddenly perceived the picture of a handsome boy, far back in one +of the pigeon-holes, and with the familiarity born of country +intercourse, she looked intently at it, remarking upon the boy’s +beauty. + +“A child whom I loved very much,” said Hosmer. “He’s dead,” and he +closed the desk, turning the key in the lock with a sharp click which +seemed to add--“and buried.” + +Thérèse then approached the open door, leaned her back against its +casing, and turned her pretty profile towards Hosmer, who, it need not +be supposed, was averse to looking at it--only to being caught in the +act. + +“I want to look in at the mill before work closes,” she said; and not +waiting for an answer she went on to ask--moved by some association of +ideas:-- + +“How is Joçint doing?” + +“Always unruly, the foreman tells me. I don’t believe we shall be able +to keep him.” + +Hosmer then spoke a few words through the telephone which connected +with the agent’s desk at the station, put on his great slouch hat, and +thrusting keys and hands into his pocket, joined Thérèse in the +door-way. + +Quitting the office and making a sharp turn to the left, they came in +direct sight of the great mill. She quickly made her way past the huge +piles of sawed timber, not waiting for her companion, who loitered at +each step of the way, with observant watchfulness. Then mounting the +steep stairs that led to the upper portions of the mill, she went at +once to her favorite spot, quite on the edge of the open platform that +overhung the dam. Here she watched with fascinated delight the great +logs hauled dripping from the water, following each till it had +changed to the clean symmetry of sawed planks. The unending work made +her giddy. For no one was there a moment of rest, and she could well +understand the open revolt of the surly Joçint; for he rode the day +long on that narrow car, back and forth, back and forth, with his +heart in the pine hills and knowing that his little Creole pony was +roaming the woods in vicious idleness and his rifle gathering an +unsightly rust on the cabin wall at home. + +The boy gave but ugly acknowledgment to Thérèse’s amiable nod; for he +thought she was one upon whom partly rested the fault of this +intrusive Industry which had come to fire the souls of indolent +fathers with a greedy ambition for gain, at the sore expense of +revolting youth. + + + + +III + +In the Pirogue. + + +“You got to set mighty still in this pirogue,” said Grégoire, as with +a long oar-stroke he pulled out into mid stream. + +“Yes, I know,” answered Melicent complacently, arranging herself +opposite him in the long narrow boat: all sense of danger which the +situation might arouse being dulled by the attractiveness of a new +experience. + +Her resemblance to Hosmer ended with height and slenderness of figure, +olive tinted skin, and eyes and hair which were of that dark brown +often miscalled black; but unlike his, her face was awake with an +eagerness to know and test the novelty and depth of unaccustomed +sensation. She had thus far lived an unstable existence, free from the +weight of responsibilities, with a notion lying somewhere deep in her +consciousness that the world must one day be taken seriously; but that +contingency was yet too far away to disturb the harmony of her days. + +She had eagerly responded to her brother’s suggestion of spending a +summer with him in Louisiana. Hitherto, having passed her summers +North, West, or East as alternating caprice prompted, she was ready at +a word to fit her humor to the novelty of a season at the South. She +enjoyed in advance the startling effect which her announced intention +produced upon her intimate circle at home; thinking that her whim +deserved the distinction of eccentricity with which they chose to +invest it. But Melicent was chiefly moved by the prospect of an +uninterrupted sojourn with her brother, whom she loved blindly, and to +whom she attributed qualities of mind and heart which she thought the +world had discovered to use against him. + +“You got to set mighty still in this pirogue.” + +“Yes, I know; you told me so before,” and she laughed. + +“W’at are you laughin’ at?” asked Grégoire with amused but uncertain +expectancy. + +“Laughing at you, Grégoire; how can I help it?” laughing again. + +“Betta wait tell I do somethin’ funny, I reckon. Ain’t this a putty +sight?” he added, referring to the dense canopy of an overarching +tree, beneath which they were gliding, and whose extreme branches +dipped quite into the slow moving water. + +The scene had not attracted Melicent. For she had been engaged in +observing her companion rather closely; his personality holding her +with a certain imaginative interest. + +The young man whom she so closely scrutinized was slightly undersized, +but of close and brawny build. His hands were not so refinedly white +as those of certain office bred young men of her acquaintance, yet +they were not coarsened by undue toil: it being somewhat an axiom with +him to do nothing that an available “nigger” might do for him. + +Close fitting, high-heeled boots of fine quality incased his feet, in +whose shapeliness he felt a pardonable pride; for a young man’s +excellence was often measured in the circle which he had frequented, +by the possession of such a foot. A peculiar grace in the dance and a +talent for bold repartee were further characteristics which had made +Grégoire’s departure keenly felt among certain belles of upper Red +River. His features were handsome, of sharp and refined cut; and his +eyes black and brilliant as eyes of an alert and intelligent animal +sometimes are. Melicent could not reconcile his voice to her liking; +it was too softly low and feminine, and carried a note of pleading or +pathos, unless he argued with his horse, his dog, or a “nigger,” at +which times, though not unduly raised, it acquired a biting quality +that served the purpose of relieving him from further form of +insistence. + +He pulled rapidly and in silence down the bayou, that was now so +entirely sheltered from the open light of the sky by the meeting +branches above, as to seem a dim leafy tunnel fashioned by man’s +ingenuity. There were no perceptible banks, for the water spread out +on either side of them, further than they could follow its flashings +through the rank underbrush. The dull plash of some object falling +into the water, or the wild call of a lonely bird were the only sounds +that broke upon the stillness, beside the monotonous dipping of the +oars and the occasional low undertones of their own voices. When +Grégoire called the girl’s attention to an object near by, she fancied +it was the protruding stump of a decaying tree; but reaching for his +revolver and taking quiet aim, he drove a ball into the black upturned +nozzle that sent it below the surface with an angry splash. + +“Will he follow us?” she asked, mildly agitated. + +“Oh no; he’s glad ’nough to git out o’ the way. You betta put down yo’ +veil,” he added a moment later. + +Before she could ask a reason--for it was not her fashion to obey at +word of command--the air was filled with the doleful hum of a gray +swarm of mosquitoes, which attacked them fiercely. + +“You didn’t tell me the bayou was the refuge of such savage +creatures,” she said, fastening her veil closely about face and neck, +but not before she had felt the sharpness of their angry sting. + +“I reckoned you’d ’a knowed all about it: seems like you know +everything.” After a short interval he added, “you betta take yo’ veil +off.” + +She was amused at Grégoire’s authoritative tone and she said to him +laughing, yet obeying his suggestion, which carried a note of command: +“you shall tell me always, why I should do things.” + +“All right,” he replied; “because they ain’t any mo’ mosquitoes; +because I want you to see somethin’ worth seein’ afta while; and +because I like to look at you,” which he was doing, with the innocent +boldness of a forward child. “Ain’t that ’nough reasons?” + +“More than enough,” she replied shortly. + +The rank and clustering vegetation had become denser as they went on, +forming an impenetrable tangle on either side, and pressing so closely +above that they often needed to lower their heads to avoid the blow of +some drooping branch. Then a sudden and unlooked for turn in the bayou +carried them out upon the far-spreading waters of the lake, with the +broad canopy of the open sky above them. + +“Oh,” cried Melicent, in surprise. Her exclamation was like a sigh of +relief which comes at the removal of some pressure from body or brain. + +The wildness of the scene caught upon her erratic fancy, speeding it +for a quick moment into the realms of romance. She was an Indian +maiden of the far past, fleeing and seeking with her dusky lover some +wild and solitary retreat on the borders of this lake, which offered +them no seeming foot-hold save such as they would hew themselves with +axe or tomahawk. Here and there, a grim cypress lifted its head above +the water, and spread wide its moss covered arms inviting refuge to +the great black-winged buzzards that circled over and about it in +mid-air. Nameless voices--weird sounds that awake in a Southern forest +at twilight’s approach,--were crying a sinister welcome to the +settling gloom. + +“This is a place thet can make a man sad, I tell you,” said Grégoire, +resting his oars, and wiping the moisture from his forehead. “I +wouldn’t want to be yere alone, not fur any money.” + +“It is an awful place,” replied Melicent with a little appreciative +shudder; adding “do you consider me a bodily protection?” and feebly +smiling into his face. + +“Oh; I ain’t ’fraid o’ any thing I can see an on’erstan’. I can han’le +mos’ any thing thet’s got a body. But they do tell some mighty queer +tales ’bout this lake an’ the pine hills yonda.” + +“Queer--how?” + +“W’y, ole McFarlane’s buried up there on the hill; an’ they’s folks +’round yere says he walks about o’ nights; can’t res’ in his grave fur +the niggas he’s killed.” + +“Gracious! and who was old McFarlane?” + +“The meanest w’ite man thet ever lived, seems like. Used to own this +place long befo’ the Lafirmes got it. They say he’s the person that +Mrs. W’at’s her name wrote about in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” + +“Legree? I wonder if it could be true?” Melicent asked with interest. + +“Thet’s w’at they all say: ask any body.” + +“You’ll take me to his grave, won’t you Grégoire,” she entreated. + +“Well, not this evenin’--I reckon not. It’ll have to be broad day, an’ +the sun shinin’ mighty bright w’en I take you to ole McFarlane’s +grave.” + +They had retraced their course and again entered the bayou, from which +the light had now nearly vanished, making it needful that they watch +carefully to escape the hewn logs that floated in numbers upon the +water. + +“I didn’t suppose you were ever sad, Grégoire,” Melicent said gently. + +“Oh my! yes;” with frank acknowledgment. “You ain’t ever seen me w’en +I was real lonesome. ’Tain’t so bad sence you come. But times w’en I +git to thinkin’ ’bout home, I’m boun’ to cry--seems like I can’t he’p +it.” + +“Why did you ever leave home?” she asked sympathetically. + +“You see w’en father died, fo’ year ago, mother she went back to +France, t’her folks there; she never could stan’ this country--an’ +lef’ us boys to manage the place. Hec, he took charge the firs’ year +an’ run it in debt. Placide an’ me did’n’ have no betta luck the naxt +year. Then the creditors come up from New Orleans an’ took holt. +That’s the time I packed my duds an’ lef’.” + +“And you came here?” + +“No, not at firs’. You see the Santien boys had a putty hard name in +the country. Aunt Thérèse, she’d fallen out with father years ago +’bout the way, she said, he was bringin’ us up. Father, he wasn’t the +man to take nothin’ from nobody. Never ’lowed any of us to come down +yere. I was in Texas, goin’ to the devil I reckon, w’en she sent for +me, an’ yere I am.” + +“And here you ought to stay, Grégoire.” + +“Oh, they ain’t no betta woman in the worl’ then Aunt Thérèse, w’en +you do like she wants. See ’em yonda waitin’ fur us? Reckon they +thought we was drowned.” + + + + +IV + +A Small Interruption. + + +When Melicent came to visit her brother, Mrs. Lafirme persuaded him to +abandon his uncomfortable quarters at the mill and take up his +residence in the cottage, which stood just beyond the lawn of the big +house. This cottage had been furnished _de pied en cap_ many years +before, in readiness against an excess of visitors, which in days gone +by was not of infrequent occurrence at Place-du-Bois. It was +Melicent’s delighted intention to keep house here. And she foresaw no +obstacle in the way of procuring the needed domestic aid in a place +which was clearly swarming with idle women and children. + +“Got a cook yet, Mel?” was Hosmer’s daily enquiry on returning home, +to which Melicent was as often forced to admit that she had no cook, +but was not without abundant hope of procuring one. + +Betsy’s Aunt Cynthy had promised with a sincerity which admitted not +of doubt, that “de Lord willin’ ” she would “be on han’ Monday, time +to make de mornin’ coffee.” Which assurance had afforded Melicent a +Sunday free of disturbing doubts concerning the future of her +undertaking. But who may know what the morrow will bring forth? Cynthy +had been “tuck sick in de night.” So ran the statement of the wee +pickaninny who appeared at Melicent’s gate many hours later than +morning coffee time: delivering his message in a high voice of +complaint, and disappearing like a vision without further word. + +Uncle Hiram, then called to the breach, had staked his patriarchal +honor on the appearance of his niece Suze on Tuesday. Melicent and +Thérèse meeting Suze some days later in a field path, asked the cause +of her bad faith. The girl showed them all the white teeth which +nature had lavished on her, saying with the best natured laugh in the +world: “I don’ know how come I didn’ git dere Chewsday like I +promise.” + +If the ladies were not disposed to consider that an all-sufficient +reason, so much the worse, for Suze had no other to offer. + +From Mose’s wife, Minervy, better things might have been expected. But +after a solemn engagement to take charge of Melicent’s kitchen on +Wednesday, the dusky matron suddenly awoke to the need of “holpin’ +Mose hoe out dat co’n in the stiff lan.” + +Thérèse, seeing that the girl was really eager to play in the brief +role of housekeeper had used her powers, persuasive and authoritative, +to procure servants for her, but without avail. She herself was not +without an abundance of them, from the white-haired Hiram, whose +position on the place had long been a sinecure, down to the little +brown legged tot Mandy, much given to falling asleep in the sun, when +not chasing venturesome poultry off forbidden ground, or stirring +gentle breezes with an enormous palm leaf fan about her mistress +during that lady’s after dinner nap. + +When pressed to give a reason for this apparent disinclination of the +negroes to work for the Hosmers, Nathan, who was at the moment being +interviewed on the front veranda by Thérèse and Melicent, spoke out. + +“Dey ’low ’roun’ yere, dat you’s mean to de black folks, ma’am: dat +what dey says--I don’ know me.” + +“Mean,” cried Melicent, amazed, “in what way, pray?” + +“Oh, all sort o’ ways,” he admitted, with a certain shy brazenness; +determined to go through with the ordeal. + +“Dey ’low you wants to cut de little gals’ plaits off, an’ sich--I +don’ know me.” + +“Do you suppose, Nathan,” said Thérèse attempting but poorly to hide +her amusement at Melicent’s look of dismay, “that Miss Hosmer would +bother herself with darkies’ plaits?” + +“Dat’s w’at I tink m’sef. Anyways, I’ll sen’ Ar’minty ’roun’ +to-morrow, sho.” + +Melicent was not without the guilty remembrance of having one day +playfully seized one of the small Mandy’s bristling plaits, daintily +between finger and thumb, threatening to cut them all away with the +scissors which she carried. Yet she could not but believe that there +was some deeper motive underlying this systematic reluctance of the +negroes to give their work in exchange for the very good pay which she +offered. Thérèse soon enlightened her with the information that the +negroes were very averse to working for Northern people whose speech, +manners, and attitude towards themselves were unfamiliar. She was +given the consoling assurance of not being the only victim of this +boycott, as Thérèse recalled many examples of strangers whom she knew +to have met with a like cavalier treatment at the darkies’ hands. + +Needless to say, Araminty never appeared. + +Hosmer and Melicent were induced to accept Mrs. Lafirme’s generous +hospitality; and one of that lady’s many supernumeraries was detailed +each morning to “do up” Miss Melicent’s rooms, but not without the +previous understanding that the work formed part of Miss T’rèse’s +system. + +Nothing which had happened during the year of his residence at +Place-du-Bois had furnished Hosmer such amusement as these +misadventures of his sister Melicent, he having had no like experience +with his mill hands. + +It is not unlikely that his good humor was partly due to the +acceptable arrangement which assured him the daily society of Thérèse, +whose presence was growing into a need with him. + + + + +V + +In the Pine Woods. + + +When Grégoire said to Melicent that there was no better woman in the +world than his Aunt Thérèse, “W’en you do like she wants,” the +statement was so incomplete as to leave one in uncomfortable doubt of +the expediency of venturing within the influence of so exacting a +nature. True, Thérèse required certain conduct from others, but she +was willing to further its accomplishment by personal efforts, even +sacrifices--that could leave no doubt of the pure unselfishness of her +motive. There was hardly a soul at Place-du-Bois who had not felt the +force of her will and yielded to its gentle influence. + +The picture of Joçint as she had last seen him, stayed with her, till +it gave form to a troubled desire moving her to see him again and +speak with him. He had always been an unruly subject, inclined to a +surreptitious defiance of authority. Repeatedly had he been given work +on the plantation and as many times dismissed for various causes. +Thérèse would have long since removed him had it not been for his old +father Morico, whose long life spent on the place had established a +claim upon her tolerance. + +In the late afternoon, when the shadows of the magnolias were +stretching in grotesque lengths across the lawn, Thérèse stood waiting +for Uncle Hiram to bring her sleek bay Beauregard around to the front. +The dark close fitting habit which she wore lent brilliancy to her +soft blonde coloring; and there was no mark of years about her face or +figure, save the settling of a thoughtful shadow upon the eyes, which +joys and sorrows that were past and gone had left there. + +As she rode by the cottage, Melicent came out on the porch to wave a +laughing good-bye. The girl was engaged in effacing the simplicity of +her rooms with certain bizarre decorations that seemed the promptings +of a disordered imagination. Yards of fantastic calico had been +brought up from the store, which Grégoire with hammer and tacks was +amiably forming into impossible designs at the prompting of the girl. +The little darkies had been enlisted to bring their contributions of +palm branches, pine cones, ferns, and bright hued bird wings--and a +row of those small recruits stood on the porch, gaping in wide-mouthed +admiration at a sight that stirred within their breasts such remnant +of savage instinct as past generations had left there in dormant +survival. + +One of the small audience permitted her attention to be drawn for a +moment from the gorgeous in-door spectacle, to follow the movements of +her mistress. + +“Jis’ look Miss T’rèse how she go a lopin’ down de lane. Dere she +go--dere she go--now she gone,” and she again became contemplative. + +Thérèse, after crossing the railroad, for a space kept to the brow of +the hill where stretched a well defined road, which by almost +imperceptible degrees led deeper and always higher into the woods. +Presently, leaving this road and turning into a bridle path where an +unpracticed eye would have discovered no sign of travel, she rode on +until reaching a small clearing among the pines, in the center of +which stood a very old and weather beaten cabin. + +Here she dismounted, before Morico knew of her presence, for he sat +with his back partly turned to the open door. As she entered and +greeted him, he arose from his chair, all trembling with excitement at +her visit; the long white locks, straggling and unkept, falling about +his brown visage that had grown old and weather beaten with his cabin. +Sinking down into his seat--the hide covered chair that had been worn +smooth by years of usefulness--he gazed well pleased at Thérèse, who +seated herself beside him. + +“Ah, this is quite the handsomest you have made yet, Morico,” she said +addressing him in French, and taking up the fan that he was curiously +fashioning of turkey feathers. + +“I am taking extra pains with it,” he answered, looking complacently +at his handiwork and smoothing down the glossy feathers with the ends +of his withered old fingers. “I thought the American lady down at the +house might want to buy it.” + +Thérèse could safely assure him of Melicent’s willingness to seize on +the trophy. + +Then she asked why Joçint had not been to the house with news of him. +“I have had chickens and eggs for you, and no way of sending them.” + +At mention of his son’s name, the old man’s face clouded with +displeasure and his hand trembled so that he was at some pains to +place the feather which he was at the moment adding to the widening +fan. + +“Joçint is a bad son, madame, when even you have been able to do +nothing with him. The trouble that boy has given me no one knows; but +let him not think I am too old to give him a sound drubbing.” + +Joçint meanwhile had returned from the mill and seeing Thérèse’s horse +fastened before his door, was at first inclined to skulk back into the +woods; but an impulse of defiance moved him to enter, and gave to his +ugly countenance a look that was far from agreeable as he mumbled a +greeting to Thérèse. His father he did not address. The old man looked +from son to visitor with feeble expectancy of some good to come from +her presence there. + +Joçint’s straight and coarse black hair hung in a heavy mop over his +low retreating forehead, almost meeting the ill-defined line of +eyebrow that straggled above small dusky black eyes, that with the +rest of his physique was an inheritance from his Indian mother. + +Approaching the safe or _garde manger_, which was the most prominent +piece of furniture in the room, he cut a wedge from the round loaf of +heavy soggy corn bread that he found there, added a layer of fat pork, +and proceeded to devour the unpalatable morsel with hungry relish. + +“That is but poor fare for your old father, Joçint,” said Thérèse, +looking steadily at the youth. + +“Well, I got no chance me, fu’ go fine nuttin in de ’ood” (woods), he +answered purposely in English, to annoy his father who did not +understand the language. + +“But you are earning enough to buy him something better; and you know +there is always plenty at the house that I am willing to spare him.” + +“I got no chance me fu’ go to de ’ouse neider,” he replied +deliberately, after washing down the scant repast with a long draught +from the tin bucket which he had replenished at the cistern before +entering. He swallowed the water regardless of the “wiggles” whose +presence was plainly visible. + +“What does he say?” asked Morico scanning Thérèse’s face appealingly. + +“He only says that work at the mill keeps him a good deal occupied,” +she said with attempted carelessness. + +As she finished speaking, Joçint put on his battered felt hat, and +strode out the back door; his gun on his shoulder and a yellow cur +following close at his heels. + +Thérèse remained a while longer with the old man, hearing +sympathetically the long drawn story of his troubles, and cheering him +as no one else in the world was able to do, then she went away. + +Joçint was not the only one who had seen Beauregard fastened at +Morico’s door. Hosmer was making a tour of inspection that afternoon +through the woods, and when he came suddenly upon Thérèse some moments +after she had quitted the cabin, the meeting was not so wholly +accidental as that lady fancied it was. + +If there could be a situation in which Hosmer felt more than in +another at ease in Thérèse’s company, it was the one in which he found +himself. There was no need to seek occupation for his hands, those +members being sufficiently engaged with the management of his horse. +His eyes found legitimate direction in following the various details +which a rider is presumed to observe; and his manner freed from the +necessity of self direction took upon itself an ease which was +occasional enough to mark it as noteworthy. + +She told him of her visit. At mention of Joçint’s name he reddened: +then followed the acknowledgment that the youth in question had caused +him to lose his temper and forget his dignity during the afternoon. + +“In what way?” asked Thérèse. “It would be better to dismiss him than +to rail at him. He takes reproof badly and is extremely treacherous.” + +“Mill hands are not plentiful, or I should send him off at once. Oh, +he is an unbearable fellow. The men told me of a habit he has of +letting the logs roll off the carriage, causing a good deal of +annoyance and delay in replacing them. I was willing enough to believe +it might be accidental, until I caught him today in the very act. I am +thankful not to have knocked him down.” + +Hosmer felt exhilarated. The excitement of his encounter with Joçint +had not yet died away; this softly delicious atmosphere; the subtle +aroma of the pines; his unlooked for meeting with Thérèse--all +combined to stir him with unusual emotions. + +“What a splendid creature Beauregard is,” he said, smoothing the +animal’s glossy mane with the end of his riding whip. The horses were +walking slowly in step, and close together. + +“Of course he is,” said Thérèse proudly, patting the arched neck of +her favorite. “Beauregard is a blooded animal, remember. He quite +throws poor Nelson in the shade,” looking pityingly at Hosmer’s +heavily built iron-grey. + +“Don’t cast any slurs on Nelson, Mrs. Lafirme. He’s done me service +that’s worthy of praise--worthy of better treatment than he gets.” + +“I know. He deserves the best, poor fellow. When you go away you +should turn him out to pasture, and forbid any one to use him.” + +“It would be a good idea; but--I’m not so certain about going away.” + +“Oh I beg your pardon. I fancied your movements were directed by some +unchangeable laws.” + +“Like the planets in their orbits? No, there is no absolute need of my +going; the business which would have called me away can be done as +readily by letter. If I heed my inclination it certainly holds me +here.” + +“I don’t understand that. It’s natural enough that I should be fond of +the country; but you--I don’t believe you’ve been away for three +months, have you? and city life certainly has its attractions.” + +“It’s beastly,” he answered decidedly. “I greatly prefer the +country--this country; though I can imagine a condition under which it +would be less agreeable; insupportable, in fact.” + +He was looking fixedly at Thérèse, who let her eyes rest for an +instant in the unaccustomed light of his, while she asked “and the +condition?” + +“If you were to go away. Oh! it would take the soul out of my life.” + +It was now her turn to look in all directions save the one in which +his glance invited her. At a slight and imperceptible motion of the +bridle, well understood by Beauregard, the horse sprang forward into a +quick canter, leaving Nelson and his rider to follow as they could. + +Hosmer overtook her when she stopped to let her horse drink at the +side of the hill where the sparkling spring water came trickling from +the moist rocks, and emptied into the long out-scooped trunk of a +cypress, that served as trough. The two horses plunged their heads +deep in the clear water; the proud Beauregard quivering with +satisfaction, as arching his neck and shaking off the clinging +moisture, he waited for his more deliberate companion. + +“Doesn’t it give one a sympathetic pleasure,” said Thérèse, “to see +the relish with which they drink?” + +“I never thought of it,” replied Hosmer, cynically. His face was +unusually flushed, and diffidence was plainly seizing him again. + +Thérèse was now completely mistress of herself, and during the +remainder of the ride she talked incessantly, giving him no chance for +more than the briefest answers. + + + + +VI + +Melicent Talks. + + +“David Hosmer, you are the most supremely unsatisfactory man +existing.” + +Hosmer had come in from his ride, and seating himself in the large +wicker chair that stood in the center of the room, became at once +absorbed in reflections. Being addressed, he looked up at his sister, +who sat sidewards on the edge of a table slightly removed, swaying a +dainty slippered foot to and fro in evident impatience. + +“What crime have I committed now, Melicent, against your code?” he +asked, not fully aroused from his reverie. + +“You’ve committed nothing; your sin is one of omission. I absolutely +believe you go through the world with your eyes, to all practical +purposes, closed. Don’t you notice anything; any change?” + +“To be sure I do,” said Hosmer, relying on a knowledge lent him by +previous similar experiences, and taking in the clinging artistic +drapery that enfolded her tall spare figure, “you’ve a new gown on. I +didn’t think to mention it, but I noticed it all the same.” + +This admission of a discernment that he had failed to make evident, +aroused Melicent’s uncontrolled mirth. + +“A new gown!” and she laughed heartily. “A threadbare remnant! A thing +that holds by shreds and tatters.” + +She went behind her brother’s chair, taking his face between her +hands, and turning it upward, kissed him on the forehead. With his +head in such position, he could not fail to observe the brilliant +folds of muslin that were arranged across the ceiling to simulate the +canopy of a tent. Still holding his face, she moved it sidewards, so +that his eyes, knowing now what office was expected of them, followed +the line of decorations about the room. + +“It’s immense, Mel; perfectly immense. When did you do it all?” + +“This afternoon, with Grégoire’s help,” she answered, looking proudly +at her work. “And my poor hands are in such condition! But really, +Dave,” she continued, seating herself on the side of his chair, with +an arm about his neck, and he leaning his head back on the improvised +cushion, “I wonder that you ever got on in business, observing things +as little as you do.” + +“Oh, that’s different.” + +“Well, I don’t believe you see half that you ought to,” adding +naively, “How did you and Mrs. Lafirme happen to come home together +this evening?” + +The bright lamp-light made the flush quite evident that arose to his +face under her near gaze. + +“We met in the woods; she was coming from Morico’s.” + +“David, do you know that woman is an angel. She’s simply the most +perfect creature I ever knew.” + +Melicent’s emphasis of speech was a thing so recurrent, so singularly +her own, as to startle an unaccustomed hearer. + +“That opinion might carry some weight, Mel, if I hadn’t heard it +scores of times from you, and of as many different women.” + +“Indeed you have not. Mrs. Lafirme is exceptional. Really, when she +stands at the end of the veranda, giving orders to those darkies, her +face a little flushed, she’s positively a queen.” + +“As far as queenliness may be compatible with the angelic state,” +replied Hosmer, but not ill pleased with Melicent’s exaggerated praise +of Thérèse. + +Neither had heard a noiseless step approaching, and they only became +aware of an added human presence, when Mandy’s small voice was heard +to issue from Mandy’s small body which stood in the mingled light and +shadow of the door-way. + +“Aunt B’lindy ’low supper on de table gittin’ cole.” + +“Come here, Mandy,” cried Melicent, springing after the child. But +Mandy was flying back through the darkness. She was afraid of +Melicent. + +Laughing heartily, the girl disappeared into her bedroom, to make some +needed additions to her toilet; and Hosmer, waiting for her, returned +to his interrupted reflections. The words which he had spoken during a +moment of emotion to Thérèse, out in the piny woods, had served a +double purpose with him. They had shown him more plainly than he had +quite been certain of, the depth of his feeling for her; and also had +they settled his determination. He was not versed in the reading of a +woman’s nature, and he found himself at a loss to interpret Thérèse’s +actions. He recalled how she had looked away from him when he had +spoken the few tender words that were yet whirling in his memory; how +she had impetuously ridden ahead,--leaving him to follow alone; and +her incessant speech that had forced him into silence. All of which +might or might not be symptoms in his favor. He remembered her kind +solicitude for his comfort and happiness during the past year; but he +as readily recalled that he had not been the only recipient of such +favors. His reflections led to no certainty, except that he loved her +and meant to tell her so. + +Thérèse’s door being closed, and moreover locked, Aunt Belindy, the +stout negress who had superintended the laying of supper, felt free to +give low speech to her wrath as she went back and forth between +dining-room and kitchen. + +“Suppa gittin’ dat cole ’tain’ gwine be fittin’ fu’ de dogs te’ tech. +Believe half de time w’ite folks ain’t got no feelin’s, no how. If dey +speck I’se gwine stan’ up heah on my two feet all night, dey’s foolin’ +dey sef. I ain’t gwine do it. Git out dat doo’ you Mandy! you want me +dash dis heah coffee pot at you--blockin’ up de doo’s dat away? W’ar +dat good fu’ nuttin Betsy? Look yonda, how she done flung dem dere +knife an forks on de table. Jis let Miss T’rèse kotch’er. Good God +A’mighty, Miss T’rèse mus’ done gone asleep. G’long dar an’ see.” + +There was no one on the plantation who would have felt at liberty to +enter Thérèse’s bedroom without permission, the door being closed; yet +she had taken the needless precaution of bringing lock and bolt to the +double security of her moment of solitude. The first announcement of +supper had found her still in her riding habit, with head thrown back +upon the cushion of her lounging chair, and her mind steeped in a +semi-stupor that it would be injustice to her brighter moments to call +reflection. + +Thérèse was a warm-hearted woman, and a woman of clear mental vision; +a combination not found so often together as to make it ordinary. +Being a woman of warm heart, she had loved her husband with the +devotion which good husbands deserve; but being a clear-headed woman, +she was not disposed to rebel against the changes which Time brings, +when so disposed, to the human sensibilities. She was not steeped in +that agony of remorse which many might consider becoming in a widow of +five years’ standing at the discovery that her heart which had fitted +well the holding of a treasure, was not narrowed to the holding of a +memory,--the treasure being gone. + +Mandy’s feeble knock at the door was answered by her mistress in +person who had now banished all traces of her ride and its resultant +cogitations. + +The two women, with Hosmer and Grégoire, sat out on the veranda after +supper as their custom was during these warm summer evenings. There +was no attempt at sustained conversation; they talked by snatches to +and at one another, of the day’s small events; Melicent and Grégoire +having by far the most to say. The girl was half reclining in the +hammock which she kept in a slow, unceasing motion by the impetus of +her slender foot; he sitting some distance removed on the steps. +Hosmer was noticeably silent; even Joçint as a theme failing to rouse +him to more than a few words of dismissal. His will and tenacity were +controlling him to one bent. He had made up his mind that he had +something to say to Mrs. Lafirme, and he was impatient at any enforced +delay in the telling. + +Grégoire slept now in the office of the mill, as a measure of +precaution. To-night, Hosmer had received certain late telegrams that +necessitated a return to the mill, and his iron-grey was standing +outside in the lane with Grégoire’s horse, awaiting the pleasure of +his rider. When Grégoire quitted the group to go and throw the saddles +across the patient animals, Melicent, who contemplated an additional +hour’s chat with Thérèse, crossed over to the cottage to procure a +light wrap for her sensitive shoulders against the chill night air. +Hosmer, who had started to the assistance of Grégoire, seeing that +Thérèse had remained alone, standing at the top of the stairs, +approached her. Remaining a few steps below her, and looking up into +her face, he held out his hand to say good-night, which was an unusual +proceeding, for they had not shaken hands since his return to +Place-du-Bois three months before. She gave him her soft hand to hold +and as the warm, moist palm met his, it acted like a charged electric +battery turning its subtle force upon his sensitive nerves. + +“Will you let me talk to you to-morrow?” he asked. + +“Yes, perhaps; if I have time.” + +“Oh, you will make the time. I can’t let the day go by without telling +you many things that you ought to have known long ago.” The battery +was still doing its work. “And I can’t let the night go by without +telling you that I love you.” + +Grégoire called out that the horses were ready. Melicent was +approaching in her diaphanous envelope, and Hosmer reluctantly let +drop Thérèse’s hand and left her. + +As the men rode away, the two women stood silently following their +diminishing outlines into the darkness and listening to the creaking +of the saddles and the dull regular thud of the horses’ feet upon the +soft earth, until the sounds grew inaudible, when they turned to the +inner shelter of the veranda. Melicent once more possessed herself of +the hammock in which she now reclined fully, and Thérèse sat near +enough beside her to intertwine her fingers between the tense cords. + +“What a great difference in age there must be between you and your +brother,” she said, breaking the silence. + +“Yes--though he is younger and I older than you perhaps think. He was +fifteen and the only child when I was born. I am twenty-four, so he of +course is thirty-nine.” + +“I certainly thought him older.” + +“Just imagine, Mrs. Lafirme, I was only ten when both my parents died. +We had no kindred living in the West, and I positively rebelled +against being separated from David; so you see he’s had the care of me +for a good many years.” + +“He appears very fond of you.” + +“Oh, not only that, but you’ve no idea how splendidly he’s done for me +in every way. Looked after my interest and all that, so that I’m +perfectly independent. Poor Dave,” she continued, heaving a profound +sigh, “he’s had more than his share of trouble, if ever a man had. I +wonder when his day of compensation will come.” + +“Don’t you think,” ventured Thérèse, “that we make too much of our +individual trials. We are all so prone to believe our own burden +heavier than our neighbor’s.” + +“Perhaps--but there can be no question about the weight of David’s. +I’m not a bit selfish about him though; poor fellow, I only wish he’d +marry again.” + +Melicent’s last words stung Thérèse like an insult. Her native pride +rebelled against the reticence of this man who had shared her +confidence while keeping her in ignorance of so important a feature of +his own life. But her dignity would not permit a show of disturbance; +she only asked:-- + +“How long has his wife been dead?” + +“Oh,” cried Melicent, in dismay. “I thought you knew of course; +why--she isn’t dead at all--they were divorced two years ago.” + +The girl felt intuitively that she had yielded to an indiscretion of +speech. She could not know David’s will in the matter, but since he +had all along left Mrs. Lafirme in ignorance of his domestic trials, +she concluded it was not for her to enlighten that lady further. Her +next remark was to call Thérèse’s attention to the unusual number of +glow-worms that were flashing through the darkness, and to ask the +sign of it, adding “every thing seems to be the sign of something down +here.” + +“Aunt Belindy might tell you,” replied Thérèse, “I only know that I +feel the signs of being very sleepy after that ride through the woods +to-day. Don’t mind if I say good night?” + +“Certainly not. Good night, dear Mrs. Lafirme. Let me stay here till +David comes back; I should die of fright, to go to the cottage alone.” + + + + +VII + +Painful Disclosures. + + +Thérèse possessed an independence of thought exceptional enough when +considered in relation to her life and its surrounding conditions. But +as a woman who lived in close contact with her fellow-beings she was +little given to the consideration of abstract ideas, except in so far +as they touched the individual man. If ever asked to give her opinion +of divorce, she might have replied that the question being one which +did not immediately concern her, its remoteness had removed it from +the range of her inquiry. She felt vaguely that in many cases it might +be a blessing; conceding that it must not infrequently be a necessity, +to be appealed to however only in an extremity beyond which endurance +could scarcely hold. With the prejudices of her Catholic education +coloring her sentiment, she instinctively shrank when the theme +confronted her as one having even a remote reference to her own clean +existence. There was no question with her of dwelling upon the matter; +it was simply a thing to be summarily dismissed and as far as possible +effaced from her remembrance. + +Thérèse had not reached the age of thirty-five without learning that +life presents many insurmountable obstacles which must be accepted, +whether with the callousness of philosophy, the revolt of weakness or +the dignity of self-respect. The following morning, the only sign +which she gave of her mental disturbance, was an appearance that might +have succeeded a night of unrefreshing sleep. + +Hosmer had decided that his interview with Mrs. Lafirme should not be +left further to the caprice of accident. An hour or more before noon +he rode up from the mill knowing it to be a time when he would likely +find her alone. Not seeing her he proceeded to make inquiry of the +servants; first appealing to Betsy. + +“I don’ know whar Miss T’rèse,” with a rising inflection on the +“whar.” “I yain’t seed her sence mornin’, time she sont Unc’ Hi’um +yonda to old Morico wid de light bread an’ truck,” replied the verbose +Betsy. “Aunt B’lindy, you know whar Miss T’rèse?” + +“How you want me know? standin’ up everlastin’ in de kitchen a bakin’ +light-bread fu’ lazy trash det betta be in de fiel’ wurkin’ a crap +like people, stid o’ ’pendin’ on yeda folks.” + +Mandy, who had been a silent listener, divining that she had perhaps +better make known certain information that was exclusively her own +piped out:-- + +“Miss T’rèse shet up in de parla; ’low she want we all lef ’er +’lone.” + +Having as it were forced an entrance into the stronghold where Thérèse +had supposed herself secure from intrusion, Hosmer at once seated +himself beside her. + +This was a room kept for the most part closed during the summer days +when the family lived chiefly on the verandas or in the wide open hall +There lingered about it the foreign scent of cool clean matting, +mingled with a faint odor of rose which came from a curious Japanese +jar that stood on the ample hearth. Through the green half-closed +shutters the air came in gentle ripples, sweeping the filmy curtains +back and forth in irregular undulations. A few tasteful pictures hung +upon the walls, alternating with family portraits, for the most part +stiff and unhandsome, except in the case of such as were of so remote +date that age gave them a claim upon the interest and admiration of a +far removed generation. + +It was not entirely clear to the darkies whether this room were not a +sort of holy sanctuary, where one should scarce be permitted to +breathe, except under compulsion of a driving necessity. + +“Mrs. Lafirme,” began Hosmer, “Melicent tells me that she made you +acquainted last night with the matter which I wished to talk to you +about to-day.” + +“Yes,” Thérèse replied, closing the book which she had made a pretense +of reading, and laying it down upon the window-sill near which she +sat; adding very simply, “Why did you not tell me long ago, Mr. +Hosmer?” + +“God knows,” he replied; the sharp conviction breaking upon him, that +this disclosure had some how changed the aspect of life for him. +“Natural reluctance to speak of a thing so painful--native +reticence--I don’t know what. I hope you forgive me; that you will let +it make no difference in whatever regard you may have for me.” + +“I had better tell you at once that there must be no repetition of--of +what you told me last night.” + +Hosmer had feared it. He made no protest in words; his revolt was +inward and showed itself only in an added pallor and increased +rigidity of face lines. He arose and went to a near window, peering +for a while aimlessly out between the partly open slats. + +“I hadn’t thought of your being a Catholic,” he said, finally turning +towards her with folded arms. + +“Because you have never seen any outward signs of it. But I can’t +leave you under a false impression: religion doesn’t influence my +reason in this.” + +“Do you think then that a man who has had such misfortune, should be +debarred the happiness which a second marriage could give him?” + +“No, nor a woman either, if it suit her moral principle, which I hold +to be something peculiarly one’s own.” + +“That seems to me to be a prejudice,” he replied. “Prejudices may be +set aside by an effort of the will,” catching at a glimmer of hope. + +“There are some prejudices which a woman can’t afford to part with, +Mr. Hosmer,” she said a little haughtily, “even at the price of +happiness. Please say no more about it, think no more of it.” + +He seated himself again, facing her; and looking at him all her +sympathetic nature was moved at sight of his evident trouble. + +“Tell me about it. I would like to know every thing in your life,” she +said, feelingly. + +“It’s very good of you,” he said, holding a hand for a moment over his +closed eyes. Then looking up abruptly, “It was a painful enough +experience, but I never dreamed that it could have had this last blow +in reserve for me.” + +“When did you marry?” she asked, wishing to start him with the story +which she fancied he would feel better for the telling. + +“Ten years ago. I am a poor hand to analyze character: my own or +another’s. My reasons for doing certain things have never been quite +clear to me; or I have never schooled myself to inquiry into my own +motives for action. I have been always thoroughly the business man. I +don’t make a boast of it, but I have no reason to be ashamed of the +admission. Socially, I have mingled little with my fellow-beings, +especially with women, whose society has had little attraction for me; +perhaps, because I have never been thrown much into it, and I was +nearly thirty when I first met my wife.” + +“Was it in St. Louis?” Thérèse asked. + +“Yes. I had been inveigled into going on a river excursion,” he said, +plunging into the story, “Heaven knows how. Perhaps I was feeling +unwell--I really can’t remember. But at all events I met a friend who +introduced me early in the day to a young girl--Fanny Larimore. She +was a pretty little thing, not more than twenty, all pink and white +and merry blue eyes and stylish clothes. Whatever it was, there was +something about her that kept me at her side all day. Every word and +movement of hers had an exaggerated importance for me. I fancied such +things had never been said or done quite in the same way before.” + +“You were in love,” sighed Thérèse. Why the sigh she could not have +told. + +“I presume so. Well, after that, I found myself thinking of her at the +most inopportune moments. I went to see her again and again--my first +impression deepened, and in two weeks I had asked her to marry me. I +can safely say, we knew nothing of each other’s character. After +marriage, matters went well enough for a while.” Hosmer here arose, +and walked the length of the room. + +“Mrs. Lafirme,” he said, “can’t you understand that it must be a +painful thing for a man to disparage one woman to another: the woman +who has been his wife to the woman he loves? Spare me the rest.” + +“Please have no reservations with me; I shall not misjudge you in any +case,” an inexplicable something was moving her to know what remained +to be told. + +“It wasn’t long before she attempted to draw me into what she called +society,” Hosmer continued. “I am little versed in defining shades of +distinction between classes, but I had seen from the beginning that +Fanny’s associates were not of the best social rank by any means. I +had vaguely expected her to turn from them, I suppose, when she +married. Naturally, I resisted anything so distasteful as being +dragged through rounds of amusement that had no sort of attraction +whatever for me. Besides, my business connections were extending, and +they claimed the greater part of my time and thoughts. + +“A year after our marriage our boy was born.” Here Hosmer ceased +speaking for a while, seemingly under pressure of a crowding of +painful memories. + +“The child whose picture you have at the office?” asked Thérèse. + +“Yes,” and he resumed with plain effort: “It seemed for a while that +the baby would give its mother what distraction she sought so +persistently away from home; but its influence did not last and she +soon grew as restless as before. Finally there was nothing that united +us except the child. I can’t really say that we were united through +him, but our love for the boy was the one feeling that we had in +common. When he was three years old, he died. Melicent had come to +live with us after leaving school. She was a high-spirited girl full +of conceits as she is now, and in her exaggerated way became filled +with horror of what she called the mésalliance I had made. After a +month she went away to live with friends. I didn’t oppose her. I saw +little of my wife, being often away from home; but as feebly observant +as I was, I had now and again marked a peculiarity of manner about her +that vaguely troubled me. She seemed to avoid me and we grew more and +more divided. + +“One day I returned home rather early. Melicent was with me. We found +Fanny in the dining-room lying on the sofa. As we entered, she looked +at us wildly and in striving to get up grasped aimlessly at the back +of a chair. I felt on a sudden as if there were some awful calamity +threatening my existence. I suppose, I looked helplessly at Melicent, +managing to ask her what was the matter with my wife. Melicent’s black +eyes were flashing indignation. ‘Can’t you see she’s been drinking. +God help you,’ she said. Mrs. Lafirme, you know now the reason which +drove me away from home and kept me away. I never permitted my wife to +want for the comforts of life during my absence; but she sued for +divorce some years ago and it was granted, with alimony which I +doubled. You know the miserable story now. Pardon me for dragging it +to such a length. I don’t see why I should have told it after all.” + +Thérèse had remained perfectly silent; rigid at times, listening to +Hosmer often with closed eyes. + +He waited for her to speak, but she said nothing for a while till +finally: “Your--your wife is still quite young--do her parents live +with her?” + +“Oh no, she has none. I suppose she lives alone.” + +“And those habits; you don’t know if she continues them?” + +“I dare say she does. I know nothing of her, except that she receipts +for the amount paid her each month.” + +The look of painful thought deepened on Thérèse’s face but her +questions having been answered, she again became silent. + +Hosmer’s eyes were imploring her for a look, but she would not answer +them. + +“Haven’t you a word to say to me?” he entreated. + +“No, I have nothing to say, except what would give you pain.” + +“I can bear anything from you,” he replied, at a loss to guess her +meaning. + +“The kindest thing I can say, Mr. Hosmer, is, that I hope you have +acted blindly. I hate to believe that the man I care for, would +deliberately act the part of a cruel egotist.” + +“I don’t understand you.” + +“I have learned one thing through your story, which appears very plain +to me,” she replied. “You married a woman of weak character. You +furnished her with every means to increase that weakness, and shut her +out absolutely from your life and yourself from hers. You left her +then as practically without moral support as you have certainly done +now, in deserting her. It was the act of a coward.” Thérèse spoke the +last words with intensity. + +“Do you think that a man owes nothing to himself?” Hosmer asked, in +resistance to her accusation. + +“Yes. A man owes to his manhood, to face the consequences of his own +actions.” + +Hosmer had remained seated. He did not even with glance follow Thérèse +who had arisen and was moving restlessly about the room. He had so +long seen himself as a martyr; his mind had become so habituated to +the picture, that he could not of a sudden look at a different one, +believing that it could be the true one. Nor was he eager to accept a +view of the situation that would place him in his own eyes in a +contemptible light. He tried to think that Thérèse must be wrong; but +even admitting a doubt of her being right, her words carried an +element of truth that he was not able to shut out from his conscience. +He felt her to be a woman with moral perceptions keener than his own +and his love, which in the past twenty-four hours had grown to +overwhelm him, moved him now to a blind submission. + +“What would you have me do, Mrs. Lafirme?” + +“I would have you do what is right,” she said eagerly, approaching +him. + +“O, don’t present me any questions of right and wrong; can’t you see +that I’m blind?” he said, self accusingly. “What ever I do, must be +because you want it; because I love you.” + +She was standing beside him and he took her hand. + +“To do a thing out of love for you, would be the only comfort and +strength left me.” + +“Don’t say that,” she entreated. “Love isn’t everything in life; there +is something higher.” + +“God in heaven, there shouldn’t be!” he exclaimed, passionately +pressing her hand to his forehead, his cheek, his lips. + +“Oh, don’t make it harder for me,” Thérèse said softly, attempting to +withdraw her hand. + +It was her first sign of weakness, and he seized on it for his +advantage. He arose quickly--unhesitatingly--and took her in his arms. + +For a moment that was very brief, there was danger that the task of +renunciation would not only be made harder, but impossible, for both; +for it was in utter blindness to everything but love for each other, +that their lips met. + +The great plantation bell was clanging out the hour of noon; the hour +for sweet and restful enjoyment; but to Hosmer, the sound was like the +voice of a derisive demon, mocking his anguish of spirit, as he +mounted his horse, and rode back to the mill. + + + + +VIII + +Treats of Melicent. + + +Melicent knew that there were exchanges of confidence going on between +her brother and Mrs. Lafirme, from which she was excluded. She had +noted certain lengthy conferences held in remote corners of the +verandas. The two had deliberately withdrawn one moonlight evening to +pace to and fro the length of gravel walk that stretched from door +front to lane; and Melicent had fancied that they rather lingered when +under the deep shadow of the two great live-oaks that overarched the +gate. But that of course was fancy; a young girl’s weakness to think +the world must go as she would want it to. + +She was quite sure of having heard Mrs. Lafirme say “I will help you.” +Could it be that David had fallen into financial straights and wanted +assistance from Thérèse? No, that was improbable and furthermore, +distasteful, so Melicent would not burden herself with the suspicion. +It was far more agreeable to believe that affairs were shaping +themselves according to her wishes regarding her brother and her +friend. Yet her mystification was in no wise made clearer, when David +left them to go to St. Louis. + +Melicent was not ready or willing to leave with him. She had not had +her “visit out” as she informed him, when he proposed it to her. To +remain in the cottage during his absence was out of the question, so +she removed herself and all her pretty belongings over to the house, +taking possession of one of the many spare rooms. The act of removal +furnished her much entertainment of a mild sort, into which, however, +she successfully infused something of her own intensity by making the +occasion one to bring a large detachment of the plantation force into +her capricious service. + +Melicent was going out, and she stood before her mirror to make sure +that she looked properly. She was black from head to foot. From the +great ostrich plume that nodded over her wide-brimmed hat, to the +pointed toe of the patent leather boot that peeped from under her +gown--a filmy gauzy thing setting loosely to her slender shapely +figure. She laughed at the somberness of her reflection, which she at +once set about relieving with a great bunch of geraniums--big and +scarlet and long-stemmed, that she thrust slantwise through her belt. + +Melicent, always charming, was very pretty when she laughed. She +thought so herself and laughed a second time into the depths of her +dark handsome eyes. One corner of the large mouth turned saucily +upward, and the lips holding their own crimson and all that the cheeks +were lacking, parted only a little over the gleaming whiteness of her +teeth. As she looked at herself critically, she thought that a few +more pounds of flesh would have well become her. It had been only the +other day that her slimness was altogether to her liking; but at +present she was in love with plumpness as typified in Mrs. Lafirme. +However, on the whole, she was not ill pleased with her appearance, +and gathering up her gloves and parasol, she quitted the room. + +It was “broad day,” one of the requirements which Grégoire had named +as essential for taking Melicent to visit old McFarlane’s grave. But +the sun was not “shining mighty bright,” the second condition, and +whose absence they were willing enough to overlook, seeing that the +month was September. + +They had climbed quite to the top of the hill, and stood on the very +brink of the deep toilsome railroad cut all fringed with matted grass +and young pines, that had but lately sprung there. Up and down the +track, as far as they could see on either side the steel rails +glittered on into gradual dimness. There were patches of the field +before them, white with bursting cotton which scores of negroes, men, +women and children were dexterously picking and thrusting into great +bags that hung from their shoulders and dragged beside them on the +ground; no machine having yet been found to surpass the sufficiency of +five human fingers for wrenching the cotton from its tenacious hold. +Elsewhere, there were squads “pulling fodder” from the dry corn +stalks; hot and distasteful work enough. In the nearest field, where +the cotton was young and green, with no show of ripening, the overseer +rode slowly between the rows, sprinkling plentifully the dry powder of +paris green from two muslin bags attached to the ends of a short pole +that lay before him across the saddle. + +Grégoire’s presence would be needed later in the day, when the cotton +was hauled to gin to be weighed; when the mules were brought to +stable, to see them properly fed and cared for, and the gearing all +put in place. In the meanwhile he was deliciously idle with Melicent. + +They retreated into the woods, soon losing sight of everything but the +trees that surrounded them and the underbrush, that was scant and +scattered over the turf which the height of the trees permitted to +grow green and luxuriant. + +There, on the far slope of the hill they found McFarlane’s grave, +which they knew to be such only by the battered and weather-worn cross +of wood, that lurched disreputably to one side--there being no hand in +all the world that cared enough to make it straight--and from which +all lettering had long since been washed away. This cross was all that +marked the abiding place of that mist-like form, so often seen at dark +to stalk down the hill with threatening stride, or of moonlight nights +to cross the lake in a pirogue, whose substance though visible was +nought; with sound of dipping oars that made no ripple on the lake’s +smooth surface. On stormy nights, some more gifted with spiritual +insight than their neighbors, and with hearing better sharpened to +delicate intonations of the supernatural, had not only seen the mist +figure mounted and flying across the hills, but had heard the panting +of the blood-hounds, as the invisible pack swept by in hot pursuit of +the slave so long ago at rest. + +But it was “broad day,” and here was nothing sinister to cause +Melicent the least little thrill of awe. No owl, no bat, no ill-omened +creature hovering near; only a mocking bird high up in the branches of +a tall pine tree, gushing forth his shrill staccatoes as blithely as +though he sang paeans to a translated soul in paradise. + +“Poor old McFarlane,” said Melicent, “I’ll pay a little tribute to his +memory; I dare say his spirit has listened to nothing but abuse of +himself there in the other world, since it left his body here on the +hill;” and she took one of the long-stemmed blood-red flowers and laid +it beside the toppling cross. + +“I reckon he’s in a place w’ere flowers don’t git much waterin’, if +they got any there.” + +“Shame to talk so cruelly; I don’t believe in such places.” + +“You don’t believe in hell?” he asked in blank surprise. + +“Certainly not. I’m a Unitarian.” + +“Well, that’s new to me,” was his only comment. + +“Do you believe in spirits, Grégoire? I don’t--in day time.” + +“Neva mine ’bout spirits,” he answered, taking her arm and leading her +off, “let’s git away f’om yere.” + +They soon found a smooth and gentle slope where Melicent sat herself +comfortably down, her back against the broad support of a tree trunk, +and Grégoire lay prone upon the ground with--his head in Melicent’s +lap. + +When Melicent first met Grégoire, his peculiarities of speech, so +unfamiliar to her, seemed to remove him at once from the possibility +of her consideration. She was not then awake to certain fine +psychological differences distinguishing man from man; precluding the +possibility of naming and classifying him in the moral as one might in +the animal kingdom. But short-comings of language, which finally +seemed not to detract from a definite inheritance of good breeding, +touched his personality as a physical deformation might, adding to it +certainly no charm, yet from its pathological aspect not without a +species of fascination, for a certain order of misregulated mind. + +She bore with him, and then she liked him. Finally, whilst indulging +in a little introspection; making a diagnosis of various symptoms, +indicative by no means of a deep-seated malady, she decided that she +was in love with Grégoire. But the admission embraced the +understanding with herself, that nothing could come of it. She +accepted it as a phase of that relentless fate which in pessimistic +moments she was inclined to believe pursued her. + +It could not be thought of, that she should marry a man whose +eccentricity of speech would certainly not adapt itself to the +requirements of polite society. + +He had kissed her one day. Whatever there was about the kiss--possibly +an over exuberance--it was not to her liking, and she forbade that he +ever repeat it, under pain of losing her affection. Indeed, on the few +occasions when Melicent had been engaged, kissing had been excluded as +superfluous to the relationship, except in the case of the young +lieutenant out at Fort Leavenworth who read Tennyson to her, as an +angel might be supposed to read, and who in moments of rapturous +self-forgetfulness, was permitted to kiss her under the ear: a +proceeding not positively distasteful to Melicent, except in so much +as it tickled her. + +Grégoire’s hair was soft, not so dark as her own, and possessed an +inclination to curl about her slender fingers. + +“Grégoire,” she said, “you told me once that the Santien boys were a +hard lot; what did you mean by that?” + +“Oh no,” he answered, laughing good-humoredly up into her eyes, “you +did’n year me right. W’at I said was that we had a hard name in the +country. I don’ see w’y eitha, excep’ we all’ays done putty much like +we wanted. But my! a man can live like a saint yere at Place-du-Bois, +they ain’t no temptations o’ no kine.” + +“There’s little merit in your right doing, if you have no temptations +to withstand,” delivering the time worn aphorism with the air and tone +of a pretty sage, giving utterance to an inspired truth. + +Melicent felt that she did not fully know Grégoire; that he had always +been more or less under restraint with her, and she was troubled by +something other than curiosity to get at the truth concerning him. One +day when she was arranging a vase of flowers at a table on the back +porch, Aunt Belindy, who was scouring knives at the same table, had +followed Grégoire with her glance, when he walked away after +exchanging a few words with Melicent. + +“God! but dats a diffunt man sence you come heah.” + +“Different?” questioned the girl eagerly, and casting a quick sideward +look at Aunt Belindy. + +“Lord yas honey, ’f you warn’t heah dat same Mista Grégor ’d be in +Centaville ev’y Sunday, a raisin’ Cain. Humph--I knows ’im.” + +Melicent would not permit herself to ask more, but picked up her vase +of flowers and walked with it into the house; her comprehension of +Grégoire in no wise advanced by the newly acquired knowledge that he +was liable to “raise Cain” during her absence--a proceeding which she +could not too hastily condemn, considering her imperfect apprehension +of what it might imply. + +Meanwhile she would not allow her doubts to interfere with the +kindness which she lavished on him, seeing that he loved her to +desperation. Was he not at this very moment looking up into her eyes, +and talking of his misery and her cruelty? turning his face downward +in her lap--as she knew to cry--for had she not already seen him lie +on the ground in an agony of tears, when she had told him he should +never kiss her again? + +And so they lingered in the woods, these two curious lovers, till the +shadows grew so deep about old McFarlane’s grave that they passed it +by with hurried step and averted glance. + + + + +IX + +Face to Face. + + +After a day of close and intense September heat, it had rained during +the night. And now the morning had followed chill and crisp, yet with +possibilities of a genial sunshine breaking through the mist that had +risen at dawn from the great sluggish river and spread itself through +the mazes of the city. + +The change was one to send invigorating thrills through the blood, and +to quicken the step; to make one like the push and jostle of the +multitude that thronged the streets; to make one in love with +intoxicating life, and impatient with the grudging dispensation that +had given to mankind no wings wherewith to fly. + +But with no reacting warmth in his heart, the change had only made +Hosmer shiver and draw his coat closer about his chest, as he pushed +his way through the hurrying crowd. + +The St. Louis Exposition was in progress with all its many allurements +that had been heralded for months through the journals of the State. + +Hence, the unusual press of people on the streets this bright +September morning. Home people, whose air of ownership to the +surroundings classified them at once, moving unobservantly about their +affairs. Women and children from the near and rich country towns, in +for the Exposition and their fall shopping; wearing gowns of ultra +fashionable tendencies; leaving in their toilets nothing to +expediency; taking no chances of so much as a ribbon or a loop set in +disaccordance with the book. + +There were whole families from across the bridge, hurrying towards the +Exposition. Fathers and mothers, babies and grandmothers, with baskets +of lunch and bundles of provisional necessities, in for the day. + +Nothing would escape their observation nor elude their criticism, from +the creations in color lining the walls of the art gallery, to the +most intricate mechanism of inventive genius in the basement. All +would pass inspection, with drawing of comparison between the present, +the past year and the “year before,” likely in a nasal drawl with the +R’s brought sharply out, leaving no doubt as to their utterance. + +The newly married couple walking serenely through the crowd, young, +smiling, up-country, hand-in-hand; well pleased with themselves, with +their new attire and newer jewelry, would likely have answered +Hosmer’s “beg pardon” with amiability if he had knocked them down. But +he had only thrust them rather violently to one side in his eagerness +to board the cable car that was dashing by, with no seeming +willingness to stay its mad flight. He still possessed the agility in +his unpracticed limbs to swing himself on the grip, where he took a +front seat, well buttoned up as to top-coat, and glad of the bodily +rest that his half hour’s ride would bring him. + +The locality in which he descended presented some noticeable changes +since he had last been there. Formerly, it had been rather a quiet +street, with a leisurely horse car depositing its passengers two +blocks away to the north from it; awaking somewhat of afternoons when +hordes of children held possession. But now the cable had come to +disturb its long repose, adding in the office, nothing to its +attractiveness. + +There was the drug store still at the corner, with the same +proprietor, tilted back in his chair as of old, and as of old reading +his newspaper with only the change which a newly acquired pair of +spectacles gave to his appearance. The “drug store boy” had unfolded +into manhood, plainly indicated by the mustache that in adding +adornment and dignity to his person, had lifted him above the menial +office of window washing. A task relegated to a mustacheless urchin +with a leaning towards the surreptitious abstraction of caramels and +chewing gum in the intervals of such manual engagements as did not +require the co-operation of a strategic mind. + +Where formerly had been the vacant lot “across the street,” the Sunday +afternoon elysium of the youthful base ball fiend from Biddle Street, +now stood a row of brand new pressed-brick “flats.” Marvelous must +have been the architectural ingenuity which had contrived to unite so +many dwellings into so small a space. Before each spread a length of +closely clipped grass plot, and every miniature front door wore its +fantastic window furnishing; each set of decorations having seemingly +fired the next with efforts of surpassing elaboration. + +The house at which Hosmer rang--a plain two-storied red brick, +standing close to the street--was very old-fashioned in face of its +modern opposite neighbors, and the recently metamorphosed dwelling +next door, that with added porches and appendages to tax man’s faculty +of conjecture, was no longer recognizable for what it had been. Even +the bell which he pulled was old-fashioned and its tingle might be +heard throughout the house long after the servant had opened the door, +if she were only reasonably alert to the summons. Its reverberations +were but dying away when Hosmer asked if Mrs. Larimore were in. Mrs. +Larimore was in; an admission which seemed to hold in reserve a +defiant “And what if she is, sir.” + +Hosmer was relieved to find the little parlor into which he was +ushered, with its adjoining dining-room, much changed. The carpets +which he and Fanny had gone out together to buy during the early days +of their housekeeping, were replaced by rugs that lay upon the bare, +well polished floors. The wall paper was different; so were the +hangings. The furniture had been newly re-covered. Only the small +household gods were as of old: things--trifles--that had never much +occupied or impressed him, and that now, amid their altered +surroundings stirred no sentiment in him of either pleased or sad +remembrance. + +It had not been his wish to take his wife unawares, and he had +previously written her of his intended coming, yet without giving her +a clue for the reason of it. + +There was an element of the bull-dog in Hosmer. Having made up his +mind, he indulged in no regrets, in no nursing of if’s and and’s, but +stood like a brave soldier to his post, not a post of danger, +true--but one well supplied with discomfiting possibilities. + +And what had Homeyer said of it? He had railed of course as usual, at +the submission of a human destiny to the exacting and ignorant rule of +what he termed moral conventionalities. He had startled and angered +Hosmer with his denunciation of Thérèse’s sophistical guidance. +Rather--he proposed--let Hosmer and Thérèse marry, and if Fanny were +to be redeemed--though he pooh-poohed the notion as untenable with +certain views of what he called the rights to existence: the existence +of wrongs--sorrows--diseases--death--let them all go to make up the +conglomerate whole--and let the individual man hold on to his +personality. But if she must be redeemed--granting this point to their +littleness, let the redemption come by different ways than those of +sacrifice: let it be an outcome from the capability of their united +happiness. + +Hosmer did not listen to his friend Homeyer. Love was his god now, and +Thérèse was Love’s prophet. + +So he was sitting in this little parlor waiting for Fanny to come. + +She came after an interval that had been given over to the indulgence +of a little feminine nervousness. Through the open doors Hosmer could +hear her coming down the back stairs; could hear that she halted +mid-way. Then she passed through the dining-room, and he arose and +went to meet her, holding out his hand, which she was not at once +ready to accept, being flustered and unprepared for his manner in +whichever way it might direct itself. + +They sat opposite each other and remained for a while silent; he with +astonishment at sight of the “merry blue eyes” faded and sunken into +deep, dark round sockets; at the net-work of little lines all traced +about the mouth and eyes, and spreading over the once rounded cheeks +that were now hollow and evidently pale or sallow, beneath a layer of +rouge that had been laid on with an unsparing hand. Yet was she still +pretty, or pleasing, especially to a strong nature that would find an +appeal in the pathetic weakness of her face. There was no guessing at +what her figure might be, it was disguised under a very fashionable +dress, and a worsted shawl covered her shoulders, which occasionally +quivered as with an inward chill. She spoke first, twisting the end of +this shawl. + +“What did you come for, David? why did you come now?” with peevish +resistance to the disturbance of his coming. + +“I know I have come without warrant,” he said, answering her +implication. “I have been led to see--no matter how--that I made +mistakes in the past, and what I want to do now is to right them, if +you will let me.” + +This was very unexpected to her, and it startled her, but neither with +pleasure nor pain; only with an uneasiness which showed itself in her +face. + +“Have you been ill?” he asked suddenly as the details of change in her +appearance commenced to unfold themselves to him. + +“Oh no, not since last winter, when I had pneumonia so bad. They +thought I was going to die. Dr. Franklin said I would ’a died if Belle +Worthington hadn’t ’a took such good care of me. But I don’t see what +you mean coming now. It’ll be the same thing over again: I don’t see +what’s the use, David.” + +“We won’t talk about the use, Fanny. I want to take care of you for +the rest of your life--or mine--as I promised to do ten years ago; and +I want you to let me do it.” + +“It would be the same thing over again,” she reiterated, helplessly. + +“It will not be the same,” he answered positively. “I will not be the +same, and that will make all the difference needful.” + +“I don’t see what you want to do it for, David. Why we’d haf to get +married over again and all that, wouldn’t we?” + +“Certainly,” he answered with a faint smile. “I’m living in the South +now, in Louisiana, managing a sawmill down there.” + +“Oh, I don’t like the South. I went down to Memphis, let’s see, it was +last spring, with Belle and Lou Dawson, after I’d been sick; and I +don’t see how a person can live down there.” + +“You would like the place where I’m living. It’s a fine large +plantation, and the lady who owns it would be the best of friends to +you. She knew why I was coming, and told me to say she would help to +make your life a happy one if she could.” + +“It’s her told you to come,” she replied in quick resentment. “I don’t +see what business it is of hers.” + +Fanny Larimore’s strength of determination was not one to hold against +Hosmer’s will set to a purpose, during the hour or more that they +talked, he proposing, she finally acquiescing. And when he left her, +it was with a gathering peace in her heart to feel that his nearness +was something that would belong to her again; but differently as he +assured her. And she believed him, knowing that he would stand to his +promise. + +Her life was sometimes very blank in the intervals of street +perambulations and matinées and reading of morbid literature. That +elation which she had felt over her marriage with Hosmer ten years +before, had soon died away, together with her weak love for him, when +she began to dread him and defy him. But now that he said he was ready +to take care of her and be good to her, she felt great comfort in her +knowledge of his honesty. + + + + +X + +Fanny’s Friends. + + +It was on the day following Hosmer’s visit, that Mrs. Lorenzo +Worthington, familiarly known to her friends as Belle Worthington, was +occupied in constructing a careful and extremely elaborate street +toilet before her dressing bureau which stood near the front window of +one of the “flats” opposite Mrs. Larimore’s. The Nottingham curtain +screened her effectually from the view of passers-by without hindering +her frequent observance of what transpired in the street. + +The lower portion of this lady’s figure was draped, or better, +seemingly supported, by an abundance of stiffly starched white +petticoats that rustled audibly at her slightest movement. Her neck +was bare, as were the well shaped arms that for the past five minutes +had been poised in mid-air, in the arrangement of a front of +exquisitely soft blonde curls, which she had taken from her “top +drawer” and was adjusting, with the aid of a multitude of tiny +invisible hair-pins, to her own very smoothly brushed hair. Yellow +hair it was, with a suspicious darkness about the roots, and a +streakiness about the back, that to an observant eye would have more +than hinted that art had assisted nature in coloring Mrs. +Worthington’s locks. + +Dressed, and evidently waiting with forced patience for the +termination of these overhead maneuvers of her friend, sat Lou,--Mrs. +Jack Dawson,--a woman whom most people called handsome. If she were +handsome, no one could have told why, for her beauty was a thing which +could not be defined. She was tall and thin, with hair, eyes, and +complexion of a brownish neutral tint, and bore in face and figure, a +stamp of defiance which probably accounted for a certain eccentricity +in eschewing hair dyes and cosmetics. Her face was full of little +irregularities; a hardly perceptible cast in one eye; the nose drawn a +bit to one side, and the mouth twitched decidedly to the other when +she talked or laughed. It was this misproportion which gave a piquancy +to her expression and which in charming people, no doubt made them +believe her handsome. + +Mrs. Worthington’s coiffure being completed, she regaled herself with +a deliberate and comprehensive glance into the street, and the outcome +of her observation was the sudden exclamation. + +“Well I’ll be switched! come here quick Lou. If there ain’t Fanny +Larimore getting on the car with Dave Hosmer!” + +Mrs. Dawson approached the window, but without haste; and in no wise +sharing her friend’s excitement, gave utterance to her calm opinion. + +“They’ve made it up, I’ll bet you what you want.” + +Surprise seemed for the moment to have deprived Mrs. Worthington of +further ability to proceed with her toilet, for she had fallen into a +chair as limply as her starched condition would permit, her face full +of speculation. + +“See here, Belle Worthington, if we’ve got to be at the ’Lympic at two +o’clock, you’d better be getting a move on yourself.” + +“Yes, I know; but I declare, you might knock me down with a feather.” + +A highly overwrought figure of speech on the part of Mrs. Worthington, +seeing that the feather which would have prostrated her must have met +a resistance of some one hundred and seventy-five pounds of solid +avoirdupois. + +“After all she said about him, too!” seeking to draw her friend into +some participation in her own dumbfoundedness. + +“Well, you ought to know Fanny Larimore’s a fool, don’t you?” + +“Well, but I just can’t get over it; that’s all there is about it.” +And Mrs. Worthington went about completing the adornment of her person +in a state of voiceless stupefaction. + +In full garb, she presented the figure of a splendid woman; trim and +tight in a black silk gown of expensive quality, heavy with jets which +hung and shone, and jangled from every available point of her person. +Not a thread of her yellow hair was misplaced. She shone with +cleanliness, and her broad expressionless face and meaningless blue +eyes were set to a good-humored readiness for laughter, which would be +wholesome if not musical. She exhaled a fragrance of patchouly or +jockey-club, or something odorous and “strong” that clung to every +article of her apparel, even to the yellow kid gloves which she would +now be forced to put on during her ride in the car. Mrs. Dawson, +attired with equal richness and style, showed more of individuality in +her toilet. + +As they quitted the house she observed to her friend: + +“I wish you’d let up on that smell; it’s enough to sicken a body.” + +“I know you don’t like it, Lou,” was Mrs. Worthington’s apologetic and +half disconcerted reply, “and I was careful as could be. Give you my +word, I didn’t think you could notice it.” + +“Notice it? Gee!” responded Mrs. Dawson. + +These were two ladies of elegant leisure, the conditions of whose +lives, and the amiability of whose husbands, had enabled them to +develop into finished and professional time-killers. + +Their intimacy with each other, as also their close acquaintance with +Fanny Larimore, dated from a couple of years after that lady’s +marriage, when they had met as occupants of the same big up-town +boarding house. The intercourse had never since been permitted to die +out. Once, when the two former ladies were on a visit to Mrs. +Larimore, seeing the flats in course of construction, they were at +once assailed with the desire to abandon their hitherto nomadic life, +and settle to the responsibilities of housekeeping; a scheme which +they carried into effect as soon as the houses became habitable. + +There was a Mr. Lorenzo Worthington; a gentleman employed for many +years past in the custom house. Whether he had been overlooked, which +his small unobtrusive, narrow-chested person made possible--or whether +his many-sided usefulness had rendered him in a manner indispensable +to his employers, does not appear; but he had remained at his post +during the various changes of administration that had gone by since +his first appointment. + +During intervals of his work--intervals often occurring of afternoon +hours, when he had been given night work--he was fond of sitting at +the sunny kitchen window, with his long thin nose, and shortsighted +eyes plunged between the pages of one of his precious books: a small +hoard of which he had collected at some cost and more self-denial. + +One of the grievances of his life was the necessity under which he +found himself of protecting his treasure from the Philistine abuse and +contempt of his wife. When they moved into the flat, Mrs. Worthington, +during her husband’s absence, had ranged them all, systematically +enough, on the top shelf of the kitchen closet to “get them out of the +way.” But at this he had protested, and taken a positive stand, to +which his wife had so far yielded as to permit that they be placed on +the top shelf of the bedroom closet; averring that to have them laying +around was a thing that she would not do, for they spoilt the looks of +any room. + +He had not foreseen the possibility of their usefulness being a +temptation to his wife in so handy a receptacle. + +Seeking once a volume of Ruskin’s Miscellanies, he discovered that it +had been employed to support the dismantled leg of a dressing bureau. +On another occasion, a volume of Schopenhauer, which he had been at +much difficulty and expense to procure, Emerson’s Essays, and two +other volumes much prized, he found had served that lady as weights to +hold down a piece of dry goods which she had sponged and spread to dry +on an available section of roof top. + +He was glad enough to transport them all back to the safer refuge of +the kitchen closet, and pay the hired girl a secret stipend to guard +them. + +Mr. Worthington regarded women as being of peculiar and unsuitable +conformation to the various conditions of life amid which they are +placed; with strong moral proclivities, for the most part subservient +to a weak and inadequate mentality. + +It was not his office to remodel them; his rôle was simply to endure +with patience the vagaries of an order of human beings, who after all, +offered an interesting study to a man of speculative habit, apart from +their usefulness as propagators of the species. + +As regards this last qualification, Mrs. Worthington had done less +than her fair share, having but one child, a daughter of twelve, whose +training and education had been assumed by an aunt of her father’s, a +nun of some standing in the Sacred Heart Convent. + +Quite a different type of man was Jack Dawson, Lou’s husband. Short, +round, young, blonde, good looking and bald--as what St. Louis man +past thirty is not? he rejoiced in the agreeable calling of a +traveling salesman. + +On the occasions when he was at home; once in two weeks--sometimes +seldomer--never oftener--the small flat was turned inside out and +upside down. He filled it with noise and merriment. If a theater party +were not on hand, it was a spin out to Forest park behind a fast team, +closing with a wine supper at a road-side restaurant. Or a card party +would be hastily gathered to which such neighbors as were congenial +were bid in hot haste; deficiencies being supplied from his large +circle of acquaintances who happened not to be on the road, and who at +the eleventh hour were rung up by telephone. On such occasions Jack’s +voice would be heard loud in anecdote, introduced in some such wise as +“When I was in Houston, Texas, the other day,” or “Tell you what it +is, sir, those fellers over in Albuquerque are up to a thing or two.” + +One of his standing witticisms was to inquire in a stage whisper of +Belle or Lou--whether the little gal over the way had taken the pledge +yet. + +This gentleman and his wife were on the most amiable of terms +together, barring the small grievance that he sometimes lost money at +poker. But as losing was exceptional with him, and as he did not make +it a matter of conscience to keep her at all times posted as to the +fluctuations of his luck, this grievance had small occasion to show +itself. + +What he thought of his wife, might best be told in his own language: +that Lou was up to the mark and game every time; feminine +characteristics which he apparently held in high esteem. + +The two ladies in question had almost reached the terminus of their +ride, when Mrs. Worthington remarked incidentally to her friend, “It +was nothing in the God’s world but pure sass brought those two fellers +to see you last night, Lou.” + +Mrs. Dawson bit her lip and the cast in her eye became more +accentuated, as it was apt to do when she was ruffled. + +“I notice you didn’t treat ’em any too cool yourself,” she retorted. + +“Oh, they weren’t my company, or I’d a give ’em a piece of my mind +pretty quick. You know they’re married, and they know you’re married, +and they hadn’t a bit o’ business there.” + +“They’re perfect gentlemen, and I don’t see what business ’tis of +yours, anyway.” + +“Oh that’s a horse of another color,” replied Mrs. Worthington, +bridling and relapsing into injured silence for the period of ten +seconds, when she resumed, “I hope they ain’t going to poke themselves +at the matinée.” + +“Likely they will ’s long as they gave us the tickets.” + +One of the gentlemen was at the matinée: Mr. Bert Rodney, but he +certainly had not “poked” himself there. He never did any thing vulgar +or in bad taste. He had only “dropped in!” Exquisite in dress and +manner, a swell of the upper circles, versed as was no one better in +the code of gentlemanly etiquette--he was for the moment awaiting +disconsolately the return of his wife and daughter from Narragansett. + +He took a vacant seat behind the two ladies, and bending forward began +to talk to them in his low and fascinating drawl. + +Mrs. Worthington, who often failed to accomplish her fierce designs, +was as gracious towards him as if she had harbored no desire to give +him a piece of her mind; but she was resolute in her refusal to make +one of a proposed supper party. + +A quiet sideward look from Mrs. Dawson, told Mr. Rodney as plainly as +words, that in the event of his _partie-carrée_ failing him, he might +count upon her for a _tête-à-tête_. + + + + +XI + +The Self-Assumed Burden. + + +The wedding was over. Hosmer and Fanny had been married in the small +library of their Unitarian minister whom they had found intent upon +the shaping of his Sunday sermon. + +Out of deference, he had been briefly told the outward circumstances +of the case, which he knew already; for these two had been formerly +members of his congregation, and gossip had not been reluctant in +telling their story. Hosmer, of course, had drifted away from his +knowledge, and in late years, he had seen little of Fanny, who when +moved to attend church at all usually went to the Redemptorist’s Rock +Church with her friend Belle Worthington. This lady was a good +Catholic to the necessary extent of hearing a mass on Sundays, +abstaining from meat on Fridays and Ember days, and making her +“Easters.” Which concessions were not without their attendant +discomforts, counterbalanced, however, by the soothing assurance which +they gave her of keeping on the safe side. + +The minister had been much impressed with the significance of this +re-marriage which he was called upon to perform, and had offered some +few and well chosen expressions of salutary advice as to its future +guidance. The sexton and housekeeper had been called in as witnesses. +Then Hosmer had taken Fanny back home in a cab as she requested, +because of her eyes that were red and swollen. + +Inside the little hall-way he took her in his arms and kissed her, +calling her “my child.” He could not have told why, except that it +expressed the responsibility he accepted of bearing all things that a +father must bear from the child to whom he has given life. + +“I should like to go out for an hour, Fanny; but if you would rather +not, I shall stay.” + +“No, David, I want to be alone,” she said, turning into the little +parlor, with eyes big and heavy from weariness and inward clashing +emotions. + +Along the length of Lindell avenue from Grand avenue west to Forest +park, reaches for two miles on either side of the wide and well kept +gravel drive a smooth stone walk, bordered its full extent with a +double row of trees which were young and still uncertain, when Hosmer +walked between them. + +Had it been Sunday, he would have found himself making one of a +fashionable throng of promenaders; it being at that time a fad with +society people to walk to Forest park and back of a Sunday afternoon. +Driving was then considered a respectable diversion only on the six +work days of the week. + +But it was not Sunday and this inviting promenade was almost deserted. +An occasional laborer would walk clumsily by; apathetic; swinging his +tin bucket and bearing some implement of toil with the yellow clay yet +clinging to it. Or it might be a brace of strong-minded girls walking +with long and springing stride, which was then fashionable; looking +not to the right nor left; indulging in no exchange of friendly and +girlish chatter, but grimly intent upon the purpose of their walk. + +A steady line of vehicles was pushing on towards the park at the +moderate speed which the law required. On both sides the wide +boulevard tasteful dwellings, many completed, but most of them in +course of construction, were in constant view. Hosmer noted every +thing, but absently; and yet he was not pre-occupied with thought. He +felt himself to be hurrying away from something that was fast +overtaking him, and his faculties for the moment were centered in the +mere act of motion. It is said that motion is pleasurable to man. No +doubt, in connection with a healthy body and free mind, movement +brings to the normal human being a certain degree of enjoyment. But +where the healthful conditions are only physical, rapid motion changes +from a source of pleasure to one of mere expediency. + +So long as Hosmer could walk he kept a certain pressing consciousness +at bay. He would have liked to run if he had dared. Since he had +entered the park there were constant trains of cars speeding somewhere +overhead; he could hear them at near intervals clashing over the stone +bridge. And there was not a train which passed that he did not long to +be at the front of it to measure and let out its speed. What a mad +flight he would have given it, to make men hold their breath with +terror! How he would have driven it till its end was death and +chaos!--so much the better. + +There suddenly formed in Hosmer’s mind a sentence--sharp and distinct. +We are all conscious of such quick mental visions whether of words or +pictures, coming sometimes from a hidden and untraceable source, +making us quiver with awe at this mysterious power of mind manifesting +itself with the vividness of visible matter. + +“It was the act of a coward.” + +Those were the words which checked him, and forbade him to go farther: +which compelled him to turn about and face the reality of his +convictions. + +It is no unusual sight, that of a man lying full length in the soft +tender grass of some retired spot of Forest park--with his face hidden +in his folded arms. To the few who may see him, if they speculate at +all about him he sleeps or he rests his body after a day’s fatigue. +“Am I never to be the brave man?” thought Hosmer, “always the coward, +flying even from my own thoughts?” + +How hard to him was this unaccustomed task of dealing with moral +difficulties, which all through his life before, however lightly they +had come, he had shirked and avoided! He realized now, that there was +to be no more of that. If he did not wish his life to end in +disgraceful shipwreck, he must take command and direction of it upon +himself. + +He had felt himself capable of stolid endurance since love had +declared itself his guide and helper. But now--only to-day--something +beside had crept into his heart. Not something to be endured, but a +thing to be strangled and thrust away. It was the demon of hate; so +new, so awful, so loathsome, he doubted that he could look it in the +face and live. + +Here was the problem of his new existence. + +The woman who had formerly made his life colorless and empty he had +quietly turned his back upon, carrying with him a pity that was not +untender. But the woman who had unwittingly robbed him of all +possibility of earthly happiness--he hated her. The woman who for the +remainder of a life-time was to be in all the world the nearest thing +to him, he hated her. He hated this woman of whom he must be careful, +to whom he must be tender, and loyal and generous. And to give no sign +or word but of kindness; to do no action that was not considerate, was +the task which destiny had thrust upon his honor. + +He did not ask himself if it were possible of accomplishment. He had +flung hesitancy away, to make room for the all-powerful “Must be.” + +He walked slowly back to his home. There was no need to run now; +nothing pursued him. Should he quicken his pace or drag himself ever +so slowly, it could henceforth make no difference. The burden from +which he had fled was now banded upon him and not to be loosed, unless +he fling himself with it into forgetfulness. + + + + +XII + +Severing Old Ties. + + +Returning from the matinée, Belle and her friend Lou Dawson, before +entering their house, crossed over to Fanny’s. Mrs. Worthington tried +the door and finding it fastened, rang the bell, then commenced to +beat a tattoo upon the pane with her knuckles; an ingenuous manner +which she had of announcing her identity. Fanny opened to them +herself, and the three walked into the parlor. + +“I haven’t seen you for a coon’s age, Fanny,” commenced Belle, “where +on earth have you been keeping yourself?” + +“You saw me yesterday breakfast time, when you came to borrow the +wrapper pattern,” returned Fanny, in serious resentment to her +friend’s exaggeration. + +“And much good the old wrapper pattern did me: a mile too small every +way, no matter how much I let out the seams. But see here--” + +“Belle’s the biggest idiot about her size: there’s no convincing her +she’s not a sylph.” + +“_Thank_ you, Mrs. Dawson.” + +“Well, it’s a fact. Didn’t you think Furgeson’s scales were all wrong +the other day because you weighed a hundred and eighty pounds?” + +“O that’s the day I had that heavy rep on.” + +“Heavy nothing. We were coming over last night, Fanny, but we had +company,” continued Mrs. Dawson. + +“Who d’you have?” asked Fanny mechanically and glad of the respite. + +“Bert Rodney and Mr. Grant. They’re so anxious to meet you. I’d ’a +sent over for you, but Belle--” + +“See here, Fanny, what the mischief was Dave Hosmer doing here to-day, +and going down town with you and all that sort o’ thing?” + +Fanny flushed uneasily. “Have you seen the evening paper?” she asked. + +“How d’you want us to see the paper? we just come from the matinée.” + +“David came yesterday,” Fanny said working nervously at the window +shade. “He’d wrote me a note the postman brought right after you left +with the pattern. When you saw us getting on the car, we were going +down to Dr. Martin’s, and we’ve got married again.” + +Mrs. Dawson uttered a long, low whistle by way of comment. Mrs. +Worthington gave vent to her usual “Well I’ll be switched,” which she +was capable of making expressive of every shade of astonishment, from +the lightest to the most pronounced; at the same time unfastening the +bridle of her bonnet which plainly hindered her free respiration after +such a shock. + +“Say that Fanny isn’t sly, after that, Belle.” + +“Sly? My God, she’s a fool! If ever a woman had a snap! and to go to +work and let a man get around her like that.” + +Mrs. Worthington seemed powerless to express herself in anything but +disconnected exclamations. + +“What are you going to do, Fanny?” asked Lou, who having aired all the +astonishment which she cared to show, in her whistle, was collected +enough to want her natural curiosity satisfied. + +“David’s living down South. I guess we’ll go down there pretty soon. +Soon’s he can get things fixed up here.” + +“Where--down South?” + +“Oh, I don’t know. Somewheres in Louisiana.” + +“It’s to be hoped in New Orleans,” spoke Belle didactically, “that’s +the only decent place in Louisiana where a person could live.” + +“No, ’tain’t in New Orleans. He’s got a saw mill somewheres down +there.” + +“Heavens and earth! a saw mill?” shrieked Belle. Lou was looking +calmly resigned to the startling news. + +“Oh, I ain’t going to live in a saw mill. I wisht you’d all let me +alone, any way,” she returned pettishly. “There’s a lady keeps a +plantation, and that’s where he lives.” + +“Well of all the rigmaroles! a lady, and a saw mill and a plantation. +It’s my opinion that man could make you believe black’s white, Fanny +Larimore.” + +As Hosmer approached his house, he felt mechanically in his pocket for +his latch key; so small a trick having come back to him with the old +habit of misery. Of course he found no key. His ring startled Fanny, +who at once sprang from her seat to open the door for him; but having +taken a few steps, she hesitated and irresolutely re-seated herself. +It was only his second ring that the servant unamiably condescended to +answer. + +“So you’re going to take Fanny away from us, Mr. Hosmer,” said Belle, +when he had greeted them and seated himself beside Mrs. Dawson on the +small sofa that stood between the door and window. Fanny sat at the +adjoining window, and Mrs. Worthington in the center of the room; +which was indeed so small a room that any one of them might have +reached out and almost touched the hand of the others. + +“Yes, Fanny has agreed to go South with me,” he answered briefly. +“You’re looking well, Mrs. Worthington.” + +“Oh, Law yes, I’m never sick. As I tell Mr. Worthington, he’ll never +get rid of me, unless he hires somebody to murder me. But I tell you +what, you came pretty near not having any Fanny to take away with you. +She was the sickest woman! Did you tell him about it, Fanny? Come to +think of it, I guess the climate down there’ll be the very thing to +bring her round.” + +Mrs. Dawson without offering apology interrupted her friend to inquire +of Hosmer if his life in the South were not of the most interesting, +and begging that he detail them something of it; with a look to +indicate that she felt the deepest concern in anything that touched +him. + +A masculine presence had always the effect of rousing Mrs. Dawson into +an animation which was like the glow of a slumbering ember, when a +strong pressure of air is brought to bear upon it. + +Hosmer had always considered her an amiable woman, with rather +delicate perceptions; frivolous, but without the vulgarisms of Mrs. +Worthington, and consequently a less objectionable friend for Fanny. +He answered, looking down into her eyes, which were full of +attentiveness. + +“My life in the South is not one that you would think interesting. I +live in the country where there are no distractions such as you ladies +call amusements--and I work pretty hard. But it’s the sort of life +that one grows attached to and finds himself longing for again if he +have occasion to change it.” + +“Yes, it must be very satisfying,” she answered; for the moment +perfectly sincere. + +“Oh very!” exclaimed Mrs. Worthington, with a loud and aggressive +laugh. “It would just suit you to a T, Lou, but how it’s going to +satisfy Fanny! Well, I’ve got nothing to say about it, thanks be; it +don’t concern me.” + +“If Fanny finds that she doesn’t like it after a fair trial, she has +the privilege of saying so, and we shall come back again,” he said +looking at his wife whose elevation of eyebrow, and droop of mouth +gave her the expression of martyred resignation, which St. Lawrence +might have worn, when invited to make himself comfortable on the +gridiron--so had Mrs. Worthington’s words impressed her with the force +of their prophetic meaning. + +Mrs. Dawson politely hoped that Hosmer would not leave before Jack +came home; it would distress Jack beyond everything to return and find +that he had missed an old friend whom he thought so much of. + +Hosmer could not say precisely when they would leave. He was in +present negotiation with a person who wanted to rent the house, +furnished; and just as soon as he could arrange a few business +details, and Fanny could gather such belongings as she wished to take +with her they would go. + +“You seem mighty struck on Dave Hosmer, all of a sudden,” remarked +Mrs. Worthington to her friend, as the two crossed over the street. “A +feller without any more feelings than a stick; it’s what I always said +about him.” + +“Oh, I always did like Hosmer,” replied Mrs. Dawson. “But I thought he +had more sense than to tie himself to that little gump again, after +he’d had the luck to get rid of her.” + +A few days later Jack came home. His return was made palpable to the +entire neighborhood; for no cab ever announced itself with quite the +dash and clatter and bang of door that Jack’s cabs did. + +The driver had staggered behind him under the weight of the huge +yellow valise, and had been liberally paid for the service. + +Immediately the windows were thrown wide open, and the lace curtains +drawn aside until no smallest vestige of them remained visible from +the street. A condition of things which Mrs. Worthington upstairs +bitterly resented, and naturally, spoiling as it necessarily did, the +general _coup d’œil_ of the flat to passers-by. But Mrs. Dawson had +won her husband’s esteem by just such acts as this one of amiable +permission to ventilate the house according to methods of his own and +essentially masculine; regardless of dust that might be flying, or sun +that might be shining with disastrous results to the parlor carpet. + +Clouds of tobacco smoke were seen to issue from the open windows. +Those neighbors whose openings commanded a view of the Dawson’s +alley-gate might have noted the hired girl starting for the grocery +with unusual animation of step, and returning with her basket well +stocked with beer and soda bottles--a provision made against a need +for “dutch-cocktails,” likely to assail Jack during his hours of +domesticity. + +In the evening the same hired girl, breathless from the multiplicity +of errands which she had accomplished during the day, appeared at the +Hosmers with a message that Mrs. Dawson wanted them to “come over.” + +They were preparing to leave on the morrow, but concluded that they +could spare a few moments in which to bid adieu to their friends. + +Jack met them at the very threshold, with warm and hearty +hand-shaking, and loud protest when he learned that they had not come +to spend the evening and that they were going away next day. + +“Great Scott! you’re not leaving to-morrow? And I ain’t going to have +a chance to get even with Mrs. Hosmer on that last deal? By Jove, she +knows how to do it,” he said, addressing Hosmer and holding Fanny +familiarly by the elbow. “Drew to the middle, sir, and hang me, if she +didn’t fill. Takes a woman to do that sort o’ thing; and me a laying +for her with three aces. Hello there, girls! here’s Hosmer and Fanny,” +in response to which summons his wife and Mrs. Worthington issued from +the depths of the dining-room, where they had been engaged in +preparing certain refreshments for the expected guests. + +“See here, Lou, we’ll have to fix it up some way to go and see them +off to-morrow. If you’d manage to lay over till Thursday I could join +you as far as Little Rock. But no, that’s a fact,” he added +reflectively, “I’ve got to be in Cincinnati on Thursday.” + +They had all entered the parlor, and Mrs. Worthington suggested that +Hosmer go up and make a visit to her husband, whom he would find up +there “poring over those everlasting books.” + +“I don’t know what’s got into Mr. Worthington lately,” she said, “he’s +getting that religious. If it ain’t the Bible he’s poring over, well +it’s something or other just as bad.” + +The brightly burning light guided Hosmer to the kitchen, where he +found Lorenzo Worthington seated beside his student lamp at the table, +which was covered with a neat red cloth. On the gas-stove was spread a +similar cloth and the floor was covered with a shining oil-cloth. + +Mr. Worthington was startled, having already forgotten that his wife +had told him of Hosmer’s return to St. Louis. + +“Why, Mr. Hosmer, is this you? come, come into the parlor, this is no +place,” shaking Hosmer’s hand and motioning towards the parlor. + +“No, it’s very nice and cozy here, and I have only a moment to stay,” +said Hosmer, seating himself beside the table on which the other had +laid his book, with his spectacles between the pages to mark his +place. Mr. Worthington then did a little hemming and hawing +preparatory to saying something fitting the occasion; not wishing to +be hasty in offering the old established form of congratulation, in a +case whose peculiarity afforded him no precedential guide. Hosmer came +to his relief by observing quite naturally that he and his wife had +come over to say good-bye, before leaving for the South, adding “no +doubt Mrs. Worthington has told you.” + +“Yes, yes, and I’m sure we’re very sorry to lose you; that is, Mrs. +Larimore--I should say Mrs. Hosmer. Isabella will certainly regret her +departure, I see them always together, you know.” + +“You cling to your old habit, I see, Mr. Worthington,” said Hosmer, +indicating his meaning by a motion of the hand towards the book on the +table. + +“Yes, to a certain extent. Always within the forced limits, you +understand. At this moment I am much interested in tracing the history +of various religions which are known to us; those which have died out, +as well as existing religions. It is curious, indeed, to note the +circumstances of their birth, their progress and inevitable death; +seeming to follow the course of nations in such respect. And the +similitude which stamps them all, is also a feature worthy of study. +You would perhaps be surprised, sir, to discover the points of +resemblance which indicate in them a common origin. To observe the +slight differences, indeed technical differences, distinguishing the +Islam from the Hebrew, or both from the Christian religion. The creeds +are obviously ramifications from the one deep-rooted trunk which we +call religion. Have you ever thought of this, Mr. Hosmer?” + +“No, I admit that I’ve not gone into it. Homeyer would have me think +that all religions are but mythological creations invented to satisfy +a species of sentimentality--a morbid craving in man for the unknown +and undemonstrable.” + +“That is where he is wrong; where I must be permitted to differ from +him. As you would find, my dear sir, by following carefully the +history of mankind, that the religious sentiment is implanted, a true +and legitimate attribute of the human soul--with peremptory right to +its existence. Whatever may be faulty in the creeds--that makes no +difference, the foundation is there and not to be dislodged. Homeyer, +as I understand him from your former not infrequent references, is an +Iconoclast, who would tear down and leave devastation behind him; +building up nothing. He would deprive a clinging humanity of the +supports about which she twines herself, and leave her helpless and +sprawling upon the earth.” + +“No, no, he believes in a natural adjustment,” interrupted Hosmer. “In +an innate reserve force of accommodation. What we commonly call laws +in nature, he styles accidents--in society, only arbitrary methods of +expediency, which, when they outlive their usefulness to an advancing +and exacting civilization, should be set aside. He is a little +impatient to always wait for the inevitable natural adjustment.” + +“Ah, my dear Mr. Hosmer, the world is certainly to-day not prepared to +stand the lopping off and wrenching away of old traditions. She must +take her stand against such enemies of the conventional. Take religion +away from the life of man--” + +“Well, I knew it--I was just as sure as preaching,” burst out Mrs. +Worthington, as she threw open the door and confronted the two +men--resplendent in “baby blue” and much steel ornamentation. “As I +tell Mr. Worthington, he ought to turn Christian Brother or something +and be done with it.” + +“No, no, my dear; Mr. Hosmer and I have merely been interchanging a +few disjointed ideas.” + +“I’ll be bound they were disjointed. I guess Fanny wants you, Mr. +Hosmer. If you listen to Mr. Worthington he’ll keep you here till +daylight with his ideas.” + +Hosmer followed Mrs. Worthington down-stairs and into Mrs. Dawson’s. +As he entered the parlor he heard Fanny laughing gaily, and saw that +she stood near the sideboard in the dining-room, just clicking her +glass of punch to Jack Dawson’s, who was making a gay speech on the +occasion of her new marriage. + +They did not leave when they had intended. Need the misery of that one +day be told? + +But on the evening of the following day, Fanny peered with pale, +haggard face from the closed window of the Pullman car as it moved +slowly out of Union depôt, to see Lou and Jack Dawson smiling and +waving good-bye, Belle wiping her eyes and Mr. Worthington looking +blankly along the line of windows, unable to see them without his +spectacles, which he had left between the pages of his Schopenhauer on +the kitchen table at home. + + + + +PART II + + + + +I + +Fanny’s First Night at Place-du-Bois. + + +The journey South had not been without attractions for Fanny. She had +that consciousness so pleasing to the feminine mind of being well +dressed; for her husband had been exceedingly liberal in furnishing +her the means to satisfy her fancy in that regard. Moreover the change +holding out a promise of novelty, irritated her to a feeble +expectancy. The air, that came to her in puffs through the car window, +was deliciously soft and mild; steeped with the rich languor of the +Indian summer, that had already touched the tree tops, the sloping +hill-side, and the very air, with russet and gold. + +Hosmer sat beside her, curiously inattentive to his newspaper; +observant of her small needs, and anticipating her timid half +expressed wishes. Was there some mysterious power that had so soon +taught the man such methods to a woman’s heart, or was he not rather +on guard and schooling himself for the rôle which was to be acted out +to the end? But as the day was approaching its close, Fanny became +tired and languid; a certain mistrust was creeping into her heart with +the nearing darkness. It had grown sultry and close, and the view from +the car window was no longer cheerful, as they whirled through +forests, gloomy with trailing moss, or sped over an unfamiliar country +whose features were strange and held no promise of a welcome for her. + +They were nearing Place-du-Bois, and Hosmer’s spirits had risen almost +to the point of gaiety as he began to recognize the faces of those who +loitered about the stations at which they stopped. At the Centerville +station, five miles before reaching their own, he had even gone out on +the platform to shake hands with the rather mystified agent who had +not known of his absence. And he had waved a salute to the little +French priest of Centerville who stood out in the open beside his +horse, booted, spurred and all equipped for bad weather, waiting for +certain consignments which were to come with the train, and who +answered Hosmer’s greeting with a sober and uncompromising sweep of +the hand. When the whistle sounded for Place-du-Bois, it was nearly +dark. Hosmer hurried Fanny on to the platform, where stood Henry, his +clerk. There were a great many negroes loitering about, some of whom +offered him a cordial “how’dy Mr. Hosma,” and pushing through was +Grégoire, meeting them with the ease of a courtier, and acknowledging +Hosmer’s introduction of his wife, with a friendly hand shake. + +“Aunt Thérèse sent the buggy down fur you,” he said, “we had rain this +mornin’ and the road’s putty heavy. Come this way. Mine out fur that +ba’el, Mrs. Hosma, it’s got molasses in. Hiurm bring that buggy ova +yere.” + +“What’s the news, Grégoire?” asked Hosmer, as they waited for Hiram to +turn the horses about. + +“Jus’ about the same’s ev’a. Miss Melicent wasn’t ver’ well a few days +back; but she’s some betta. I reckon you’re all plum wore out,” he +added, taking in Fanny’s listless attitude, and thinking her very +pretty as far as he could discover in the dim light. + +They drove directly to the cottage, and on the porch Thérèse was +waiting for them. She took Fanny’s two hands and pressed them warmly +between her own; then led her into the house with an arm passed about +her waist. She shook hands with Hosmer, and stood for a while in +cheerful conversation, before leaving them. + +The cottage was fully equipped for their reception, with Minervy in +possession of the kitchen and the formerly reluctant Suze as +housemaid: though Thérèse had been silent as to the methods which she +had employed to prevail with these unwilling damsels. + +Hosmer then went out to look after their baggage, and when he +returned, Fanny sat with her head pillowed on the sofa, sobbing +bitterly. He knelt beside her, putting his arm around her, and asked +the cause of her distress. + +“Oh it’s so lonesome, and dreadful, I don’t believe I can stand it,” +she answered haltingly through her tears. + +And here was he thinking it was so home-like and comforting, and +tasting the first joy that he had known since he had gone away. + +“It’s all strange and new to you, Fanny; try to bear up for a day or +two. Come now, don’t be a baby--take courage. It will all seem quite +different by and by, when the sun shines.” + +A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a young colored +boy carrying an armful of wood. + +“Miss T’rèse sont me kin’le fiar fu’ Miss Hosma; ’low he tu’nin’ +cole,” he said depositing his load on the hearth; and Fanny, drying +her eyes, turned to watch him at his work. + +He went very deliberately about it, tearing off thin slathers from the +fat pine, and arranging them into a light frame-work, beneath a +topping of kindling and logs that he placed on the massive brass +andirons. He crawled about on hands and knees, picking up the stray +bits of chips and moss that had fallen from his arms when he came in. +Then sitting back on his heels he looked meditatively into the blaze +which he had kindled and scratched his nose with a splinter of pine +wood. When Hosmer presently left the room, he rolled his big black +eyes towards Fanny, without turning his head, and remarked in a tone +plainly inviting conversation “yo’ all come f’om way yonda?” + +He was intensely black, and if Fanny had been a woman with the +slightest sense of humor, she could not but have been amused at the +picture which he presented in the revealing fire-light with his elfish +and ape like body much too small to fill out the tattered and +ill-fitting garments that hung about it. But she only wondered at him +and his rags, and at his motive for addressing her. + +“We’re come from St. Louis,” she replied, taking him with a +seriousness which in no wise daunted him. + +“Yo’ all brung de rain,” he went on sociably, leaving off the +scratching of his nose, to pass his black yellow-palmed hand slowly +through the now raging fire, a feat which filled her with +consternation. After prevailing upon him to desist from this +salamander like exhibition, she was moved to ask if he were not very +poor to be thus shabbily clad. + +“No ’um,” he laughed, “I got some sto’ close yonda home. Dis yere coat +w’at Mista Grégor gi’me,” looking critically down at its length, which +swept the floor as he remained on his knees. “He done all to’e tu +pieces time he gi’ him tu me, whar he scuffle wid Joçint yonda tu de +mill. Mammy ’low she gwine mek him de same like new w’en she kin kotch +de time.” + +The entrance of Minervy bearing a tray temptingly arranged with a +dainty supper, served to silence the boy, who at seeing her, threw +himself upon all fours and appeared to be busy with the fire. The +woman, a big raw-boned field hand, set her burden awkwardly down on a +table, and after staring comprehensively around, addressed the boy in +a low rich voice, “Dar ain’t no mo’ call to bodda wid dat fiar, you +Sampson; how come Miss T’rèse sont you lazy piece in yere tu buil’ +fiar?” + +“Don’ know how come,” he replied, vanishing with an air of the utmost +self-depreciation. + +Hosmer and Fanny took tea together before the cheerful fire and he +told her something of methods on the plantation, and made her further +acquainted with the various people whom she had thus far encountered. +She listened apathetically; taking little interest in what he said, +and asking few questions. She did express a little bewilderment at the +servant problem. Mrs. Lafirme, during their short conversation, had +deplored her inability to procure more than two servants for her; and +Fanny could not understand why it should require so many to do the +work which at home was accomplished by one. But she was tired--very +tired, and early sought her bed, and Hosmer went in quest of his +sister whom he had not yet seen. + +Melicent had been told of his marriage some days previously, and had +been thrown into such a state of nerves by the intelligence, as to +seriously alarm those who surrounded her and whose experience with +hysterical girls had been inadequate. + +Poor Grégoire had betaken himself with the speed of the wind to the +store to procure bromide, valerian, and whatever else should be +thought available in prevailing with a malady of this distressing +nature. But she was “some betta,” as he told Hosmer, who found her +walking in the darkness of one of the long verandas, all enveloped in +filmy white wool. He was a little prepared for a cool reception from +her, and ten minutes before she might have received him with a studied +indifference. But her mood had veered about and touched the point +which moved her to fall upon his neck, and in a manner, condole with +him; seasoning her sympathy with a few tears. + +“Whatever possessed you, David? I have been thinking, and thinking, +and I can see no reason which should have driven you to do this thing. +Of course I can’t meet her; you surely don’t expect it?” + +He took her arm and joined her in her slow walk. + +“Yes, I do expect it, Melicent, and if you have the least regard for +me, I expect more. I want you to be good to her, and patient, and show +yourself her friend. No one can do such things more amiably than you, +when you try.” + +“But David, I had hoped for something so different.” + +“You couldn’t have expected me to marry Mrs. Lafirme, a Catholic,” he +said, making no pretense of misunderstanding her. + +“I think that woman would have given up religion--anything for you.” + +“Then you don’t know her, little sister.” + +It must have been far in the night when Fanny awoke suddenly. She +could not have told whether she had been awakened by the long, wailing +cry of a traveler across the narrow river, vainly trying to rouse the +ferryman; or the creaking of a heavy wagon that labored slowly by in +the road and moved Hector to noisy enquiry. Was it not rather the +pattering rain that the wind was driving against the window panes? The +lamp burned dimly upon the high old-fashioned mantel-piece and her +husband had thoughtfully placed an improvised screen before it, to +protect her against its disturbance. He himself was not beside her, +nor was he in the room. She slid from her bed and moved softly on her +bare feet over to the open sitting-room door. + +The fire had all burned away. Only the embers lay in a glowing heap, +and while she looked, the last stick that lay across the andirons, +broke through its tapering center and fell amongst them, stirring a +fitful light by which she discovered her husband seated and bowed like +a man who has been stricken. Uncomprehending, she stood a moment +speechless, then crept back noiselessly to bed. + + + + +II + +“Neva to See You!” + + +Thérèse judged it best to leave Fanny a good deal to herself during +her first days on the plantation, without relinquishing a certain +watchful supervision of her comfort, and looking in on her for a few +moments each day. The rain which had come with them continued fitfully +and Fanny remained in doors, clad in a warm handsome gown, her small +slippered feet cushioned before the fire, and reading the latest novel +of one of those prolific female writers who turn out their unwholesome +intellectual sweets so tirelessly, to be devoured by the girls and +women of the age. + +Melicent, who always did the unexpected, crossed over early on the +morning after Fanny’s arrival; penetrated to her sleeping room and +embraced her effusively, even as she lay in bed, calling her “poor +dear Fanny” and cautioning her against getting up on such a morning. + +The tears which had come to Fanny on arriving, and which had dried on +her cheek when she turned to gaze into the cheer of the great wood +fire, did not return. Everybody seemed to be making much of her, which +was a new experience in her life; she having always felt herself as of +little consequence, and in a manner, overlooked. The negroes were +overawed at the splendor of her toilettes and showed a respect for her +in proportion to the money value which these toilettes reflected. Each +morning Grégoire left at her door his compliments with a huge bouquet +of brilliant and many colored crysanthemums, and enquiry if he could +serve her in any way. And Hosmer’s time, that was not given to work, +was passed at her side; not in brooding or pre-occupied silence, but +in talk that invited her to friendly response. + +With Thérèse, she was at first shy and diffident, and over watchful of +herself. She did not forget that Hosmer had told her “The lady knows +why I have come” and she resented that knowledge which Thérèse +possessed of her past intimate married life. + +Melicent’s attentions did not last in their ultra-effusiveness, but +she found Fanny less objectionable since removed from her St. Louis +surroundings; and the evident consideration with which she had been +accepted at Place-du-Bois seemed to throw about her a halo of +sufficient distinction to impel the girl to view her from a new and +different stand-point. + +But the charm of plantation life was letting go its hold upon +Melicent. Grégoire’s adoration alone, and her feeble response to it +were all that kept her. + +“I neva felt anything like this befo’,” he said, as they stood +together and their hands touched in reaching for a splendid rose that +hung invitingly from its tall latticed support out in mid lawn. The +sun had come again and dried the last drop of lingering moisture on +grass and shrubbery. + +“W’en I’m away f’om you, even fur five minutes, ’t seems like I mus’ +hurry quick, quick, to git back again; an’ w’en I’m with you, +everything ’pears all right, even if you don’t talk to me or look at +me. Th’ otha day, down at the gin,” he continued, “I was figurin’ on +some weights an’ wasn’t thinkin’ about you at all, an’ all at once I +remember’d the one time I’d kissed you. Goodness! I couldn’t see the +figures any mo’, my head swum and the pencil mos’ fell out o’ my han’. +I neva felt anything like it: hones’, Miss Melicent, I thought I was +goin’ to faint fur a minute.” + +“That’s very unwise, Grégoire,” she said, taking the roses that he +handed her to add to the already large bunch. “You must learn to think +of me calmly: our love must be something like a sacred memory--a sweet +recollection to help us through life when we are apart.” + +“I don’t know how I’m goin’ to stan’ it. Neva to see you! neva--my +God!” he gasped, paling and crushing between his nervous fingers the +flower she would have taken from him. + +“There is nothing in this world that one cannot grow accustomed to, +dear,” spoke the pretty philosopher, picking up her skirts daintily +with one hand and passing the other through his arm--the hand which +held the flowers, whose peculiar perfume ever afterwards made Grégoire +shiver through a moment of pain that touched very close upon rapture. + +He was more occupied than he liked during those busy days of +harvesting and ginning, that left him only brief and snatched +intervals of Melicent’s society. If he could have rested in the +comfort of being sure of her, such moments of separation would have +had their compensation in reflective anticipation. But with his +undisciplined desires and hot-blooded eagerness, her half-hearted +acknowledgments and inadequate concessions, closed her about with a +chilling barrier that staggered him with its problematic nature. +Feeling himself her equal in the aristocracy of blood, and her master +in the knowledge and strength of loving, he resented those half +understood reasons which removed him from the possibility of being +anything to her. And more, he was angry with himself for acquiescing +in that self understood agreement. But it was only in her absence that +these thoughts disturbed him. When he was with her, his whole being +rejoiced in her existence and there was no room for doubt or dread. + +He felt himself regenerated through love, and as having no part in +that other Grégoire whom he only thought of to dismiss with +unrecognition. + +The time came when he could ill conceal his passion from others. +Thérèse became conscious of it, through an unguarded glance. The +unhappiness of the situation was plain to her; but to what degree she +could not guess. It was certainly so deplorable that it would have +been worth while to have averted it. Yet, she felt great faith in the +power of time and absence to heal such wounds even to the extent of +leaving no tell-tale scar. + +“Grégoire, my boy,” she said to him, speaking in French, and laying +her hand on his, when they were alone together. “I hope that your +heart is not too deep in this folly.” + +He reddened and asked, “What do you mean, aunt?” + +“I mean, that unfortunately, you are in love with Melicent. I do not +know how much longer she will remain here, but taking any possibility +for granted, let me advise you to leave the place for a while; go back +to your home, or take a little trip to the city.” + +“No, I could not.” + +“Force yourself to it.” + +“And lose days, perhaps weeks, of being near her? No, no, I could not +do that, aunt. There will be plenty time for that in the rest of my +life,” he said, trying to speak calmly and forcing his voice to a +harshness which the nearness of tears made needful. + +“Does she know? Have you told her?” + +“Oh yes, she knows how much I love her.” + +“And she does not love you,” said Thérèse, seeming rather to assert +than to question. + +“No, she does not. No matter what she says--she does not. I can feel +that here,” he answered, striking his breast. “Oh aunt, it is terrible +to think of her going away; forever, perhaps; of never seeing her. I +could not stand it.” And he stood the strain no longer, but sobbed and +wept with his aunt’s consoling arms around him. + +Thérèse, knowing that Melicent would not tarry much longer with them, +thought it not needful to approach her on the subject. Had it been +otherwise, she would not have hesitated to beg the girl to desist from +this unprofitable amusement of tormenting a human heart. + + + + +III + +A Talk Under the Cedar Tree. + + +Day by day, Fanny threw off somewhat of the homesickness which had +weighted her at coming. Not by any determined effort of the will, nor +by any resolve to make the best of things. Outside influences meeting +half-way the workings of unconscious inward forces, were the agents +that by degrees were gently ridding her of the acute pressure of +dissatisfaction, which up to the present, she had stolidly borne +without any personal effort to cast it off. + +Thérèse affected her forcibly. This woman so wholesome, so fair and +strong; so un-American as to be not ashamed to show tenderness and +sympathy with eye and lip, moved Fanny like a new and pleasing +experience. When Thérèse touched her caressingly, or gently stroked +her limp hand, she started guiltily, and looked furtively around to +make sure that none had witnessed an exhibition of tenderness that +made her flush, and the first time found her unresponsive. A second +time, she awkwardly returned the hand pressure, and later, these +mildly sensuous exchanges prefaced the outpouring of all Fanny’s woes, +great and small. + +“I don’t say that I always done what was right, Mrs. Laferm, but I +guess David’s told you just what suited him about me. You got to +remember there’s always two sides to a story.” + +She had been to the poultry yard with Thérèse, who had introduced her +to its feathery tenants, making her acquainted with stately Brahmas +and sleek Plymouth-Rocks and hardy little “Creole chickens”--not much +to look at, but very palatable when converted into _fricassée_. + +Returning, they seated themselves on the bench that encircled a +massive cedar--spreading and conical. Hector, who had trotted +attendance upon them during their visit of inspection, cast himself +heavily down at his mistress’ feet and after glancing knowingly up +into her face, looked placidly forth at Sampson, gathering garden +greens on the other side of a low dividing fence. + +“You see if David’d always been like he is now, I don’t know but +things’d been different. Do you suppose he ever went any wheres with +me, or even so much as talked to me when he came home? There was +always that everlasting newspaper in his pocket, and he’d haul it out +the first thing. Then I used to read the paper too sometimes, and when +I’d go to talk to him about what I read, he’d never even looked at the +same things. Goodness knows what he read in the paper, I never could +find out; but here’d be the edges all covered over with figuring. I +believe it’s the only thing he ever thought or dreamt about; that +eternal figuring on every bit of paper he could lay hold of, till I +was tired picking them up all over the house. Belle Worthington used +to say it’d of took an angel to stand him. I mean his throwing papers +around that way. For as far as his never talking went, she couldn’t +find any fault with that; Mr. Worthington was just as bad, if he +wasn’t worse. But Belle’s not like me; I don’t believe she’d let poor +Mr. Worthington talk in the house if he wanted to.” + +She gradually drifted away from her starting point, and like most +people who have usually little to say, became very voluble, when once +she passed into the humor of talking. Thérèse let her talk unchecked. +It seemed to do her good to chatter about Belle and Lou, and Jack +Dawson, and about her home life, of which she unknowingly made such a +pitiable picture to her listener. + +“I guess David never let on to you about himself,” she said moodily, +having come back to the sore that rankled: the dread that Thérèse had +laid all the blame of the rupture on her shoulders. + +“You’re mistaken, Mrs. Hosmer. It was a knowledge of his own +short-comings that prompted your husband to go back and ask your +forgiveness. You must grant, there’s nothing in his conduct now that +you could reproach him with. And,” she added, laying her hand gently +on Fanny’s arm, “I know you’ll be strong, and do your share in this +reconciliation--do what you can to please him.” + +Fanny flushed uneasily under Thérèse’s appealing glance. + +“I’m willing to do anything that David wants,” she replied, “I made up +my mind to that from the start. He’s a mighty good husband now, Mrs. +Laferm. Don’t mind what I said about him. I was afraid you thought +that--” + +“Never mind,” returned Thérèse kindly, “I know all about it. Don’t +worry any farther over what I may think. I believe in you and in him, +and I know you’ll both be brave and do what’s right.” + +“There isn’t anything so very hard for David to do,” she said, +depressed with a sense of her inadequate strength to do the task which +she had set herself. “He’s got no faults to give up. David never did +have any faults. He’s a true, honest man; and I was a coward to say +those things about him.” + +Melicent and Grégoire were coming across the lawn to join the two, and +Fanny, seeing them approach, suddenly chilled and wrapt herself about +in her mantle of reserve. + +“I guess I better go,” she said, offering to rise, but Thérèse held +out a detaining hand. + +“You don’t want to go and sit alone in the cottage; stay here with me +till Mr. Hosmer comes back from the mill.” + +Grégoire’s face was a study. Melicent, who did what she wanted with +him, had chosen this afternoon, for some inscrutable reason, to make +him happy. He carried her shawl and parasol; she herself bearing a +veritable armful of flowers, leaves, red berried sprigs, a tangle of +richest color. They had been in the woods and she had bedecked him +with garlands and festoons of autumn leaves, till he looked a very +Satyr; a character which his flushed, swarthy cheeks, and glittering +animal eyes did not belie. + +They were laughing immoderately, and their whole bearing still +reflected their exuberant gaiety as they joined Thérèse and Fanny. + +“What a ‘Mater Dolorosa’ Fanny looks!” exclaimed Melicent, throwing +herself into a picturesque attitude on the bench beside Thérèse, and +resting her feet on Hector’s broad back. + +Fanny offered no reply, but to look helplessly resigned; an expression +which Melicent knew of old, and which had always the effect of +irritating her. Not now, however, for the curve of the bench around +the great cedar tree removed her from the possibility of contemplating +Fanny’s doleful visage, unless she made an effort to that end, which +she was certainly not inclined to do. + +“No, Grégoire,” she said, flinging a rose into his face when he would +have seated himself beside her, “go sit by Fanny and do something to +make her laugh; only don’t tickle her; David mightn’t like it. And +here’s Mrs. Lafirme looking almost as glum. Now, if David would only +join us with that ‘pale cast of thought’ that he bears about usually, +what a merry go round we’d have.” + +“When Melicent looks at the world laughing, she wants it to laugh back +at her,” said Thérèse, reflecting something of the girl’s gaiety. + +“As in a looking-glass, well isn’t that square?” she returned, falling +into slang, in her recklessness of spirit. + +Endeavoring to guard her treasure of flowers from Thérèse, who was +without ceremony making a critical selection among them of what +pleased her, Melicent slid around the bench, bringing herself close to +Grégoire and begging his protection against the Vandalism of his aunt. +She looked into his eyes for an instant as though asking him for love +instead of so slight a favor and he grasped her arm, pressing it till +she cried out from the pain: which act, on his side, served to drive +her again around to Thérèse. + +“Guess what we are going to do to-morrow: you and I and all of us; +Grégoire and David and Fanny and everybody?” + +“Going to Bedlam along with you?” Thérèse asked. + +“Mrs. Lafirme is in need of a rebuke, which I shall proceed to +administer,” thrusting a crumpled handful of rose leaves down the neck +of Thérèse’s dress, and laughing joyously in her scuffle to accomplish +the punishment. + +“No, madam; I don’t go to Bedlam; I drive others there. Ask Grégoire +what we’re going to do. Tell them, Grégoire.” + +“They ain’t much to tell. We’a goin’ hoss back ridin’.” + +“Not me; I can’t ride,” wailed Fanny. + +“You can get up Torpedo for Mrs. Hosmer, can’t you, Grégoire?” asked +Thérèse. + +“Certainly. W’y you could ride ole Torpedo, Mrs. Hosma, if you nova +saw a hoss in yo’ life. A li’l chile could manage him.” + +Fanny turned to Thérèse for further assurance and found all that she +looked for. + +“We’ll go up on the hill and see that dear old Morico, and I shall +take along a comb, and comb out that exquisite white hair of his and +then I shall focus him, seated in his low chair and making one of +those cute turkey fans.” + +“Ole Morico ain’t goin’ to let you try no monkeyshines on him; I tell +you that befo’ han’,” said Grégoire, rising and coming to Melicent to +rid him of his sylvan ornamentations, for it was time for him to leave +them. When he turned away, Melicent rose and flung all her flowery +wealth into Thérèse’s lap, and following took his arm. + +“Where are you going?” asked Thérèse. + +“Going to help Grégoire feed the mules,” she called back looking over +her shoulder; the sinking sun lighting her handsome mischievous face. + +Thérèse proceeded to arrange the flowers with some regard to graceful +symmetry; and Fanny did not regain her talkative spirit that +Melicent’s coming had put to flight, but sat looking silent and +listlessly into the distance. + +As Thérèse glanced casually up into her face she saw it warmed by a +sudden faint glow--an unusual animation, and following her gaze, she +saw that Hosmer had returned and was entering the cottage. + +“I guess I better be going,” said Fanny rising, and this time Thérèse +no longer detained her. + + + + +IV + +Thérèse Crosses the River. + + +To shirk any serious duties of life would have been entirely foreign +to Thérèse’s methods or even instincts. But there did come to her +moments of rebellion--or repulsion, against the small demands that +presented themselves with an unfailing recurrence; and from such, she +at times indulged herself with the privilege of running away. When +Fanny left her alone--a pathetic little droop took possession of the +corners of her mouth that might not have come there if she had not +been alone. She laid the flowers, only half arranged, on the bench +beside her, as a child would put aside a toy that no longer interested +it. She looked towards the house and could see the servants going back +and forth. She knew if she entered, she would be met by appeals from +one and the other. The overseer would soon be along, with his crib +keys, and stable keys; his account of the day’s doings and +consultations for to-morrow’s work, and for the moment, she would have +none of it. + +“Come, Hector--come, old boy,” she said rising abruptly; and crossing +the lawn she soon gained the gravel path that led to the outer road. +This road brought her by a mild descent to the river bank. The water, +seldom stationary for any long period, was at present running low and +sluggishly between its red banks. + +Tied to the landing was a huge flat-boat, that was managed by the aid +of a stout cable reaching quite across the river; and beside it +nestled a small light skiff. In this Thérèse seated herself, and +proceeded to row across the stream, Hector plunging into the water and +swimming in advance of her. + +The banks on the opposite shore were almost perpendicular; and their +summit to be reached only by the artificial road that had been cut +into them: broad and of easy ascent. This river front was a standing +worry to Thérèse, for when the water was high and rapid, the banks +caved constantly, carrying away great sections from the land. Almost +every year, the fences in places had to be moved back, not only for +security, but to allow a margin for the road that on this side +followed the course of the small river. + +High up and perilously near the edge, stood a small cabin. It had once +been far removed from the river, which had now, however, eaten its way +close up to it--leaving no space for the road-way. The house was +somewhat more pretentious than others of its class, being fashioned of +planed painted boards, and having a brick chimney that stood fully +exposed at one end. A great rose tree climbed and spread generously +over one side, and the big red roses grew by hundreds amid the dark +green setting of their leaves. + +At the gate of this cabin Thérèse stopped, calling out, “_Grosse +tante!--oh, Grosse tante!_” + +The sound of her voice brought to the door a negress--coal black and +so enormously fat that she moved about with evident difficulty. She +was dressed in a loosely hanging purple calico garment of the mother +Hubbard type--known as a _volante_ amongst Louisiana Creoles; and on +her head was knotted and fantastically twisted a bright _tignon_. Her +glistening good-natured countenance illumined at the sight of Thérèse. + +“_Quo faire to pas woulez rentrer, Tite maîtresse?_” and Thérèse +answered in the same Creole dialect: “Not now, _Grosse tante_--I shall +be back in half an hour to drink a cup of coffee with you.” No English +words can convey the soft music of that speech, seemingly made for +tenderness and endearment. + +As Thérèse turned away from the gate, the black woman re-entered the +house, and as briskly as her cumbersome size would permit, began +preparations for her mistress’ visit. Milk and butter were taken from +the safe; eggs, from the India rush basket that hung against the wall; +and flour, from the half barrel that stood in convenient readiness in +the corner: for _Tite maîtresse_ was to be treated to a dish of +_croquignoles_. Coffee was always an accomplished fact at hand in the +chimney corner. + +_Grosse tante_, or more properly, Marie Louise, was a Creole--Thérèse’s +nurse and attendant from infancy, and the only one of the family +servants who had come with her mistress from New Orleans to +Place-du-Bois at that lady’s marriage with Jérôme Lafirme. But her +ever increasing weight had long since removed her from the possibility +of usefulness, otherwise than in supervising her small farm yard. She +had little use for “_ces néges Américains_,” as she called the +plantation hands--a restless lot forever shifting about and changing +quarters. + +It was seldom now that she crossed the river; only two occasions being +considered of sufficient importance to induce her to such effort. One +was in the event of her mistress’ illness, when she would install +herself at her bedside as a fixture, not to be dislodged by any less +inducement than Thérèse’s full recovery. The other was when a dinner +of importance was to be given: then Marie Louise consented to act as +_chef de cuisine_, for there was no more famous cook than she in the +State; her instructor having been no less a personage than old Lucien +Santien--a _gourmet_ famed for his ultra Parisian tastes. + +Seated at the base of a great China-berry on whose gnarled protruding +roots she rested an arm languidly, Thérèse looked out over the river +and gave herself up to doubts and misgivings. She first took exception +with herself for that constant interference in the concerns of other +people. Might not this propensity be carried too far at times? Did the +good accruing counterbalance the personal discomfort into which she +was often driven by her own agency? What reason had she to know that a +policy of non-interference in the affairs of others might not after +all be the judicious one? As much as she tried to vaguely generalize, +she found her reasoning applying itself to her relation with Hosmer. + +The look which she had surprised in Fanny’s face had been a painful +revelation to her. Yet could she have expected other, and should she +have hoped for less, than that Fanny should love her husband and he in +turn should come to love his wife? + +Had she married Hosmer herself! Here she smiled to think of the storm +of indignation that such a marriage would have roused in the parish. +Yet, even facing the impossibility of such contingency, it pleased her +to indulge in a short dream of what might have been. + +If it were her right instead of another’s to watch for his coming and +rejoice at it! Hers to call him husband and lavish on him the love +that awoke so strongly when she permitted herself, as she was doing +now, to invoke it! She felt what capability lay within her of rousing +the man to new interests in life. She pictured the dawn of an +unsuspected happiness coming to him: broadening; illuminating; growing +in him to answer to her own big-heartedness. + +Were Fanny, and her own prejudices, worth the sacrifice which she and +Hosmer had made? This was the doubt that bade fair to unsettle her; +that called for a sharp, strong out-putting of the will before she +could bring herself to face the situation without its accessions of +personalities. Such communing with herself could not be condemned as a +weakness with Thérèse, for the effect which it left upon her strong +nature was one of added courage and determination. + +When she reached Marie Louise’s cabin again, twilight, which is so +brief in the South, was giving place to the night. + +Within the cabin, the lamp had already been lighted, and Marie Louise +was growing restless at Thérèse’s long delay. + +“Ah _Grosse tante_, I’m so tired,” she said, falling into a chair near +the door; not relishing the warmth of the room after her quick walk, +and wishing to delay as long as possible the necessity of sitting at +table. At another time she might have found the dish of golden brown +_croquignoles_ very tempting with its accessory of fragrant coffee; +but not to-day. + +“Why do you run about so much, _Tite maîtresse_? You are always going +this way and that way; on horseback, on foot--through the house. Make +those lazy niggers work more. You spoil them. I tell you if it was old +mistress that had to deal with them, they would see something +different.” + +She had taken all the pins from Thérèse’s hair which fell in a +gleaming, heavy mass; and with her big soft hands she was stroking her +head as gently as if those hands had been of the whitest and most +delicate. + +“I know that look in your eyes, it means headache. It’s time for me to +make you some more _eau sédative_--I am sure you haven’t any more; +you’ve given it away as you give away every thing.” + +“_Grosse tante_,” said Thérèse seated at table and sipping her coffee; +_Grosse tante_ also drinking her cup--but seated apart, “I am going to +insist on having your cabin moved back; it is silly to be so stubborn +about such a small matter. Some day you will find yourself out in the +middle of the river--and what am I going to do then?--no one to nurse +me when I am sick--no one to scold me--nobody to love me.” + +“Don’t say that, _Tite maîtresse_, all the world loves you--it isn’t +only Marie Louise. But no. You must remember the last time poor +Monsieur Jérôme moved me, and said with a laugh that I can never +forget, ‘well, _Grosse tante_, I know we have got you far enough this +time out of danger,’ away back in Dumont’s field you recollect? I said +then, Marie Louise will move no more; she’s too old. If the good God +does not want to take care of me, then it’s time for me to go.” + +“Ah but, _Grosse tante_, remember--God does not want all the trouble +on his own shoulders,” Thérèse answered humoring the woman, in her +conception of the Deity. “He wants us to do our share, too.” + +“Well, I have done my share. Nothing is going to harm Marie Louise. I +thought about all that, do not fret. So the last time Père Antoine +passed in the road--going down to see that poor Pierre Pardou at the +Mouth--I called him in, and he blessed the whole house inside and out, +with holy water--notice how the roses have bloomed since then--and +gave me medals of the holy Virgin to hang about. Look over the door, +_Tite maîtresse_, how it shines, like a silver star.” + +“If you will not have your cabin removed, _Grosse tante_, then come +live with me. Old Hatton has wanted work at Place-du-Bois, the longest +time. We will have him build you a room wherever you choose, a pretty +little house like those in the city.” + +“_Non--non, Tite maîtresse, Marie Louise ’prè créver icite avé tous +son butin, si faut_” (no, no, _Tite maîtresse_, Marie Louise will die +here with all her belongings if it must be). + +The servants were instructed that when their mistress was not at home +at a given hour, her absence should cause no delay in the household +arrangements. She did not choose that her humor or her movements be +hampered by a necessity of regularity which she owed to no one. When +she reached home supper had long been over. + +Nearing the house she heard the scraping of Nathan’s violin, the noise +of shuffling feet and unconstrained laughter. These festive sounds +came from the back veranda. She entered the dining-room, and from its +obscurity looked out on a curious scene. The veranda was lighted by a +lamp suspended from one of its pillars. In a corner sat Nathan; +serious, dignified, scraping out a monotonous but rhythmic minor +strain to which two young negroes from the lower quarters--famous +dancers--were keeping time in marvelous shuffling and pigeon-wings; +twisting their supple joints into astonishing contortions and the +sweat rolling from their black visages. A crowd of darkies stood at a +respectful distance an appreciative and encouraging audience. And +seated on the broad rail of the veranda were Melicent and Grégoire, +patting Juba and singing a loud accompaniment to the breakdown. + +Was this the Grégoire who had only yesterday wept such bitter tears on +his aunt’s bosom? + +Thérèse turning away from the scene, the doubt assailed her whether it +were after all worth while to strive against the sorrows of life that +can be so readily put aside. + + + + +V + +One Afternoon. + + +Whatever may have been Torpedo’s characteristics in days gone by, at +this advanced period in his history he possessed none so striking as a +stoical inaptitude for being moved. Another of his distinguishing +traits was a propensity for grazing which he was prone to indulge at +inopportune moments. Such points taken in conjunction with a gait +closely resembling that of the camel in the desert, might give much +cause to wonder at Thérèse’s motive in recommending him as a suitable +mount for the unfortunate Fanny, were it not for his wide-spread +reputation of angelic inoffensiveness. + +The ride which Melicent had arranged and in which she held out such +promises of a “lark” proved after all but a desultory affair. For with +Fanny making but a sorry equestrian debut and Hosmer creeping along at +her side; Thérèse unable to hold Beauregard within conventional +limits, and Melicent and Grégoire vanishing utterly from the scene, +sociability was a feature entirely lacking to the excursion. + +“David, I can’t go another step: I just can’t, so that settles it.” + +The look of unhappiness in Fanny’s face and attitude, would have moved +the proverbial stone. + +“I think if you change horses with me, Fanny, you’ll find it more +comfortable, and we’ll turn about and go home.” + +“I wouldn’t get on that horse’s back, David Hosmer, if I had to die +right here in the woods, I wouldn’t.” + +“Do you think you could manage to walk back that distance then? I can +lead the horses,” he suggested as a _pis aller_. + +“I guess I’ll haf to; but goodness knows if I’ll ever get there +alive.” + +They were far up on the hill, which spot they had reached by painfully +slow and labored stages, each refraining from mention of a discomfort +that might interfere with the supposed enjoyment of the other, till +Fanny’s note of protest. + +Hosmer cast about him for some expedient that might lighten the +unpleasantness of the situation, when a happy thought occurred to him. + +“If you’ll try to bear up, a few yards further, you can dismount at +old Morico’s cabin and I’ll hurry back and get the buggy. It can be +driven this far anyway: and it’s only a short walk from here through +the woods.” + +So Hosmer set her down before Morico’s door: her long riding skirt, +borrowed for the occasion, twisting awkwardly around her legs, and +every joint in her body aching. + +Partly by pantomimic signs interwoven with a few French words which he +had picked up within the last year, Hosmer succeeded in making himself +understood to the old man, and rode away leaving Fanny in his care. + +Morico fussily preceded her into the house and placed a great clumsy +home-made rocker at her disposal, into which she cast herself with +every appearance of bodily distress. He then busied himself in tidying +up the room out of deference to his guest; gathering up the scissors, +waxen thread and turkey feathers which had fallen from his lap in his +disturbance, and laying them on the table. He knocked the ashes from +his corn-cob pipe which he now rested on a projection of the brick +chimney that extended into the room and that served as mantel-piece. +All the while he cast snatched glances at Fanny, who sat pale and +tired. Her appearance seemed to move him to make an effort towards +relieving it. He took a key from his pocket and unlocking a side of +the _garde manger_, drew forth a small flask of whisky. Fanny had +closed her eyes and was not aware of his action, till she heard him at +her elbow saying in his feeble quavering voice:-- + +“_Tenez madame; goutez un peu: ça va vous faire du bien,_” and opening +her eyes she saw that he held a glass half filled with strong “toddy” +for her acceptance. + +She thrust out her hand to ward it away as though it had been a +reptile that menaced her with its sting. + +Morico looked nonplussed and a little abashed: but he had much faith +in the healing qualities of his remedy and urged it on her anew. She +trembled a little, and looked away with rather excited eyes. + +“_Je vous assure madame, ça ne peut pas vous faire du mal._” + +Fanny took the glass from his hand, and rising went and placed it on +the table, then walked to the open door and looked eagerly out, as +though hoping for the impossibility of her husband’s return. + +She did not seat herself again, but walked restlessly about the room, +intently examining its meager details. The circuit of inspection +bringing her again to the table, she picked up Morico’s turkey fan, +looking at it long and critically. When she laid it down, it was to +seize the glass of “toddy” which she unhesitatingly put to her lips +and drained at a draught. All uneasiness and fatigue seemed to leave +her on the instant as though by magic. She went back to her chair and +reseated herself composedly. Her eyes now rested on her old host with +a certain quizzical curiosity strange to them. + +He was plainly demoralized by her presence, and still made pretense of +occupying himself with the arrangement of the room. + +Presently she said to him: “Your remedy did me more good than I’d +expected,” but not understanding her, he only smiled and looked at her +blankly. + +She laughed good-humoredly back at him, then went to the table and +poured from the flask which he had left standing there, liquor to the +depth of two fingers, this time drinking it more deliberately. After +that she tried to talk to Morico and thought it very amusing that he +could not understand her. + +Presently Joçint came home and accepted her presence there very +indifferently. He went to the _garde manger_ to stay his hunger, much +as he had done on the occasion of Thérèse’s visit; talked in grum +abrupt utterances to his father, and disappeared into the adjoining +room where Fanny could hear him and occasionally see him polishing and +oiling his cherished rifle. + +Morico, more accustomed to foreign sounds in the woods than she, was +the first to detect the approach of Grégoire, whom he went out +hurriedly to meet, glad of the relief from the supposed necessity of +entertaining his puzzling visitor. When he was fairly out of the room, +she arose quickly, approached the table and reaching for the flask of +liquor, thrust it hastily into her pocket, then went to join him. At +the moment that Grégoire came up, Joçint issued from a side door and +stood looking at the group. + +“Well, Mrs. Hosma, yere I am. I reckon you was tired waitin’. The +buggy’s yonda in the road.” + +He shook hands cordially with Morico saying something to him in French +which made the old man laugh heartily. + +“Why didn’t David come? I thought he said he was coming; that’s the +way he does,” said Fanny complainingly. + +“That’s a po’ compliment to me, Mrs. Hosrma. Can’t you stan’ my +company for that li’le distance?” returned Grégoire gallantly. “Mr. +Hosma had a good deal to do w’en he got back, that’s w’y he sent me. +An’ we betta hurry up if we expec’ to git any suppa’ to-night. Like as +not you’ll fine your kitchen cleaned out.” + +Fanny looked her inquiry for his meaning. + +“Why, don’t you know this is ‘Tous-saint’ eve--w’en the dead git out +o’ their graves an’ walk about? You wouldn’t ketch a nigga out o’ his +cabin to-night afta dark to save his soul. They all gittin’ ready now +to hustle back to the quartas.” + +“That’s nonsense,” said Fanny, drawing on her gloves, “you ought to +have more sense than to repeat such things.” + +Grégoire laughed, looking surprised at her unusual energy of speech +and manner. Then he turned to Joçint, whose presence he had thus far +ignored, and asked in a peremptory tone: + +“W’at did Woodson say ’bout watchin’ at the mill to-night? Did you ask +him like I tole you?” + +“Yaas, me ax um: ee’ low ee an’ goin’. Say how Sylveste d’wan’ watch +lak alluz. Say ee an’ goin’. Me don’ blem ’im neida, don’ ketch me +out de ’ouse night lak dat fu no man.” + +“_Sacré imbécile_,” muttered Grégoire, between his teeth, and +vouchsafed him no other answer, but nodded to Morico and turned away. +Fanny followed with a freedom of movement quite unlike that of her +coming. + +Morico went into the house and coming back hastily to the door called +to Joçint: + +“Bring back that flask of whisky that you took off the table.” + +“You’re a liar: you know I have no use for whisky. That’s one of your +damned tricks to make me buy you more.” And he seated himself on an +over-turned tub and with his small black eyes half closed, looked +moodily out into the solemn darkening woods. The old man showed no +resentment at the harshness and disrespect of his son’s speech, being +evidently used to such. He passed his hand slowly over his white long +hair and turned bewildered into the house. + +“Is it just this same old thing year in and year out, Grégoire? Don’t +any one ever get up a dance, or a card party or anything?” + +“Jus’ as you say; the same old thing f’om one yea’s en’ to the otha. I +used to think it was putty lonesome myse’f w’en I firs’ come yere. +Then you see they’s no neighbo’s right roun’ yere. In Natchitoches +now; that’s the place to have a right down good time. But see yere; I +didn’ know you was fon’ o’ dancin’ an’ such things.” + +“Why, of course, I just dearly love to dance. But it’s as much as my +life’s worth to say that before David; he’s such a stick; but I guess +you know that by this time,” with a laugh, as he had never heard from +her before--so unconstrained; at the same time drawing nearer to him +and looking merrily into his face. + +“The little lady’s been having a ‘toddy’ at Morico’s, that makes her +lively,” thought Grégoire. But the knowledge did not abash him in the +least. He accommodated himself at once to the situation with that +adaptability common to the American youth, whether of the South, +North, East or West. + +“Where abouts did you leave David when you come away?” she asked with +a studied indifference. + +“Hol’ on there, Buckskin--w’ere you takin’ us? W’y, I lef’ him at the +sto’ mailin’ lettas.” + +“Had the others all got back? Mrs. Laferm? Melicent? did they all stop +at the store, too?” + +“Who? Aunt Thrérèse? no, she was up at the house w’en I lef’--I reckon +Miss Melicent was there too. Talkin’ ’bout fun,--it’s to git into one +o’ them big spring wagons on a moonlight night, like they do in +Centaville sometimes; jus’ packed down with young folks--and start out +fur a dance up the coast. They ain’t nothin’ to beat it as fah as fun +goes.” + +“It must be just jolly. I guess you’re a pretty good dancer, +Grégoire?” + +“Well--’taint fur me to say. But they ain’t many can out dance me: not +in Natchitoches pa’ish, anyway. I can say that much.” + +If such a thing could have been, Fanny would have startled Grégoire +more than once during the drive home. Before its close she had +obtained a promise from him to take her up to Natchitoches for the +very next entertainment,--averring that she didn’t care what David +said. If he wanted to bury himself that was his own look out. And if +Mrs. Laferm took people to be angels that they could live in a place +like that, and give up everything and not have any kind of enjoyment +out of life, why, she was mistaken and that’s all there was to it. To +all of which freely expressed views Grégoire emphatically assented. + +Hosmer had very soon disembarrassed himself of Torpedo, knowing that +the animal would unerringly find his way to the corn crib by supper +time. He continued his own way now untrammelled, and at an agreeable +speed which soon brought him to the spring at the road side. Here he +found Thérèse, half seated against a projection of rock, in her hand a +bunch of ferns which she had evidently dismounted to gather, and +holding Beauregard’s bridle while he munched at the cool wet tufts of +grass that grew everywhere. + +As Hosmer rode up at a rapid pace, he swung himself from his horse +almost before the animal came to a full stop. He removed his hat, +mopped his forehead, stamped about a little to relax his limbs and +turned to answer the enquiry with which Thérèse met him. + +“Left her at Morico’s. I’ll have to send the buggy back for her.” + +“I can’t forgive myself for such a blunder,” said Thérèse regretfully, +“indeed I had no idea of that miserable beast’s character. I never was +on him you know--only the little darkies, and they never complained: +they’d as well ride cows as not.” + +“Oh, it’s mainly from her being unaccustomed to riding, I believe.” + +This was the first time that Hosmer and Thérèse had met alone since +his return from St. Louis. They looked at each other with full +consciousness of what lay in the other’s mind. Thérèse felt that +however adroitly another woman might have managed the situation, for +herself, it would have been a piece of affectation to completely +ignore it at this moment. + +“Mr. Hosmer, perhaps I ought to have said something before this, to +you--about what you’ve done.” + +“Oh, yes, congratulated me--complimented me,” he replied with a +pretense at a laugh. + +“Well, the latter, perhaps. I think we all like to have our good and +right actions recognized for their worth.” + +He flushed, looked at her with a smile, then laughed out-right--this +time it was no pretense. + +“So I’ve been a good boy; have done as my mistress bade me and now I’m +to receive a condescending little pat on the head--and of course must +say thank you. Do you know, Mrs. Lafirme--and I don’t see why a woman +like you oughtn’t to know it--it’s one of those things to drive a man +mad, the sweet complaisance with which women accept situations, or +inflict situations that it takes the utmost of a man’s strength to +endure.” + +“Well, Mr. Hosmer,” said Thérèse plainly discomposed, “you must +concede you decided it was the right thing to do.” + +“I didn’t do it because I thought it was right, but because you +thought it was right. But that makes no difference.” + +“Then remember your wife is going to do the right thing herself--she +admitted as much to me.” + +“Don’t you fool yourself, as Melicent says, about what Mrs. Hosmer +means to do. I take no account of it. But you take it so easily; so as +a matter of course. That’s what exasperates me. That you, you, you, +shouldn’t have a suspicion of the torture of it; the loathsomeness of +it. But how could you--how could any woman understand it? Oh forgive +me, Thérèse--I wouldn’t want you to. There’s no brute so brutal as a +man,” he cried, seeing the pain in her face and knowing he had caused +it. “But you know you promised to help me--oh I’m talking like an +idiot.” + +“And I do,” returned Thérèse, “that is, I want to, I mean to.” + +“Then don’t tell me again that I have done right. Only look at me +sometimes a little differently than you do at Hiram or the gate post. +Let me once in a while see a look in your face that tells me that you +understand--if it’s only a little bit.” + +Thérèse thought it best to interrupt the situation; so, pale and +silently she prepared to mount her horse. He came to her assistance of +course, and when she was seated she drew off her loose riding glove +and held out her hand to him. He pressed it gratefully, then touched +it with his lips; then turned it and kissed the half open palm. + +She did not leave him this time, but rode at his side in silence with +a frown and little line of thought between her blue eyes. + +As they were nearing the store she said diffidently: “Mr. Hosmer, I +wonder if it wouldn’t be best for you to put the mill in some one +else’s charge--and go away from Place-du-Bois.” + +“I believe you always speak with a purpose, Mrs. Lafirme: you have +somebody’s ultimate good in view, when you say that. Is it your own, +or mine or whose is it?” + +“Oh! not mine.” + +“I will leave Place-du-Bois, certainly, if you wish it.” + +As she looked at him she was forced to admit that she had never seen +him look as he did now. His face, usually serious, had a whole +unwritten tragedy in it. And she felt altogether sore and puzzled and +exasperated over man’s problematic nature. + +“I don’t think it should be left entirely to me to say. Doesn’t your +own reason suggest a proper course in the matter?” + +“My reason is utterly unable to determine anything in which you are +concerned. Mrs. Lafirme,” he said checking his horse and laying a +restraining hand on her bridle, “let me speak to you one moment. I +know you are a woman to whom one may speak the truth. Of course, you +remember that you prevailed upon me to go back to my wife. To you it +seemed the right thing--to me it seemed certainly hard--but no more +nor less than taking up the old unhappy routine of life, where I had +left it when I quitted her. I reasoned much like a stupid child who +thinks the colors in his kaleidoscope may fall twice into the same +design. In place of the old, I found an entirely new situation--horrid, +sickening, requiring such a strain upon my energies to live through +it, that I believe it’s an absurdity to waste so much moral force for +so poor an aim--there would be more dignity in putting an end to my +life. It doesn’t make it any the more bearable to feel that the cause +of this unlooked for change lies within myself--my altered feelings. +But it seems to me that I have the right to ask you not to take +yourself out of my life; your moral support; your bodily atmosphere. I +hope not to give way to the weakness of speaking of these things +again: but before you leave me, tell me, do you understand a little +better why I need you?” + +“Yes, I understand now; and I thank you for talking so openly to me. +Don’t go away from Place-du-Bois: it would make me very wretched.” + +She said no more and he was glad of it, for her last words held almost +the force of action for him; as though she had let him feel for an +instant her heart beat against his own with an echoing pain. + +Their ways now diverged. She went in the direction of the house and he +to the store where he found Grégoire, whom he sent for his wife. + + + + +VI + +One Night. + + +“Grégoire was right: do you know those nasty creatures have gone and +left every speck of the supper dishes unwashed? I’ve got half a mind +to give them both warning to-morrow morning.” + +Fanny had come in from the kitchen to the sitting-room, and the above +homily was addressed to her husband who stood lighting his cigar. He +had lately taken to smoking. + +“You’d better do nothing of the kind; you wouldn’t find it easy to +replace them. Put up a little with their vagaries: this sort of thing +only happens once a year.” + +“How do you know it won’t be something else just as ridiculous +to-morrow? And that idiot of a Minervy; what do you suppose she told +me when I insisted on her staying to wash up things? She says, last +whatever you call it, her husband wanted to act hard-headed and staid +out after dark, and when he was crossing the bayou, the spirits jerked +him off his horse and dragged him up and down in the water, till he +was nearly drowned. I don’t see what you’re laughing at; I guess you’d +like to make out that they’re in the right.” + +Hosmer was perfectly aware that Fanny had had a drink, and he rightly +guessed that Morico had given it to her. But he was at a loss to +account for the increasing symptoms of intoxication that she showed. +He tried to persuade her to go to bed; but his efforts to that end +remained unheeded, till she had eased her mind of an accumulation of +grievances, mostly fancied. He had much difficulty in preventing her +from going over to give Melicent a piece of her mind about her lofty +airs and arrogance in thinking herself better than other people. And +she was very eager to tell Thérèse that she meant to do as she liked, +and would stand no poking of noses in her business. It was a good +while before she fell into a heavy sleep, after shedding a few maudlin +tears over the conviction that he intended to leave her again, and +clinging to his neck with beseeching enquiry whether he loved her. + +He went out on the veranda feeling much as if he had been wrestling +with a strong adversary who had mastered him, and whom he was glad to +be freed of, even at the cost of coming inglorious from the conflict. +The night was so dark, so hushed, that if ever the dead had wished to +step from their graves and take a stroll above ground, they could not +have found a more fitting hour. Hosmer walked very long in the +soothing quiet. He would have liked to walk the night through. The +last three hours had been like an acute physical pain, that was over +for the moment, and that being over, left his mind free to return to +the delicious consciousness, that he had needed to be reminded of, +that Thérèse loved him after all. When his measured tread upon the +veranda finally ceased to mark the passing hours, a quiet that was +almost pulseless fell upon the plantation. Place-du-Bois slept. +Perhaps the only night in the year that some or other of the negroes +did not lurk in fence corners, or make exchange of nocturnal visits. + +But out in the hills there was no such unearthly stillness reigning. +Those restless wood-dwellers, that never sleep, were sending startling +gruesome calls to each other. Bats were flapping and whirling and +darting hither and thither; the gliding serpent making quick rustle +amid the dry, crisp leaves, and over all sounded the murmur of the +great pine trees, telling their mystic secrets to the night. + +A human creature was there too, feeling a close fellowship with these +spirits of night and darkness; with no more fear in his heart than the +unheeded serpent crossing his path. Every inch of the ground he knew. +He wanted no daylight to guide him. Had his eyes been blinded he would +no doubt have bent his body close to earth and scented his way along +like the human hound that he was. Over his shoulder hung the polished +rifle that sent dull and sudden gleamings into the dark. A large tin +pail swung from his hand. He was very careful of this pail--or its +contents, for he feared to lose a drop. And when he accidentally +struck an intervening tree and spilled some upon the ground, he +muttered a curse against his own awkwardness. + +Twice since leaving his cabin up in the clearing, he had turned to +drive back his yellow skulking dog that followed him. Each time the +brute had fled in abject terror, only to come creeping again into his +master’s footsteps, when he thought himself forgotten. Here was a +companion whom neither Joçint nor his mission required. Exasperated, +he seated himself on a fallen tree and whistled softly. The dog, who +had been holding back, dashed to his side, trembling with eagerness, +and striving to twist his head around to lick the hand that patted +him. Joçint’s other hand glided quickly into his pocket, from which he +drew forth a coil of thin rope that he flung deftly over the animal’s +head, drawing it close and tight about the homely, shaggy throat. So +quickly was the action done, that no sound was uttered, and Joçint +continued his way untroubled by his old and faithful friend, whom he +left hanging to the limb of a tree. + +He was following the same path that he traversed daily to and from the +mill, and which soon brought him out into the level with its soft +tufted grass and clumps of squat thorn trees. There was no longer the +protecting wood to screen him; but of such there was no need, for the +darkness hung about him like the magic mantle of story. Nearing the +mill he grew cautious, creeping along with the tread of a stealthy +beast, and halting at intervals to listen for sounds that he wished +not to hear. He knew there was no one on guard tonight. A movement in +the bushes near by, made him fall quick and sprawling to earth. It was +only Grégoire’s horse munching the soft grass. Joçint drew near and +laid his hand on the horse’s back. It was hot and reeking with sweat. +Here was a fact to make him more wary. Horses were not found in such +condition from quietly grazing of a cool autumn night. He seated +himself upon the ground, with his hands clasped about his knees, all +doubled up in a little heap, and waited there with the patience of the +savage, letting an hour go by, whilst he made no movement. + +The hour past, he stole towards the mill, and began his work of +sprinkling the contents of his pail here and there along the dry +timbers at well calculated distances, with care that no drop should be +lost. Then, he drew together a great heap of crisp shavings and +slathers, plentifully besprinkling it with what remained in the can. +When he had struck a match against his rough trousers and placed it +carefully in the midst of this small pyramid, he found that he had +done his work but too surely. The quick flame sprang into life, +seizing at once all it could reach. Leaping over intervals; effacing +the darkness that had shrouded him; seeming to mock him as a fool and +point him out as a target for heaven and earth to hurl destruction at +if they would. Where should he hide himself? He only thought now of +how he might have done the deed differently, and with safety to +himself. He stood with great beams and loose planks surrounding him; +quaking with a premonition of evil. He wanted to fly in one direction; +then thought it best to follow the opposite; but a force outside of +himself seemed to hold him fast to one spot. When turning suddenly +about, he knew it was too late, he felt that all was lost, for there +was Grégoire, not twenty paces away--covering him with the muzzle of a +pistol and--cursed luck--his own rifle along with the empty pail in +the raging fire. + +Thérèse was passing a restless night. She had lain long awake, +dwelling on the insistent thoughts that the day’s happenings had given +rise to. The sleep which finally came to her was troubled by +dreams--demoniac--grotesque. Hosmer was in a danger from which she was +striving with physical effort to rescue him, and when she dragged him +painfully from the peril that menaced him, she turned to see that it +was Fanny whom she had saved--laughing at her derisively, and Hosmer +had been left to perish. The dream was agonizing; like an appalling +nightmare. She awoke in a fever of distress, and raised herself in bed +to shake off the unnatural impression which such a dream can leave. +The curtains were drawn aside from the window that faced her bed, and +looking out she saw a long tongue of flame, reaching far up into the +sky--away over the tree tops and the whole Southern horizon a glow. +She knew at once that the mill was burning, and it was the affair of a +moment with her to spring from her bed and don slippers and wrapper. +She knocked on Melicent’s door to acquaint her with the startling +news; then hurried out into the back yard and rang the plantation +bell. + +Next she was at the cottage rousing Hosmer. But the alarm of the bell +had already awakened him, and he was dressed and out on the porch +almost as soon as Thérèse had called. Melicent joined them, highly +agitated, and prepared to contribute her share towards any scene that +might be going forward. But she found little encouragement for heroics +with Hosmer. In saddling his horse rather hastily he was as unmoved as +though preparing for an uneventful morning canter. He stood at the +foot of the stairs preparing to mount when Grégoire rode up as if +pursued by furies; checking his horse with a quick, violent wrench +that set it quivering in its taut limbs. + +“Well,” said Hosmer, “I guess it’s done for. How did it happen? who +did it?” + +“Joçint’s work,” answered Grégoire bitingly. + +“The damned scoundrel,” muttered Hosmer, “where is he?” + +“Don’ botha ’bout Joçint; he ain’t goin’ to set no mo’ mill afire,” +saying which, he turned his horse and the two rode furiously away. + +Melicent grasped Thérèse’s arm convulsively. + +“What does he mean?” she asked in a frightened whisper. + +“I--I don’t know,” Thérèse faltered. She had clasped her hands +spasmodically together, at Grégoire’s words, trembling with horror of +what must be their meaning. + +“May be he arrested him,” suggested the girl. + +“I hope so. Come; let’s go to bed: there’s no use staying out here in +the cold and dark.” + +Hosmer had left the sitting-room door open, and Thérèse entered. She +approached Fanny’s door and knocked twice: not brusquely, but +sufficiently loud to be heard from within, by any one who was awake. +No answer came, and she went away, knowing that Fanny slept. + +The unusual sound of the bell, ringing two hours past midnight--that +very deadest hour of the night--had roused the whole plantation. On +all sides squads of men and a few venturesome women were hurrying +towards the fire; the dread of supernatural encounters overcome for +the moment by such strong reality and by the confidence lent them in +each other’s company. + +There were many already gathered around the mill, when Grégoire and +Hosmer reached it. All effort to save anything had been abandoned as +useless. The books and valuables had been removed from the office. The +few householders--mill-hands--whose homes were close by, had carried +their scant belongings to places of safety, but everything else was +given over to the devouring flames. + +The heat from this big raging fire was intense, and had driven most of +the gaping spectators gradually back--almost into the woods. But +there, to one side, where the fire was rapidly gaining, and making +itself already uncomfortably felt, stood a small awe-stricken group +talking in whispers; their ignorance and superstition making them +irresolute to lay a hand upon the dead Joçint. His body lay amongst +the heavy timbers, across a huge beam, with arms outstretched and head +hanging down upon the ground. The glazed eyes were staring up into the +red sky, and on his swarthy visage was yet the horror which had come +there, when he looked in the face of death. + +“In God’s name, what are you doing?” cried Hosmer. “Can’t some of you +carry that boy’s body to a place of safety?” + +Grégoire had followed, and was looking down indifferently at the dead. +“Come, len’ a han’ there; this is gittin’ too durn hot,” he said, +stooping to raise the lifeless form. Hosmer was preparing to help him. +But there was some one staggering through the crowd; pushing men to +right and left. With now a hand upon the breast of both Hosmer and +Grégoire, and thrusting them with such force and violence, as to lay +them prone amongst the timbers. It was the father. It was old Morico. +He had awakened in the night and missed his boy. He had seen the fire; +indeed close enough that he could hear its roaring; and he knew +everything. The whole story was plain to him as if it had been told by +a revealing angel. The strength of his youth had come back to speed +him over the ground. + +“Murderers!” he cried looking about him with hate in his face. He did +not know who had done it; no one knew yet, and he saw in every man he +looked upon the possible slayer of his child. + +So here he stood over the prostrate figure; his old gray jeans hanging +loosely about him; wild eyed--with bare head clasped between his +claw-like hands, which the white disheveled hair swept over. Hosmer +approached again, offering gently to help him carry his son away. + +“Stand back,” he hurled at him. But he had understood the offer. His +boy must not be left to burn like a log of wood. He bent down and +strove to lift the heavy body, but the effort was beyond his strength. +Seeing this he stooped again and this time grasped it beneath the +arms; then slowly, draggingly, with halting step, began to move +backward. + +The fire claimed no more attention. All eyes were fastened upon this +weird picture; a sight which moved the most callous to offer again and +again assistance, that was each time spurned with an added defiance. + +Hosmer stood looking on, with folded arms; moved by the grandeur and +majesty of the scene. The devouring element, loosed in its awful +recklessness there in the heart of this lonely forest. The motley +group of black and white standing out in the great red light, +powerless to do more than wait and watch. But more was he stirred to +the depths of his being, by the sight of this human tragedy enacted +before his eyes. + +Once, the old man stops in his backward journey. Will he give over? +has his strength deserted him? is the thought that seizes every +on-looker. But no--with renewed effort he begins again his slow +retreat, till at last a sigh of relief comes from the whole watching +multitude. Morico with his burden has reached a spot of safety. What +will he do next? They watch in breathless suspense. But Morico does +nothing. He only stands immovable as a carved image. Suddenly there is +a cry that reaches far above the roar of fire and crash of falling +timbers: “_Mon fils! mon garçon!_” and the old man totters and falls +backward to earth, still clinging to the lifeless body of his son. All +hasten towards him. Hosmer reaches him first. And when he gently lifts +the dead Joçint, the father this time makes no hinderance, for he too +has gone beyond the knowledge of all earthly happenings. + + + + +VII + +Melicent Leaves Place-du-Bois. + + +There had been no witness to the killing of Joçint; but there were few +who did not recognize Grégoire’s hand in the affair. When met with the +accusation, he denied it, or acknowledged it, or evaded the charge +with a jest, as he felt for the moment inclined. It was a deed +characteristic of any one of the Santien boys, and if not altogether +laudable--Joçint having been at the time of the shooting unarmed--yet +was it thought in a measure justified by the heinousness of his +offense, and beyond dispute, a benefit to the community. + +Hosmer reserved the expression of his opinion. The occurrence once +over, with the emotions which it had awakened, he was inclined to look +at it from one of those philosophic stand-points of his friend +Homeyer. Heredity and pathology had to be considered in relation with +the slayer’s character. He saw in it one of those interesting problems +of human existence that are ever turning up for man’s contemplation, +but hardly for the exercise of man’s individual judgment. He was +conscious of an inward repulsion which this action of Grégoire’s +awakened in him,--much the same as a feeling of disgust for an animal +whose instinct drives it to the doing of violent deeds,--yet he made +no difference in his manner towards him. + +Thérèse was deeply distressed over this double tragedy: feeling keenly +the unhappy ending of old Morico. But her chief sorrow came from the +callousness of Grégoire, whom she could not move even to an avowal of +regret. He could not understand that he should receive any thing but +praise for having rid the community of so offensive and dangerous a +personage as Joçint; and seemed utterly blind to the moral aspect of +his deed. + +An event at once so exciting and dramatic as this conflagration, with +the attendant deaths of Morico and his son, was much discussed amongst +the negroes. They were a good deal of one opinion in regard to Joçint +having been only properly served in getting “w’at he done ben lookin’ +fu’ dis long time.” Grégoire was rather looked upon as a clever +instrument in the Lord’s service; and the occurrence pointed a moral +which they were not likely to forget. + +The burning of the mill entailed much work upon Hosmer, to which he +turned with a zest--an absorption that for the time excluded +everything else. + +Melicent had shunned Grégoire since the shooting. She had avoided +speaking with him--even looking at him. During the turmoil which +closely followed upon the tragic event, this change in the girl had +escaped his notice. On the next day he suspected it only. But the +third day brought him the terrible conviction. He did not know that +she was making preparations to leave for St. Louis, and quite +accidentally overheard Hosmer giving an order to one of the unemployed +mill hands to call for her baggage on the following morning before +train time. + +As much as he had expected her departure, and looked painfully forward +to it, this certainty--that she was leaving on the morrow and without +a word to him--bewildered him. He abandoned at once the work that was +occupying him. + +“I didn’ know Miss Melicent was goin’ away to-morrow,” he said in a +strange pleading voice to Hosmer. + +“Why, yes,” Hosmer answered, “I thought you knew. She’s been talking +about it for a couple of days.” + +“No, I didn’ know nothin’ ’tall ’bout it,” he said, turning away and +reaching for his hat, but with such nerveless hand that he almost +dropped it before placing it on his head. + +“If you’re going to the house,” Hosmer called after him, “tell +Melicent that Woodson won’t go for her trunks before morning. She +thought she’d need to have them ready to-night.” + +“Yes, if I go to the house. I don’ know if I’m goin’ to the house or +not,” he replied, walking listlessly away. + +Hosmer looked after the young man, and thought of him for a moment: of +his soft voice and gentle manner--perplexed that he should be the same +who had expressed in confidence the single regret that he had not been +able to kill Joçint more than once. + +Grégoire went directly to the house, and approached that end of the +veranda on which Melicent’s room opened. A trunk had already been +packed and fastened and stood outside, just beneath the low-silled +window that was open. Within the room, and also beneath the window, +was another trunk, before which Melicent kneeled, filling it more or +less systematically from an abundance of woman’s toggery that lay in a +cumbrous heap on the floor beside her. Grégoire stopped at the window +to tell her, with a sad attempt at indifference: + +“Yo’ brotha says don’t hurry packin’; Woodson ain’t goin’ to come fur +your trunks tell mornin’.” + +“All right, thank you,” glancing towards him for an instant carelessly +and going on with her work. + +“I didn’ know you was goin’ away.” + +“That’s absurd: you knew all along I was going away,” she returned, +with countenance as expressionless as feminine subtlety could make it. + +“W’y don’t you let somebody else do that? Can’t you come out yere a +w’ile?” + +“No, I prefer doing it myself; and I don’t care to go out.” + +What could he do? what could he say? There were no convenient depths +in his mind from which he might draw at will, apt and telling speeches +to taunt her with. His heart was swelling and choking him, at sight of +the eyes that looked anywhere, but in his own; at sight of the lips +that he had one time kissed, pressed into an icy silence. She went on +with her task of packing, unmoved. He stood a while longer, silently +watching her, his hat in his hands that were clasped behind him, and a +stupor of grief holding him vise-like. Then he walked away. He felt +somewhat as he remembered to have felt oftentimes as a boy, when ill +and suffering, his mother would put him to bed and send him a cup of +bouillon perhaps, and a little negro to sit beside him. It seemed very +cruel to him now that some one should not do something for him--that +he should be left to suffer this way. He walked across the lawn over +to the cottage, where he saw Fanny pacing slowly up and down the +porch. + +She saw him approach and stood in a patch of sunlight to wait for him. +He really had nothing to say to her as he stood grasping two of the +balustrades and looking up at her. He wanted somebody to talk to him +about Melicent. + +“Did you know Miss Melicent was goin’ away?” + +Had it been Hosmer or Thérèse asking her the question she would have +replied simply “yes,” but to Grégoire she said “yes; thank Goodness,” +as frankly as though she had been speaking to Belle Worthington. “I +don’t see what’s kept her down here all this time, anyway.” + +“You don’t like her?” he asked, stupefied at the strange possibility +of any one not loving Melicent to distraction. + +“No. You wouldn’t either, if you knew her as well as I do. If she +likes a person she goes on like a lunatic over them as long as it +lasts; then good-bye John! she’ll throw them aside as she would an old +dress.” + +“Oh, I believe she thinks a heap of Aunt Thérèse.” + +“All right; you’ll see how much she thinks of Aunt Thérèse. And the +people she’s been engaged to! There ain’t a worse flirt in the city of +St. Louis; and always some excuse or other to break it off at the last +minute. I haven’t got any use for her, Lord knows. There ain’t much +love lost between us.” + +“Well, I reckon she knows they ain’t anybody born, good enough fur +her?” he said, thinking of those engagements that she had shattered. + +“What was David doing?” Fanny asked abruptly. + +“Writin’ lettas at the sto’.” + +“Did he say when he was coming?” + +“No.” + +“Do you guess he’ll come pretty soon?” + +“No, I reckon not fur a good w’ile.” + +“Is Melicent with Mrs. Laferm?” + +“No; she’s packin’ her things.” + +“I guess I’ll go sit with Mrs. Laferm, d’you think she’ll mind?” + +“No, she’ll be glad to have you.” + +Fanny crossed over to go join Thérèse. She liked to be with her when +there was no danger of interruption from Melicent, and Grégoire went +wandering aimlessly about the plantation. + +He staked great hopes on what the night might bring for him. She would +melt, perhaps, to the extent of a smile or one of her old glances. He +was almost cheerful when he seated himself at table; only he and his +aunt and Melicent. He had never seen her look so handsome as now, in a +woolen gown that she had not worn before, of warm rich tint, that +brought out a certain regal splendor that he had not suspected in her. +A something that she seemed to have held in reserve till this final +moment. But she had nothing for him--nothing. All her conversation was +addressed to Thérèse; and she hurried away from table at the close of +the meal, under pretext of completing her arrangements for departure. + +“Doesn’t she mean to speak to me?” he asked fiercely of Thérèse. + +“Oh, Grégoire, I see so much trouble around me; so many sad mistakes, +and I feel so powerless to right them; as if my hands were tied. I +can’t help you in this; not now. But let me help you in other ways. +Will you listen to me?” + +“If you want to help me, Aunt,” he said stabbing his fork into a piece +of bread before him, “go and ask her if she doesn’t mean to talk to +me: if she won’t come out on the gallery a minute.” + +“Grégoire wants to know if you won’t go out and speak to him a moment, +Melicent,” said Thérèse entering the girl’s room. “Do as you wish, of +course. But remember you are going away to-morrow; you’ll likely never +see him again. A friendly word from you now, may do more good than you +imagine. I believe he’s as unhappy at this moment as a creature can +be!” + +Melicent looked at her horrified. “I don’t understand you at all, Mrs. +Lafirme. Think what he’s done; murdered a defenseless man! How can you +have him near you--seated at your table? I don’t know what nerves you +have in your bodies, you and David. There’s David, hobnobbing with +him. Even that Fanny talking to him as if he were blameless. Never! If +he were dying I wouldn’t go near him.” + +“Haven’t you a spark of humanity in you?” asked Thérèse, flushing +violently. + +“Oh, this is something physical,” she replied, shivering, “let me +alone.” + +Thérèse went out to Grégoire, who stood waiting on the veranda. She +only took his hand and pressed it telling him good-night, and he knew +that it was a dismissal. + +There may be lovers, who, under the circumstances, would have felt +sufficient pride to refrain from going to the depôt on the following +morning, but Grégoire was not one of them. He was there. He who only a +week before had thought that nothing but her constant presence could +reconcile him with life, had narrowed down the conditions for his +life’s happiness now to a glance or a kind word. He stood close to the +steps of the Pullman car that she was about to enter, and as she +passed him he held out his hand, saying “Good-bye.” But he held his +hand to no purpose. She was much occupied in taking her valise from +the conductor who had hoisted her up, and who was now shouting in +stentorian tones “All aboard,” though there was not a soul with the +slightest intention of boarding the train but herself. + +She leaned forward to wave good-bye to Hosmer, and Fanny, and Thérèse, +who were on the platform; then she was gone. + +Grégoire stood looking stupidly at the vanishing train. + +“Are you going back with us?” Hosmer asked him. Fanny and Thérèse had +walked ahead. + +“No,” he replied, looking at Hosmer with ashen face, “I got to go fine +my hoss.” + + + + +VIII + +With Loose Rein. + + +“De Lord be praised fu’ de blessin’s dat he showers down ’pon us,” was +Uncle Hiram’s graceful conclusion of his supper, after which he pushed +his empty plate aside regretfully, and addressed Aunt Belindy. +“ ’Pears to me, Belindy, as you reached a pint wid dem bacon an’ greens +to-night, dat you never tetched befo’. De pint o’ de flavorin’ is w’at +I alludes to.” + +“All de same, dat ain’t gwine to fetch no mo’,” was the rather uncivil +reply to this neat compliment to her culinary powers. + +“Dah!” cried the youthful Betsy, who formed one of the trio gathered +together in the kitchen at Place-du-Bois. “Jis listen (to) Unc’ Hiurm! +Aunt B’lindy neva tetched a han’ to dem bacon an’ greens. She tole me +out o’ her own mouf to put’em on de fiar; she warn’t gwine pesta wid +’em.” + +“Warn’t gwine pesta wid ’em?” administering a cuff on the ear of the +too communicative Betsy, that sent her sprawling across the table. +“T’inks I’se gwine pesta wid you--does you? Messin’ roun’ heah in de +kitchin’ an’ ain’t tu’ned down a bed or drawed a bah, or done a lick +o’ yo’ night wurk yit.” + +“I is done my night wurk, too,” returned Betsy whimpering but +defiantly, as she retreated beyond reach of further blows from Aunt +Belindy’s powerful right hand. + +“Dat harshness o’ yourn, Belindy, is wat’s a sourin’ yo’ tempa, an’ a +turnin’ of it intur gall an’ wormwood. Does you know wat de Scripture +tells us of de wrathful woman?” + +“Whar I got time to go a foolin’ wid Scripture? W’at I wants to know; +whar dat Pierson boy, he don’t come. He ben gone time ’nough to walk +to Natch’toches an’ back.” + +“Ain’t dat him I years yonda tu de crib?” suggestod Betsy, coming to +join Aunt Belindy in the open doorway. + +“You heahs mos’ too much fu’ yo’ own good, you does, gal.” + +But Betsy was right. For soon a tall, slim negro, young and coal +black, mounted the stairs and came into the kitchen, where he +deposited a meal bag filled with various necessities that he had +brought from Centerville. He was one of the dancers who had displayed +their skill before Melicent and Grégoire. Uncle Hiram at once accosted +him. + +“Well, Pierson, we jest a ben a wonderin’ consarnin’ you. W’at was de +’casion o’ dat long delay?” + +“De ’casion? W’y man alive, I couldn’t git a dog gone soul in de town +to wait on me.” + +“Dat boy kin lie, yas,” said Aunt Belindy, “God A’mighty knows ever +time I ben to Centaville dem sto’ keepas ain’t done a blessed t’ing +but settin’ down.” + +“Settin’ down--Lord! dey warn’t settin’ down to-day; you heah me.” + +“W’at dey doin’ ef dey ain’t settin’ down, Unc’ Pierson?” asked Betsy +with amiable curiosity. + +“You jis drap dat ‘uncle,’ you,” turning wrathfully upon the girl, +“sence w’en you start dat new trick?” + +“Lef de chile ’lone, Pierson, lef ’er alone. Come heah, Betsy, an’ set +by yo’ Uncle Hiurm.” + +From the encouraging nearness of Uncle Hiram, she ventured to ask +“w’at you ’low dey doin’ ef dey ain’t settin’ down?” this time without +adding the offensive title. + +“Dey flyin’ ’roun’, Lord! dey hidin’ dey sef! dey gittin’ out o’ de +way, I tell you. Grégor jis ben a raisin’ ole Cain in Centaville.” + +“I know’d it; could a’ tole you dat mese’f. My Lan’! but dats a piece, +dat Grégor,” Aunt Belindy enunciated between paroxysms of laughter, +seating herself with her fat arms resting on her knees, and her whole +bearing announcing pleased anticipation. + +“Dat boy neva did have no car’ fur de salvation o’ his soul,” groaned +Uncle Hiram. + +“W’at he ben a doin’ yonda?” demanded Aunt Belindy impatiently. + +“Well,” said Pierson, assuming a declamatory air and position in the +middle of the large kitchen, “he lef’ heah--w’at time he lef heah, +Aunt B’lindy?” + +“He done lef’ fo’ dinna, ’caze I seed ’im a lopin’ to’ads de riva, +time I flung dat Sampson boy out o’ de doo’, bringin’ dem greens in +heah ’dout washin’ of ’em.” + +“Dat’s so; it war good dinna time w’en he come a lopin’ in town. Dat +hoss look like he ben swimmin’ in Cane Riva, he done ride him so hard. +He fling he se’f down front o’ Grammont’s sto’ an’ he come a stompin’ +in, look like gwine hu’t somebody. Ole Grammont tell him, ‘How you +come on, Grégor? Come ova tu de house an’ eat dinna wid us: de ladies +be pleas tu see you.’ ” + +“Humph,” muttered Aunt Belindy, “dem Grammont gals be glad to see any +t’ing dat got breeches on; lef ’lone good lookin’ piece like dat +Grégor.” + +“Grégor, he neva sey, ‘Tank you dog,’ jis’ fling he big dolla down on +de counta an’ ’low ‘don’t want no dinna: gimme some w’iskey.’ ” + +“Yas, yas, Lord,” from Aunt Belindy. + +“Ole Grammont, he push de bottle to’ads ’im, an’ I ’clar to Goodness +ef he didn’ mos fill dat tumbla to de brim, an’ drink it down, neva +blink a eye. Den he tu’n an treat ev’y las’ w’ite man stan’in’ roun’; +dat ole kiarpenta man; de blacksmif; Marse Verdon. He keep on a +treatin’; Grammont, he keep a handin’ out de w’iskey; Grégor he keep +on a drinkin’ an a treatin’--Grammont, he keep a handin’ out; don’t +make no odds tu him s’long uz dat bring de money in de draw. I ben a +stan’in’ out on de gallery, me, a peekin’ in. An’ Grégor, he cuss and +swar an’ he kiarry on, an ’low he want play game poka. Den dey all +goes a trompin’ in de back room an’ sets down roun’ de table, an’ I +comes a creepin’ in, me, whar I kin look frough de doo’, an dar dey +sets an’ plays an Grégor, he drinks w’iskey an’ he wins de money. An’ +arta w’ile Marse Verdon, he little eyes blinkin’, he ’low’, ‘y’ all +had a shootin’ down tu Place-du-Bois, _hein_ Grégor?’ Grégor, he neva +say nuttin’: he jis’ draw he pistol slow out o’ he pocket an’ lay it +down on de table; an’ he look squar in Marse Verdon eyes. Man! ef you +eva seed some pussun tu’n’ w’ite!” + +“Reckon dat heifa ‘Milky’ look black side li’le Verdon dat time,” +chuckled Aunt Belindy. + +“Jis’ uz w’ite uz Unc’ Hiurm’s shurt an’ a trimblin’, an’ neva say no +mo’ ’bout shootin’. Den ole Grammont, he kine o’ hang back an’ say, +‘You git de jestice de peace, ’hine you, kiarrin’ conceal’ weepons dat +a-way, Grégor.’ ” + +“Dat ole Grammont, he got to git he gab in ef he gwine die fu’ it,” +interrupted Aunt Belindy. + +“Grégor say--‘I don’t ’lows to kiarr no conceal’ weepons,’ an he draw +nudda pistol slow out o’ he udda pocket an’ lay et on de table. By dat +time he gittin’ all de money, he crammin’ de money in he pocket; an’ +dem fellas dey gits up one arta d’udda kine o’ shy-like, an’ sneaks +out. Den Grégor, he git up an come out o’ de room, he coat ’crost he +arm, an’ de pistols a stickin’ out an him lookin’ sassy tell ev’y body +make way, same ef he ben Jay Goul’. Ef he look one o’ ’em in de eye +dey outs wid, ‘Howdy, Grégor--how you come on, Grégor?’ jis’ uz pelite +uz a peacock, an’ him neva take no trouble to yansa ’em. He jis’ holla +out fu’ somebody bring dat hoss tu de steps, an’ him stan’in’ ’s big +uz life, waitin’. I gits tu de hoss fus’, me, an’ leads ’im up, an’ he +gits top dat hoss stidy like he ain’t tetch a drap, an’ he fling me +big dolla.” + +“Whar de dolla, Mista Pierson?” enquired Betsy. + +“De dolla in my pocket, an’ et gwine stay dah. Didn’ ax you fu’ no +‘Mista Pierson.’ Whar yu’ all tink he went on dat hoss?” + +“How you reckon we knows whar he wint; we wasn’t dah,” replied Aunt +Belindy. + +“He jis’ went a lopin’ twenty yards down to Chartrand’s sto’. I goes +on ’hine ’im see w’at he gwine do. Dah he git down f’um de hoss an’ go +a stompin’ in de sto’--eve’ybody stan’in’ back jis’ same like fu’ Jay +Goul’, an’ he fling bill down on de counta an’ ’low, ‘Fill me up a +bottle, Chartrand, I’se gwine travelin’.’ Den he ’lows, ‘You treats +eve’y las’ man roun’ heah at my ’spence, black an’ w’ite--nuttin’ fu’ +me,’ an’ he fole he arms an’ lean back on de counta, jis’ so. +Chartrand, he look skeerd, he say ‘François gwine wait on you.’ But +Grégor, he ’low he don’t wants no rusty skileton a waitin’ on him w’en +he treat, ‘Wait on de gemmen yo’se’f--step up gemmen.’ Chartrand ’low, +‘Damn ef nigga gwine drink wid w’ite man in dat sto’,’ all same he +kine git ’hine box tu say dat.” + +“Lord, Lord, de ways o’ de transgressor!” groaned Uncle Hiram. + +“You want to see dem niggas sneaking ’way,” resumed Pierson, “dey +knows Grégor gwine fo’ce ’em drink; dey knows Chartrand gwine make it +hot fu’ ’em art’ards ef dey does. Grégor he spie me jis’ I’se tryin’ +glide frough de doo’ an he call out, ‘Yonda a gemmen f’um +Place-du-Bois; Pierson, come heah; you’se good ’nough tu drink wid any +w’ite man, ’cept me; you come heah, take drink wid Mr. Louis +Chartrand.’ + +“I ’lows don’t wants no drink, much ’bleege, Marse Grégor’. ‘Yis, you +wants drink,’ an’ ’id dat he draws he pistol. ‘Mista Chartrand want +drink, too. I done owe Mista Chartrand somethin’ dis long time; I’se +gwine pay ’im wid a treat,’ he say. Chartrand look like he on fiar, he +so red, he so mad, he swell up same like ole bull frog.” + +“Dat make no odd,” chuckled Aunt Belindy, “he gwine drink wid nigga ef +Grégor say so.” + +“Yes, he drink, Lord, only he cuss me slow, an’ ’low he gwine break my +skull.” + +“Lordy! I knows you was jis’ a trimblin’, Mista Pierson.” + +“Warn’t trimblin’ no mo’ ’en I’se trimblin’ dis minute, an’ you drap +dat ‘Mista.’ Den w’at you reckon? Yonda come Père Antoine; he come an’ +stan’ in de doo’ an’ he hole up he han’; look like he ain’t ’feard no +body an’ he ’low: ‘Grégor Sanchun, how is you dar’ come in dis heah +peaceful town frowin’ of it into disorda an’ confusion? Ef you isn’t +’feard o’ man; hasn’t you got no fear o’ God A’mighty wat punishes?’ ” + +“Grégor, he look at ’im an’ he say cool like, ‘Howdy, Père Antoine; +how you come on?’ He got he pistol w’at he draw fu’ make Chartrand +drink wid dis heah nigga,--he foolin’ wid it an’ a rubbin’ it up and +down he pants, an’ he ’low ‘Dis a gemmen w’at fit to drink wid a +Sanchun--w’at’ll you have?’ But Père Antoine, he go on makin’ a su’mon +same like he make in chu’ch, an’ Grégor, he lean he two arm back on de +counta--kine o’ smilin’ like, an’ he say, ‘Chartrand, whar dat bottle +I orda you put up?’ Chartrand bring de bottle; Grégor, he put de +bottle in he coat pocket wat hang on he arm--car’ful. + +"Père Antoine, he go on preachin’, he say, ‘I tell you dis young man, +you ’se on de big road w’at leads tu hell.’ + +“Den Grégor straight he se’f up an’ walk close to Père Antoine an’ he +say, ‘Hell an’ damnation dar ain’t no sich a place. I reckon she know; +w’at you know side o’ her. She say dar ain’t no hell, an’ ef you an’ +de Archbishop an’ de Angel Gabriel come along an’ ’low dey a hell, you +all liars,’ an’ he say, ‘Make way dah, I’se a gittin’ out o’ heah; dis +ain’t no town fittin’ to hol’ a Sanchun. Make way ef you don’ wants to +go to Kingdom come fo’ yo’ time.’ + +“Well, I ’lows dey did make way. Only Père Antoine, he look mighty +sorry an’ down cas’. + +“Grégor go out dat sto’ taking plenty room, an’ walkin’ car’ful like, +an’ he swing he se’f on de hoss; den he lean down mos’ flat an’ stick +he spurs in dat hoss an’ he go tar’in’ like de win’ down street, out +o’ de town, a firin’ he pistol up in de a’r.” + +Uncle Hiram had listened to the foregoing recital with troubled +countenance, and with many a protesting groan. He now shook his old +white head, and heaved a deep sigh. “All dat gwine come hard an’ heavy +on de madam. She don’t desarve it--God knows, she don’t desarve it.” + +“How you, ole like you is, kin look fu’ somethin’ diffunt, Unc’ +Hiurm?” observed Aunt Belindy philosophically. “Don’t you know Grégor +gwine be Grégor tell he die? Dat’s all dar is ’bout it.” + +Betsy arose with the sudden recollection that she had let the time +pass for bringing in Miss Thérèse’s hot water, and Pierson went to the +stove to see what Aunt Belindy had reserved for him in the shape of +supper. + + + + +IX + +The Reason Why. + + +Sampson, the young colored boy who had lighted Fanny’s fire on the +first day of her arrival at Place-du-Bois, and who had made such +insinuating advances of friendliness towards her, had continued to +attract her notice and good will. He it was who lighted her fires on +such mornings as they were needed. For there had been no winter. In +mid-January, the grass was fresh and green; trees and plants were +putting forth tender shoots, as if in welcome to spring; roses were +blossoming, and it was a veritable atmosphere of Havana rather than of +central Louisiana that the dwellers at Place-du-Bois were enjoying. +But finally winter made tardy assertion of its rights. One morning +broke raw and black with an icy rain falling, and young Sampson +arriving in the early bleakness to attend to his duties at the +cottage, presented a picture of human distress to move the most +hardened to pity. Though dressed comfortably in the clothing with +which Fanny had apparelled him--he was ashen. Save for the chattering +of his teeth, his body seemed possessed of a paralytic inability to +move. He knelt before the empty fire-place as he had done on that +first day, and with deep sighs and groans went about his work. Then he +remained long before the warmth that he had kindled; even lying full +length upon the soft rug, to bask in the generous heat that permeated +and seemed to thaw his stiffened limbs. + +Next, he went quietly into the bedroom to attend to the fire there. +Hosmer and Fanny were still sleeping. He approached a decorated basket +that hung against the wall; a receptacle for old newspapers and odds +and ends. He drew something from his rather capacious coat pocket, +and, satisfying himself that Hosmer slept, thrust it in the bottom of +the basket, well covered by the nondescript accumulation that was +there. + +The house was very warm and cheerful when they arose, and after +breakfasting Hosmer felt unusually reluctant to quit his fire-side and +face the inclement day; for an unaccustomed fatigue hung upon his +limbs and his body was sore, as from the effect of bruises. But he +went, nevertheless, well encased in protective rubber; and as he +turned away from the house, Fanny hastened to the hanging basket, and +fumbling nervously in its depths, found what the complaisant Sampson +had left for her. + +The cold rain had gradually changed into a fine mist, that in +descending, spread an icy coat upon every object that it touched. When +Hosmer returned at noon, he did not leave the house again. + +During the afternoon Thérèse knocked at Fanny’s door. She was +enveloped in a long hooded cloak, her face glowing from contact with +the sharp moist air, and myriad crystal drops clinging to her fluffy +blonde hair that looked very golden under the dark hood that covered +it. She wanted to learn how Fanny accepted this unpleasant change of +atmospheric conditions, intending to bear her company for the +remainder of the day if she found her depressed, as was often the +case. + +“Why, I didn’t know you were home,” she said, a little startled, to +Hosmer who opened the door to her. “I came over to show Mrs. Hosmer +something pretty that I don’t suppose she ever saw before.” It was a +branch from a rose-tree, bearing two open blossoms and a multitude of +buds, creamy pink, all encased in an icy transparency that gleamed +like diamonds. “Isn’t it exquisite?” she said, holding the spray up +for Fanny’s admiration. But she saw at a glance that the spirit of +Disorder had descended and settled upon the Hosmer household. + +The usually neat room was in a sad state of confusion. Some of the +pictures had been taken from the walls, and were leaning here and +there against chairs and tables. The mantel ornaments had been removed +and deposited at random and in groups about the room. On the hearth +was a pail of water in which swam a huge sponge; and Fanny sat beside +the center-table that was piled with her husband’s wearing apparel, +holding in her lap a coat which she had evidently been passing under +inspection. Her hair had escaped from its fastenings; her collar was +hooked awry; her face was flushed and her whole bearing indicated her +condition. + +Hosmer took the frozen spray from Thérèse’s hand, and spoke a little +about the beauty of the trees, especially the young cedars that he had +passed out in the hills on his way home. + +“It’s all well and good to talk about flowers and things, Mrs. +Laferm--sit down please--but when a person’s got the job that I’ve got +on my hands, she’s something else to think about. And David here +smoking one cigar after another. He knows all I’ve got to do, and goes +and sends those darkies home right after dinner.” + +Thérèse was so shocked that for a while she could say nothing; till +for Hosmer’s sake she made a quick effort to appear at ease. + +“What have you to do, Mrs. Hosmer? Let me help you, I can give you the +whole afternoon,” she said with an appearance of being ready for any +thing that was at hand to be done. + +Fanny turned the coat over in her lap, and looked down helplessly at a +stain on the collar, that she had been endeavoring to remove; at the +same time pushing aside with patient repetition the wisp of hair that +kept falling over her cheek. + +“Belle Worthington’ll be here before we know it; her and her husband +and that Lucilla of hers. David knows how Belle Worthington is, just +as well as I do; there’s no use saying he don’t. If she was to see a +speck of dirt in this house or on David’s clothes, or anything, why +we’d never hear the last of it. I got a letter from her,” she +continued, letting the coat fall to the floor, whilst she endeavored +to find her pocket. + +“Is she coming to visit you?” asked Thérèse who had taken up a feather +brush, and was dusting and replacing the various ornaments that were +scattered through the room. + +“She’s going down to Muddy Graw (Mardi-Gras) her and her husband and +Lucilla and she’s going to stop here a while. I had that letter--I +guess I must of left it in the other room.” + +“Never mind,” Thérèse hastened to say, seeing that her whole energies +were centered on finding the letter. + +“Let me look,” said Hosmer, making a movement towards the bedroom +door, but Fanny had arisen and holding out a hand to detain him she +went into the room herself, saying she knew where she’d left it. + +“Is this the reason you’ve kept yourself shut up here in the house so +often?” Thérèse asked of Hosmer, drawing near him. “Never telling me a +word of it,” she went on, “it wasn’t right; it wasn’t kind.” + +“Why should I have put any extra burden on you?” he answered, looking +down at her, and feeling a joy in her presence there, that seemed like +a guilty indulgence in face of his domestic shame. + +“Don’t stay,” Thérèse said. “Leave me here. Go to your office or over +to the house--leave me alone with her.” + +Fanny returned, having found the letter, and spoke with increased +vehemence of the necessity of having the house in perfect trim against +the arrival of Belle Worthington, from whom they would never hear the +last, and so forth. + +“Well, your husband is going out, and that will give us a chance to +get things righted,” said Thérèse encouragingly. “You know men are +always in the way at such times.” + +“It’s what he ought to done before; and left Suze and Minervy here,” +she replied with grudging acquiescence. + +After repeated visits to the bedroom, under various pretexts, Fanny +grew utterly incapable to do more than sit and gaze stupidly at +Thérèse, who busied herself in bringing the confusion of the +sitting-room into some order. + +She continued to talk disjointedly of Belle Worthington and her well +known tyrannical characteristics in regard to cleanliness; finishing +by weeping mildly at the prospect of her own inability to ever reach +the high standard required by her exacting friend. + +It was far in the afternoon--verging upon night, when Thérèse +succeeded in persuading her that she was ill and should go to bed. She +gladly seized upon the suggestion of illness; assuring Thérèse that +she alone had guessed her affliction: that whatever was thought +singular in her behavior must be explained by that sickness which was +past being guessed at--then she went to bed. + +It was late when Hosmer left his office; a rough temporary shanty, put +together near the ruined mill. + +He started out slowly on his long cold ride. His physical malaise of +the morning had augmented as the day went on, and he was beginning to +admit to himself that he was “in for it.” + +But the cheerless ride was lightened by a picture that had been with +him through the afternoon, and that moved him in his whole being, as +the moment approached when it might be changed to reality. He knew +Fanny’s habits; knew that she would be sleeping now. Thérèse would not +leave her there alone in the house--of that he was sure. And he +pictured Thérèse at this moment seated at his fire-side. He would find +her there when he entered. His heart beat tumultuously at the thought. +It was a very weak moment with him, possibly, one in which his +unnerved condition stood for some account. But he felt that when he +saw her there, waiting for him, he would cast himself at her feet and +kiss them. He would crush her white hands against his bosom. He would +bury his face in her silken hair. She should know how strong his love +was, and he would hold her in his arms till she yield back tenderness +to his own. But--Thérèse met him on the steps. As he was mounting +them, she was descending; wrapped in her long cloak, her pretty head +covered by the dark hood. + +“Oh, are you going?” he asked. + +She heard the note of entreaty in his voice. + +“Yes,” she answered, “I shouldn’t have left her before you came; but I +knew you were here; I heard your horse’s tread a moment ago. She’s +asleep. Good night. Take courage and have a brave heart,” she said, +pressing his hand a moment in both hers, and was gone. + +The room was as he had pictured it; order restored and the fire +blazing brightly. On the table was a pot of hot tea and a tempting +little supper laid. But he pushed it all aside and buried his face +down upon the table into his folded arms, groaning aloud. Physical +suffering; thwarted love, and at the same time a feeling of +self-condemnation, made him wish that life were ended for him. + +Fanny awoke close upon morning, not knowing what had aroused her. She +was for a little while all bewildered and unable to collect herself. +She soon learned the cause of her disturbance. Hosmer was tossing +about and his outstretched arm lay across her face, where it had +evidently been flung with some violence. She took his hand to move it +away, and it burned her like a coal of fire. As she touched him he +started and began to talk incoherently. He evidently fancied himself +dictating a letter to some insurance company, in no pleased terms--of +which Fanny caught but snatches. Then: + +“That’s too much, Mrs. Lafirme; too much--too much--Don’t let Grégoire +burn--take him from the fire, some one. Thirty day’s credit--shipment +made on tenth,” he rambled on at intervals in his troubled sleep. + +Fanny trembled with apprehension as she heard him. Surely he has brain +fever she thought, and she laid her hand gently on his burning +forehead. He covered it with his own, muttering “Thérèse, Thérèse--so +good--let me love you.” + + + + +X + +Perplexing Things. + + +“Lucilla!” + +The pale, drooping girl started guiltily at her mother’s sharp +exclamation, and made an effort to throw back her shoulders. Then she +bit her nails nervously, but soon desisted, remembering that that +also, as well as yielding to a relaxed tendency of the spinal column, +was a forbidden indulgence. + +“Put on your hat and go on out and get a breath of fresh air; you’re +as white as milk-man’s cream.” + +Lucilla rose and obeyed her mother’s order with the precision of a +soldier, following the directions of his commander. + +“How submissive and gentle your daughter is,” remarked Thérèse. + +“Well, she’s got to be, and she knows it. Why, I haven’t got to do +more than look at that girl most times for her to understand what I +want. You didn’t notice, did you, how she straightened up when I +called ‘Lucilla’ to her? She knows by the tone of my voice what she’s +got to do.” + +“Most mothers can’t boast of having such power over their daughters.” + +“Well, I’m not the woman to stand any shenanigans from a child of +mine. I could name you dead loads of women that are just completely +walked over by their children. It’s a blessing that boy of Fanny’s +died, between you and I; its what I’ve always said. Why, Mrs. Laferm, +she couldn’t any more look after a youngster than she could after a +baby elephant. By the by, what do you guess is the matter with her, +any way?” + +“How, the matter?” Thérèse asked; the too ready blood flushing her +face and neck as she laid down her work and looked up at Mrs. +Worthington. + +“Why, she’s acting mighty queer, that’s all I can say for her.” + +“I haven’t been able to see her for some time,” Thérèse returned, +going back to her sewing, “but I suppose she got a little upset and +nervous over her husband; he had a few days of very serious illness +before you came.” + +“Oh, I’ve seen her in all sorts of states and conditions, and I’ve +never seen her like that before. Why, she does nothing in the God’s +world but whine and sniffle, and wish she was dead; it’s enough to +give a person the horrors. She can’t make out she’s sick; I never saw +her look better in my life. She must of gained ten pounds since she +come down here.” + +“Yes,” said Thérèse, “she was looking so well, and--and I thought +everything was going well with her too, but--” and she hesitated to go +on. + +“Oh, I know what you want to say. You can’t help that. No use +bothering your brains about that--now you just take my advice,” +exclaimed Mrs. Worthington brusquely. + +Then she laughed so loud and suddenly that Thérèse, being already +nervous, pricked her finger with her needle till the blood came; a +mishap which decided her to lay aside her work. + +“If you never saw a fish out of water, Mrs. Laferm, do take a peep at +Mr. Worthington astride that horse; it’s enough to make a cat expire!” + +Mrs. Worthington was on the whole rather inclined to take her husband +seriously. As often as he might excite her disapproval, it was seldom +that he aroused her mirth. So it may be gathered that his appearance +in this unfamiliar rôle of horseman was of the most mirth-provoking. + +He and Hosmer were dismounting at the cottage, which decided Mrs. +Worthington to go and look after them; Fanny for the time being--in +her opinion--not having “the gumption to look after a sick kitten.” + +“This is what I call solid comfort,” she said looking around the well +appointed sitting-room, before quitting it. + +“You ought to be a mighty happy woman, Mrs. Laferm; only I’d think +you’d die of lonesomeness, sometimes.” + +Thérèse laughed, and told her not to forget that she expected them all +over in the evening. + +“You can depend on me; and I’ll do my best to drag Fanny over; +so-long.” + +When left alone, Thérèse at once relapsed into the gloomy train of +reflections that had occupied her since the day she had seen with her +bodily eyes something of the wretched life that she had brought upon +the man she loved. And yet that wretchedness in its refinement of +cruelty and immorality she could not guess and was never to know. +Still, she had seen enough to cause her to ask herself with a shudder +“was I right--was I right?” + +She had always thought this lesson of right and wrong a very plain +one. So easy of interpretation that the simplest minded might solve it +if they would. And here had come for the first time in her life a +staggering doubt as to its nature. She did not suspect that she was +submitting one of those knotty problems to her unpracticed judgment +that philosophers and theologians delight in disagreeing upon, and her +inability to unravel it staggered her. She tried to convince herself +that a very insistent sting of remorse which she felt, came from +selfishness--from the pain that her own heart suffered in the +knowledge of Hosmer’s unhappiness. She was not callous enough to quiet +her soul with the balm of having intended the best. She continued to +ask herself only “was I right?” and it was by the answer to that +question that she would abide, whether in the stony content of +accomplished righteousness, or in an enduring remorse that pointed to +a goal in whose labyrinthine possibilities her soul lost itself and +fainted away. + +Lucilla went out to get a breath of fresh air as her mother had +commanded, but she did not go far to seek it. Not further than the end +of the back veranda, where she stood for some time motionless, before +beginning to occupy herself in a way which Aunt Belindy, who was +watching her from the kitchen window, considered highly problematical. +The negress was wiping a dish and giving it a fine polish in her +absence of mind. When her curiosity could no longer contain itself she +called out: + +“W’ats dat you’se doin’ dah, you li’le gal? Come heah an’ le’ me see.” +Lucilla turned with the startled look which seemed to be usual with +her when addressed. + +“Le’ me see,” repeated Aunt Belindy pleasantly. + +Lucilla approached the window and handed the woman a small square of +stiff writing paper which was stuck with myriad tiny pin-holes; some +of which she had been making when interrupted by Aunt Belindy. + +“W’at in God A’Mighty’s name you call dat ’ar?” the darkey asked +examining the paper critically, as though expecting the riddle would +solve itself before her eyes. + +“Those are my acts I’ve been counting,” the girl replied a little +gingerly. + +“Yo’ ax? I don’ see nuttin’ ’cep’ a piece o’ papah plum fill up wid +holes. W’at you call ax?” + +“Acts--acts. Don’t you know what acts are?” + +“How you want me know? I neva ben to no school whar you larn all dat.” + +“Why, an act is something you do that you don’t want to do--or +something you don’t want to do, that you do--I mean that you don’t do. +Or if you want to eat something and don’t. Or an aspiration; that’s an +act, too.” + +“Go long! W’ats dat--aspiration?” + +“Why, to say any kind of little prayer; or if you invoke our Lord, or +our Blessed Lady, or one of the saints, that’s an aspiration. You can +make them just as quick as you can think--you can make hundreds and +hundreds in a day.” + +“My Lan’! Dat’s w’at you’se studyin’ ’bout w’en you’se steppin’ ’roun’ +heah like a droopy pullet? An’ I t’ought you was studyin’ ’bout dat +beau you lef’ yonda to Sent Lous.” + +“You mustn’t say such things to me; I’m going to be a religious.” + +“How dat gwine henda you have a beau ef you’se religious?” + +“The religious never get married,” turning very red, “and don’t live +in the world like others.” + +“Look heah, chile, you t’inks I’se fool? Religion--no religion, whar +you gwine live ef you don’ live in de word? Gwine live up in de moon?” + +“You’re a very ignorant person,” replied Lucilla, highly offended. “A +religious devotes her life to God, and lives in the convent.” + +“Den w’y you neva said ‘convent’? I knows all ’bout convent. W’at you +gwine do wid dem ax w’en de papah done all fill up?” handing the +singular tablet back to her. + +“Oh,” replied Lucilla, “when I have thousands and thousands I gain +twenty-five years’ indulgence.” + +“Is dat so?” + +“Yes,” said the girl; and divining that Aunt Belindy had not +understood, “twenty-five years that I don’t have to go to purgatory. +You see most people have to spend years and years in purgatory, before +they can get to Heaven.” + +“How you know dat?” + +If Aunt Belindy had asked Lucilla how she knew that the sun shone, she +could not have answered with more assurance “because I know” as she +turned and walked rather scornfully away. + +“W’at dat kine o’ fool talk dey larns gals up yonda tu Sent Lous? An’ +huh ma a putty woman; yas, bless me; all dress up fittin’ to kill. +Don’ ’pear like she studyin’ ’bout ax.” + + + + +XI + +A Social Evening. + + +Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Duplan with their little daughter Ninette, who had +been invited to Place-du-Bois for supper, as well as for the evening, +were seated with Thérèse in the parlor, awaiting the arrival of the +cottage guests. They had left their rather distant plantation, Les +Chênières, early in the afternoon, wishing as usual to make the most +of these visits, which, though infrequent, were always so much +enjoyed. + +The room was somewhat altered since that summer day when Thérèse had +sat in its cool shadows, hearing the story of David Hosmer’s life. +Only with such difference, however, as the change of season called +for; imparting to it a rich warmth that invited to sociability and +friendly confidences. In the depths of the great chimney glowed with a +steady and dignified heat, the huge back-log, whose disposal Uncle +Hiram had superintended in person; and the leaping flames from the dry +hickories that surrounded it, lent a very genial light to the +grim-visaged Lafirmes who looked down from their elevation on the +interesting group gathered about the hearth. + +Conversation had never once flagged with these good friends; for, +aside from much neighborhood gossip to be told and listened to, there +was the always fertile topic of “crops” to be discussed in all its +bearings, that touched, in its local and restricted sense, the labor +question, cultivation, freight rates, and the city merchant. + +With Mrs. Duplan there was a good deal to be said about the unusual +mortality among “Plymouth-Rocks” owing to an alarming prevalence of +“pip,” which malady, however, that lady found to be gradually yielding +to a heroic treatment introduced into her _basse-cour_ by one Coulon, +a piney wood sage of some repute as a mystic healer. + +This was a delicate refined little woman, somewhat old-fashioned and +stranded in her incapability to keep pace with the modern conduct of +life; but giving her views with a pretty self-confidence, that showed +her a ruler in her peculiar realm. + +The young Ninette had extended herself in an easy chair, in an +attitude of graceful abandonment, the earnest brown eyes looking +eagerly out from under a tangle of auburn hair, and resting with +absorbed admiration upon her father, whose words and movements she +followed with unflagging attentiveness. The fastidious little miss was +clad in a dainty gown that reached scarcely below the knees; revealing +the shapely limbs that were crossed and extended to let the well shod +feet rest upon the polished brass fender. + +Thérèse had given what information lay within her range, concerning +the company which was expected. But her confidences had plainly been +insufficient to prepare Mrs. Duplan for the startling effect produced +by Mrs. Worthington on that little woman in her black silk of a +by-gone fashion; so splendid was Mrs. Worthington’s erect and imposing +figure, so blonde her blonde hair, so bright her striking color and so +comprehensive the sweep of her blue and scintillating gown. Yet was +Mrs. Worthington not at ease, as might be noticed in the unnatural +quaver of her high-pitched voice and the restless motion of her hands, +as she seated herself with an arm studiedly resting upon the table +near by. + +Hosmer had met the Duplans before; on the occasion of a former visit +to Place-du-Bois and again at Les Chênières when he had gone to see +the planter on business connected with the lumber trade. + +Fanny was a stranger to them and promised to remain such; for she +acknowledged her presentation with a silent bow and retreated as far +from the group as a decent concession to sociability would permit. + +Thérèse with her pretty Creole tact was not long in bringing these +seemingly incongruent elements into some degree of harmony. Mr. Duplan +in his courteous and rather lordly way was presently imparting to Mrs. +Worthington certain reminiscences of a visit to St. Louis twenty-five +years before, when he and Mrs. Duplan had rather hastily traversed +that interesting town during their wedding journey. Mr. Duplan’s +manner had a singular effect upon Mrs. Worthington, who became +dignified, subdued, and altogether unnatural in her endeavor to adjust +herself to it. + +Mr. Worthington seated himself beside Mrs. Duplan and was soon trying +to glean information, in his eager short-sighted way, of psychological +interest concerning the negro race; such effort rather bewildering +that good lady, who could not bring herself to view the negro as an +interesting or suitable theme to be introduced into polite +conversation. + +Hosmer sat and talked good-naturedly to the little girls, endeavoring +to dispel the shyness with which they seemed inclined to view each +other--and Thérèse crossed the room to join Fanny. + +“I hope you’re feeling better,” she ventured, “you should have let me +help you while Mr. Hosmer was ill.” + +Fanny looked away, biting her lip, the sudden tears coming to her +eyes. She answered with unsteady voice, “Oh, I was able to look after +my husband myself, Mrs. Laferm.” + +Thérèse reddened at finding herself so misunderstood. “I meant in your +housekeeping, Mrs. Hosmer; I could have relieved you of some of that +worry, whilst you were occupied with your husband.” + +Fanny continued to look unhappy; her features taking on that peculiar +downward droop which Thérèse had come to know and mistrust. + +“Are you going to New Orleans with Mrs. Worthington?” she asked, “she +told me she meant to try and persuade you.” + +“No; I’m not going. Why?” looking suspiciously in Thérèse’s face. + +“Well,” laughed Thérèse, “only for the sake of asking, I suppose. I +thought you’d enjoy Mardi-Gras, never having seen it.” + +“I’m not going anywheres unless David goes along,” she said, with an +impertinent ring in her voice, and with a conviction that she was +administering a stab and a rebuke. She had come prepared to watch her +husband and Mrs. Lafirme, her heart swelling with jealous suspicion as +she looked constantly from one to the other, endeavoring to detect +signs of an understanding between them. Failing to discover such, and +loth to be robbed of her morbid feast of misery, she set her failure +down to their pre-determined subtlety. Thérèse was conscious of a +change in Fanny’s attitude, and felt herself unable to account for it +otherwise than by whim, which she knew played a not unimportant rôle +in directing the manner of a large majority of women. Moreover, it was +not a moment to lose herself in speculation concerning this woman’s +capricious behavior. Her guests held the first claim upon her +attentions. Indeed, here was Mrs. Worthington even now loudly +demanding a pack of cards. “Here’s a gentleman never heard of +six-handed euchre. If you’ve got a pack of cards, Mrs. Laferm, I guess +I can show him quick enough that it can be done.” + +“Oh, I don’t doubt Mrs. Worthington’s ability to make any startling +and pleasing revelations,” rejoined the planter good humoredly, and +gallantly following Mrs. Worthington who had risen with the view of +putting into immediate effect her scheme of initiating these slow +people into the unsuspected possibilities of euchre; a game which, +however adaptable in other ways, could certainly not be indulged in by +seven persons. After each one proffering, as is usual on such +occasions, his readiness to assume the character of on-looker, Mr. +Worthington’s claim to entire indifference, if not inability--confirmed +by his wife--was accepted as the most sincere, and that gentleman was +excluded and excused. + +He watched them as they seated themselves at table, even lending +assistance, in his own awkward way, to range the chairs in place. Then +he followed the game for a while, standing behind Fanny to note the +outcome of her reckless offer of “five on hearts,” with only three +trumps in hand, and every indication of little assistance from her +partners, Mr. Duplan and Belle Worthington. + +At one end of the room was a long, low, well-filled book-case. Here +had been the direction of Mr. Worthington’s secret and stolen glances +the entire evening. And now towards this point he finally transported +himself by gradual movements which he believed appeared unstudied and +indifferent. He was confronted by a good deal of French--to him an +unfamiliar language. Here a long row of Balzac; then, the Waverley +Novels in faded red cloth of very old date. Racine, Moliere, Bulwer +following in more modern garb; Shakespeare in a compass that promised +very small type. His quick trained glance sweeping along the shelves, +contracted into a little frown of resentment while he sent his hand +impetuously through his scant locks, standing them quite on end. + +On the very lowest shelf were five imposing volumes in dignified black +and gold, bearing the simple inscription “Lives of the Saints--Rev. A. +Butler.” Upon one of them, Mr. Worthington seized, opening it at +hazard. He had fallen upon the history of St. Monica, mother of the +great St. Austin--a woman whose habits it appears had been so closely +guarded in her childhood by a pious nurse, that even the quenching of +her natural thirst was permitted only within certain well defined +bounds. This mentor used to say “you are now for drinking water, but +when you come to be mistress of the cellar, water will be despised, +but the habit of drinking will stick by you.” Highly interesting, Mr. +Worthington thought, as he brushed his hair all down again the right +way and seated himself the better to learn the fortunes of the good +St. Monica who, curiously enough, notwithstanding those early +incentives to temperance, “insensibly contracted an inclination to +wine,” drinking “whole cups of it with pleasure as it came in her +way.” A “dangerous intemperance” which it finally pleased Heaven to +cure through the instrumentality of a maid servant taunting her +mistress with being a “wine bibber.” + +Mr. Worthington did not stop with the story of Saint Monica. He lost +himself in those details of asceticism, martyrdom, superhuman +possibilities which man is capable of attaining under peculiar +conditions of life--something he had not yet “gone into.” + +The voices at the card table would certainly have disturbed a man with +less power of mind concentration. For Mrs. Worthington in this +familiar employment was herself again--_con fuoco_. Here was Mr. +Duplan in high spirits; his wife putting forth little gushes of +bird-like exaltation as the fascinations of the game revealed +themselves to her. Even Hosmer and Thérèse were drawn for the moment +from their usual preoccupation. Fanny alone was the ghost of the +feast. Her features never relaxed from their settled gloom. She played +at hap-hazard, listlessly throwing down the cards or letting them fall +from her hands, vaguely asking what were trumps at inopportune +moments; showing that inattentiveness so exasperating to an eager +player and which oftener than once drew a sharp rebuke from Belle +Worthington. + +“Don’t you wish we could play,” said Ninette to her companion from her +comfortable perch beside the fire, and looking longingly towards the +card table. + +“Oh, no,” replied Lucilla briefly, gazing into the fire, with hands +folded in her lap. Thin hands, showing up very white against the dull +colored “convent uniform” that hung in plain, severe folds about her +and reached to her very ankles. + +“Oh, don’t you? I play often at home when company comes. And I play +cribbage and _vingt-et-un_ with papa and win lots of money from him.” + +“That’s wrong.” + +“No, it isn’t; papa wouldn’t do it if it was wrong,” she answered +decidedly. “Do you go to the convent?” she asked, looking critically +at Lucilla and drawing a little nearer, so as to be confidential. +“Tell me about it,” she continued, when the other had replied +affirmatively. “Is it very dreadful? you know they’re going to send me +soon.” + +“Oh, it’s the best place in the world,” corrected Lucilla as eagerly +as she could. + +“Well, mamma says she was just as happy as could be there, but you see +that’s so awfully long ago. It must have changed since then.” + +“The convent never changes: it’s always the same. You first go to +chapel to mass early in the morning.” + +“Ugh!” shuddered Ninette. + +“Then you have studies,” continued Lucilla. “Then breakfast, then +recreation, then classes, and there’s meditation.” + +“Oh, well,” interrupted Ninette, “I believe anything most would suit +you, and mamma when she was little; but if I don’t like it--see here, +if I tell you something will you promise never, never, to tell?” + +“Is it any thing wrong?” + +“Oh, no, not very; it isn’t a real mortal sin. Will you promise?” + +“Yes,” agreed Lucilla; curiosity getting something the better of her +pious scruples. + +“Cross your heart?” + +Lucilla crossed her heart carefully, though a little reluctantly. + +“Hope you may die?” + +“Oh!” exclaimed the little convent girl aghast. + +“Oh, pshaw,” laughed Ninette, “never mind. But that’s what Polly +always says when she wants me to believe her: ‘hope I may die, Miss +Ninette.’ Well, this is it: I’ve been saving up money for the longest +time, oh ever so long. I’ve got eighteen dollars and sixty cents, and +when they send me to the convent, if I don’t like it, I’m going to run +away.” This last and startling revelation was told in a tragic whisper +in Lucilla’s ear, for Betsy was standing before them with a tray of +chocolate and coffee that she was passing around. + +“I yeard you,” proclaimed Betsy with mischievous inscrutable +countenance. + +“You didn’t,” said Ninette defiantly, and taking a cup of coffee. + +“Yas, I did, I yeard you,” walking away. + +“See here, Betsy,” cried Ninette recalling the girl, “you’re not going +to tell, are you?” + +“Dun know ef I isn’t gwine tell. Dun know ef I isn’t gwine tell Miss +Duplan dis yere ver’ minute.” + +“Oh Betsy,” entreated Ninette, “I’ll give you this dress if you don’t. +I don’t want it any more.” + +Betsy’s eyes glowed, but she looked down unconcernedly at the pretty +gown. + +“Don’t spec it fit me. An’ you know Miss T’rèse ain’t gwine let me go +flyin’ roun’ wid my laigs stickin’ out dat away.” + +“I’ll let the ruffle down, Betsy,” eagerly proposed Ninette. + +“Betsy!” called Thérèse a little impatiently. + +“Yas, ’um--I ben waitin’ fu’ de cups.” + +Lucilla had made many an aspiration--many an “act” the while. This +whole evening of revelry, and now this last act of wicked conspiracy +seemed to have tainted her soul with a breath of sin which she would +not feel wholly freed from, till she had cleansed her spirit in the +waters of absolution. + +The party broke up at a late hour, though the Duplans had a long +distance to go, and, moreover, had to cross the high and turbid river +to reach their carriage which had been left on the opposite bank, +owing to the difficulty of the crossing. + +Mr. Duplan took occasion of a moment aside to whisper to Hosmer with +the air of a connoisseur, “fine woman that Mrs. Worthington of yours.” + +Hosmer laughed at the jesting implication, whilst disclaiming it, and +Fanny looked moodily at them both, jealously wondering at the cause of +their good humor. + +Mrs. Duplan, under the influence of a charming evening passed in such +agreeable and distinguished company, was full of amiable bustle in +leaving and had many pleasant parting words to say to each, in her +pretty broken English. + +“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Mrs. Worthington to that lady, who had taken +admiring notice of the beautiful silver “Holy Angels” medal that hung +from Lucilla’s neck and rested against the dark gown. “Lucilla takes +after Mr. Worthington as far as religion goes--kind of different +though, for I must say it ain’t often he darkens the doors of a +church.” + +Mrs. Worthington always spoke of her husband present as of a husband +absent. A peculiarity which he patiently endured, having no talent for +repartee, that he had at one time thought of cultivating. But that +time was long past. + +The Duplans were the first to leave. Then Thérèse stood for a while on +the veranda in the chill night air watching the others disappear +across the lawn. Mr. and Mrs. Worthington and Lucilla had all shaken +hands with her in saying good night. Fanny followed suit limply and +grudgingly. Hosmer buttoned his coat impatiently and only lifted his +hat to Thérèse as he helped his wife down the stairs. + +Poor Fanny! she had already taken exception at that hand pressure +which was to come and for which she watched, and now her whole small +being was in a jealous turmoil--because there had been none. + + + + +XII + +Tidings That Sting. + + +Thérèse felt that the room was growing oppressive. She had been +sitting all morning alone before the fire, passing in review a great +heap of household linen that lay piled beside her on the floor, +alternating this occupation with occasional careful and tender offices +bestowed upon a wee lamb that had been brought to her some hours +before, and that now lay wounded and half lifeless upon a pile of +coffee sacks before the blaze. + +A fire was hardly needed, except to dispel the dampness that had even +made its insistent way indoors, covering walls and furniture with a +clammy film. Outside, the moisture was dripping from the glistening +magnolia leaves and from the pointed polished leaves of the live-oaks, +and the sun that had come out with intense suddenness was drawing it +steaming from the shingled roof-tops. + +When Thérèse, finally aware of the closeness of the room, opened the +door and went out on the veranda, she saw a man, a stranger, riding +towards the house and she stood to await his approach. He belonged to +what is rather indiscriminately known in that section of the State as +the “piney-woods” genus. A rawboned fellow, lank and long of leg; as +ungroomed with his scraggy yellow hair and beard as the scrubby little +Texas pony which he rode. His big soft felt hat had done unreasonable +service as a head-piece; and the “store clothes” that hung upon his +lean person could never in their remotest freshness have masqueraded +under the character of “all wool.” He was in transit, as the bulging +saddle-bags that hung across his horse indicated, as well as the rough +brown blanket strapped behind him to the animal’s back. He rode up +close to the rail of the veranda near which Thérèse stood, and nodded +to her without offering to raise or touch his hat. She was prepared +for the drawl with which he addressed her, and even guessed at what +his first words would be. + +“You’re Mrs. Laferm I ’low?” + +Thérèse acknowledged her identity with a bow. + +“My name’s Jimson; Rufe Jimson,” he went on, settling himself on the +pony and folding his long knotty hands over the hickory switch that he +carried in guise of whip. + +“Do you wish to speak to me? won’t you dismount?” Thérèse asked. + +“I hed my dinner down to the store,” he said taking her proposal as an +invitation to dine, and turning to expectorate a mouth full of tobacco +juice before continuing. “Capital sardines them air,” passing his hand +over his mouth and beard in unctuous remembrance of the oily dainties. + +“I’m just from Cornstalk, Texas, on mu way to Grant. An’ them roads as +I’ve traversed isn’t what I’d call the best in a fair and square +talk.” + +His manner bore not the slightest mark of deference. He spoke to +Thérèse as he might have spoken to one of her black servants, or as he +would have addressed a princess of royal blood if fate had ever +brought him into such unlikely contact, so clearly was the sense of +human equality native to him. + +Thérèse knew her animal, and waited patiently for his business to +unfold itself. + +“I reckon thar hain’t no ford hereabouts?” he asked, looking at her +with a certain challenge. + +“Oh, no; its even difficult crossing in the flat,” she answered. + +“Wall, I hed calc’lated continooing on this near side. Reckon I could +make it?” challenging her again to an answer. + +“There’s no road on this side,” she said, turning away to fasten more +securely the escaped branches of a rose-bush that twined about a +column near which she stood. + +Whether there were a road on this side or on the other side, or no +road at all, appeared to be matter of equal indifference to Mr. +Jimson, so far as his manner showed. He continued imperturbably “I +’lowed to stop here on a little matter o’ business. ’Tis some out o’ +mu way; more’n I’d calc’lated. You couldn’t tell the ixact distance +from here to Colfax, could you?” + +Thérèse rather impatiently gave him the desired information, and +begged that he would disclose his business with her. + +“Wall,” he said, “onpleasant news ’ll keep most times tell you’re +ready fur it. Thet’s my way o’ lookin’ at it.” + +“Unpleasant news for me?” she inquired, startled from her indifference +and listlessness. + +“Rather onpleasant ez I take it. I hain’t a makin’ no misstatement to +persume thet Grégor Sanchun was your nephew?” + +“Yes, yes,” responded Thérèse, now thoroughly alarmed, and approaching +as close to Mr. Rufe Jimson as the dividing rail would permit, “What +of him, please?” + +He turned again to discharge an accumulation of tobacco juice into a +thick border of violets, and resumed. + +“You see a hot-blooded young feller, ez wouldn’t take no more ’an give +no odds, stranger or no stranger in the town, he couldn’t ixpect civil +treatment; leastways not from Colonel Bill Klayton. Ez I said to +Tozier--” + +“Please tell me as quickly as possible what has happened,” demanded +Thérèse with trembling eagerness; steadying herself with both hands on +the railing before her. + +“You see it all riz out o’ a little altercation ’twixt him and Colonel +Klayton in the colonel’s store. Some says he’d ben drinkin’; others +denies it. Howsomever they did hev words risin’ out o’ the colonel +addressing your nephew under the title o’ ‘Frenchy’; which most takes +ez a insufficient cause for rilin’.” + +“He’s dead?” gasped Thérèse, looking at the dispassionate Texan with +horrified eyes. + +“Wall, yes,” an admission which he seemed not yet willing to leave +unqualified; for he went on “It don’t do to alluz speak out open an’ +above boards, leastways not thar in Cornstalk. But I’ll ’low to you, +it’s my opinion the colonel acted hasty. It’s true ’nough, the young +feller hed drawed, but ez I said to Tozier, thet’s no reason to +persume it was his intention to use his gun.” + +So Grégoire was dead. She understood it all now. The manner of his +death was plain to her as if she had seen it, out there in some +disorderly settlement. Killed by the hand of a stranger with whom +perhaps the taking of a man’s life counted as little as it had once +counted with his victim. This flood of sudden and painful intelligence +staggered her, and leaning against the column she covered her eyes +with both hands, for a while forgetting the presence of the man who +had brought the sad tidings. + +But he had never ceased his monotonous unwinding. “Thar hain’t no +manner o’ doubt, marm,” he was saying, “thet he did hev the sympathy +o’ the intire community--ez far ez they was free to express +it--barrin’ a few. Fur he was a likely young chap, that warn’t no two +opinions o’ that. Free with his money--alluz ready to set up fur a +friend. Here’s a bit o’ writin’ thet’ll larn you more o’ the +pertic’lars,” drawing a letter from his pocket, “writ by the Catholic +priest, by name of O’Dowd. He ’lowed you mought want proyer meetin’s +and sich.” + +“Masses,” corrected Thérèse, holding out her hand for the letter. With +the other hand she was wiping away the tears that had gathered thick +in her eyes. + +“Thar’s a couple more little tricks thet he sont,” continued Rufe +Jimson, apparently dislocating his joints to reach the depths of his +trouser pocket, from which he drew a battered pocket book wrapped +around with an infinity of string. From the grimy folds of this +receptacle he took a small paper parcel which he placed in her hand. +It was partly unfastened, and as she opened it fully, the pent-up +tears came blindingly--for before her lay a few curling rings of soft +brown hair, and a pair of scapulars, one of which was pierced by a +tell-tale bullet hole. + +“Won’t you dismount?” she presently asked again, this time a little +more kindly. + +“No, marm,” said the Texan, jerking his hitherto patient pony by the +bridle till it performed feats of which an impartial observer could +scarcely have suspected it. + +“Don’t reckon I could make Colfax before dark, do you?” + +“Hardly,” she said, turning away, “I’m much obliged to you, Mr. +Jimson, for having taken this trouble--if the flat is on the other +side, you need only call for it.” + +“Wall, good day, marm--I wish you luck,” he added, with a touch of +gallantry which her tears and sweet feminine presence had inspired. +Then turning, he loped his horse rapidly forward, leaning well back in +the saddle and his elbows sawing the air. + + + + +XIII + +Melicent Hears the News. + + +It was talked about and wept about at Place-du-Bois, that Grégoire +should be dead. It seemed to them all so unbelievable. Yet, whatever +hesitancy they had in accepting the fact of his death, was perforce +removed by the convincing proof of Father O’Dowd’s letter. + +None could remember but sweetness and kindness of him. Even Nathan, +who had been one day felled to earth by a crowbar in Grégoire’s hand, +had come himself to look at that deed as not altogether blamable in +light of the provocation that had called it forth. + +Fanny remembered those bouquets which had been daily offered to her +forlornness at her arrival; and the conversations in which they had +understood each other so well. The conviction that he was gone away +beyond the possibility of knowing him further, moved her to tears. +Hosmer, too, was grieved and shocked, without being able to view the +event in the light of a calamity. + +No one was left unmoved by the tidings which brought a lowering cloud +even upon the brow of Aunt Belindy, to rest there the whole day. Deep +were the mutterings she hurled at a fate that could have been so +short-sighted as to remove from earth so bright an ornament as +Grégoire. Her grief further spent much of itself upon the inoffensive +Betsy, who, for some inscrutable reason was for twenty-four hours +debarred entrance to the kitchen. + +Thérèse seated at her desk, devoted a morning to the writing of +letters, acquainting various members of the family with the unhappy +intelligence. She wrote first to Madame Santien, living now her lazy +life in Paris, with eyes closed to the duties that lay before her and +heart choked up with an egoism that withered even the mother +instincts. It was very difficult to withhold the reproach which she +felt inclined to deal her; hard to refrain from upbraiding a +selfishness which for a life-time had appeared to Thérèse as criminal. + +It was a matter less nice, less difficult, to write to the +brothers--one up on the Red River plantation living as best he could; +the other idling on the New Orleans streets. But it was after all a +short and simple story to tell. There was no lingering illness to +describe; no moment even of consciousness in which harrowing last +words were to be gathered and recorded. Only a hot senseless quarrel +to be told about; the speeding of a bullet with very sure aim, +and--quick death. + +Of course, masses must be said. Father O’Dowd was properly instructed. +Père Antoine in Centerville was addressed on the subject. The Bishop +of Natchitoches, respectfully asked to perform this last sad office +for the departed soul. And the good old priest and friend at the New +Orleans Cathedral, was informed of her desires. Not that Thérèse held +very strongly to this saying of masses for the dead; but it had been a +custom holding for generations in the family and which she was not +disposed to abandon now, even if she had thought of it. + +The last letter was sent to Melicent. Thérèse made it purposely short +and pointed, with a bare statement of facts--a dry, unemotional +telling, that sounded heartless when she read it over; but she let it +go. + + * * * * * + +Melicent was standing in her small, quaint sitting-room, her back to +the fire, and her hands clasped behind her. How handsome was this +Melicent! Pouting now, and with eyes half covered by the dark shaded +lids, as they gazed moodily out at the wild snowflakes that were +hurrying like crazy things against the warm window pane and meeting +their end there. A loose tea-gown clung in long folds about her. A +dull colored thing, save for the two broad bands of sapphire plush +hanging straight before, from throat to toe. Melicent was plainly +dejected; not troubled, nor sad, only dejected, and very much bored; a +condition that had made her yawn several times while she looked at the +falling snow. + +She was philosophizing a little. Wondering if the world this morning +were really the unpleasant place that it appeared, or if these +conditions of unpleasantness lay not rather within her own mental +vision; a train of thought that might be supposed to have furnished +her some degree of entertainment had she continued in its pursuit. But +she chose rather to dwell on her causes of unhappiness, and thus +convince herself that that unhappiness was indeed outside of her and +around her and not by any possibility to be avoided or circumvented. +There lay now a letter in her desk from David, filled with admonitions +if not reproof which she felt to be not entirely unjust, on the +disagreeable subject of Expenses. Looking around the pretty room she +conceded to herself that here had been temptations which she could not +reasonably have been expected to withstand. The temptation to lodge +herself in this charming little flat; furnish it after her own liking; +and install that delightful little old poverty-stricken English woman +as keeper of Proprieties, with her irresistible white starched caps +and her altogether delightful way of inquiring daily after that “poor, +dear, kind Mr. Hosmer.” It had all cost a little more than she had +foreseen. But the worst of it, the very worst of it was, that she had +already begun to ask herself if, for instance, it were not very +irritating to see every day, that same branching palm, posing by the +window, in that same yellow jardinière. If those draperies that +confronted her were not becoming positively offensive in the monotony +of their solemn folds. If the cuteness and quaintness of the +poverty-stricken little English woman were not after all a source of +entertainment that she would willingly forego on occasion. The answer +to these questions was a sigh that ended in another yawn. + +Then Melicent threw herself into a low easy chair by the table, took +up her visiting book, and bending lazily with her arms resting on her +knees, began to turn over its pages. The names which she saw there +recalled to her mind an entertainment at which she had assisted on the +previous afternoon. A progressive euchre party; and the remembrance of +what she had there endured now filled her soul with horror. + +She thought of those hundred cackling women--of course women are never +cackling, it was Melicent’s exaggerated way of expressing +herself--packed into those small overheated rooms, around those +twenty-five little tables; and how by no chance had she once found +herself with a congenial set. And how that Mrs. Van Wycke had cheated! +It was plain to Melicent that she had taken advantage of having fat +Miss Bloomdale for a partner, who went to euchre parties only to show +her hands and rings. And little Mrs. Brinke playing against her. +Little Mrs. Brinke! A woman who only the other day had read an +original paper entitled: “An Hour with Hegel” before her philosophy +class; who had published that dry mystical affair “Light on the +Inscrutable in Dante.” How could such a one by any possibility be +supposed to observe the disgusting action of Mrs. Van Wycke in +throwing off on her partner’s trump and swooping down on the last +trick with her right bower? Melicent would have thought it beneath her +to more than look her contempt as Mrs. Van Wycke rose with a +triumphant laugh to take her place at a higher table, dragging the +plastic Bloomdale with her. But she did mutter to herself now, “nasty +thief.” + +“Johannah,” Melicent called to her maid who sat sewing in the next +room. + +“Yes, Miss.” + +“You know Mrs. Van Wycke?” + +“Mrs. Van Wycke, Miss? the lady with the pinted nose that I caught +a-feeling of the curtains?” + +“Yes, when she calls again I’m not at home. Do you understand? not at +home.” + +“Yes, Miss.” + +It was gratifying enough to have thus summarily disposed of Mrs. Van +Wycke; but it was a source of entertainment which was soon ended. +Melicent continued to turn over the pages of her visiting book during +which employment she came to the conclusion that these people whom she +frequented were all very tiresome. All, all of them, except Miss Drake +who had been absent in Europe for the past six months. Perhaps Mrs. +Manning too, who was so seldom at home when Melicent called. Who when +at home, usually rushed down with her bonnet on, breathless with “I +can only spare you a moment, dear. It’s very sweet of you to come.” +She was always just going to the “Home” where things had got into such +a muddle whilst she was away for a week. Or it was that “Hospital” +meeting where she thought certain members were secretly conniving at +her removal from the presidency which she had held for so many years. +She was always reading minutes at assemblages which Melicent knew +nothing about; or introducing distinguished guests to Guild room +meetings. Altogether Melicent saw very little of Mrs. Manning. + +“Johannah, don’t you hear the bell?” + +“Yes, Miss,” said Johannah, coming into the room and depositing a gown +on which she had been working, on the back of a chair. “It’s that +postman,” she said, as she fastened her needle to the bosom of her +dress. “And such a one as he is, thinking that people must fly when he +so much as touches the bell, and going off a writing of ‘no answer to +bell,’ and me with my hand on the very door-knob.” + +“I notice that always happens when I’m out, Johannah; he’s ringing +again.” + +It was Thérèse’s letter, and as Melicent turned it about and looked +critically at the neatly written address, it was not without a hope +that the reading of it might furnish her a moment’s diversion. She did +not faint. The letter did not “fall from her nerveless clasp.” She +rather held it very steadily. But she grew a shade paler and looked +long into the fire. When she had read it three times she folded it +slowly and carefully and locked it away in her desk. + +“Johannah.” + +“Yes, Miss.” + +“Put that gown away; I shan’t need it.” + +“Yes, Miss; and all the beautiful passmantry that you bought?” + +“It makes no difference, I shan’t use it. What’s become of that black +camel’s-hair that Mrs. Gauche spoiled so last winter?” + +“It’s laid away, Miss, the same in the cedar chest as the day it came +home from her hands and no more fit, that I’d be a shame meself and no +claims to a dress-maker. And there’s many a lady that she never would +have seen a cent, let alone making herself pay for the spiling of it.” + +“Well, well, Johannah, never mind. Get it out, we’ll see what can be +done with it. I’ve had some painful news, and I shall wear mourning +for a long, long time.” + +“Oh, Miss, it’s not Mr. David! nor yet one of those sweet relations in +Utica? leastways not I hope that beautiful Miss Gertrude, with such +hair as I never see for the goldness of it and not dyed, except me +cousin that’s a nun, that her mother actually cried when it was cut +off?” + +“No, Johannah; only a very dear friend.” + +There were a few social engagements to be cancelled; and regrets to be +sent out, which she attended to immediately. Then she turned again to +look long into the fire. That crime for which she had scorned him, was +wiped out now by expiation. For a long time--how long she could not +yet determine--she would wrap herself in garb of mourning and move +about in sorrowing--giving evasive answer to the curious who +questioned her. Now might she live again through those summer months +with Grégoire--those golden afternoons in the pine woods--whose aroma +even now came back to her. She might look again into his loving brown +eyes; feel beneath her touch the softness of his curls. She recalled a +day when he had said, “Neva to see you--my God!” and how he had +trembled. She recalled--strangely enough and for the first time--that +one kiss, and a little tremor brought the hot color to her cheek. + +Was she in love with Grégoire now that he was dead? Perhaps. At all +events, for the next month, Melicent would not be bored. + + + + +XIV + +A Step Too Far. + + +Who of us has not known the presence of Misery? Perhaps as those +fortunate ones whom he has but touched as he passed them by. It may be +that we see but a promise of him as we look into the prophetic faces +of children; into the eyes of those we love, and the awfulness of +life’s possibilities presses into our souls. Do we fly him? hearing +him gain upon us panting close at our heels, till we turn from the +desperation of uncertainty to grapple with him? In close scuffle we +may vanquish him. Fleeing, we may elude him. But what if he creep into +the sanctuary of our lives, with his subtle omnipresence, that we do +not see in all its horror till we are disarmed; thrusting the burden +of his companionship upon us to the end! However we turn he is there. +However we shrink he is there. However we come or go, or sleep or wake +he is before us. Till the keen sense grows dull with apathy at looking +on him, and he becomes like the familiar presence of sin. + +Into such callousness had Hosmer fallen. He had ceased to bruise his +soul in restless endeavor of resistance. When the awful presence bore +too closely upon him, he would close his eyes and brave himself to +endurance. Yet Fate might have dealt him worse things. + +But a man’s misery is after all his own, to make of it what he will or +what he can. And shall we be fools, wanting to lighten it with our +platitudes? + +My friend, your trouble I know weighs. That you should be driven by +earthly needs to drag the pinioned spirit of your days through rut and +mire. But think of the millions who are doing the like. Or is it your +boy, that part of your own self and that other dearer self, who is +walking in evil ways? Why, I know a man whose son was hanged the other +day; hanged on the gibbet; think of it. If you be quivering while the +surgeon cuts away that right arm, remember the poor devil in the +hospital yesterday who had both his sawed off. + +Oh, have done, with your mutilated men and your sons on gibbets! What +are they to me? My hurt is greater than all, because it is my own. If +it be only that day after day I must look with warm entreaty into eyes +that are cold. Let it be but that peculiar trick of feature which I +have come to hate, seen each morning across the breakfast table. That +recurrent pin-prick: it hurts. The blow that lays the heart in twain: +it kills. Let be mine which will; it is the one that counts. + +If Misery kill a man, that ends it. But Misery seldom deals so +summarily with his victims. And while they are spared to earth, we +find them usually sustaining life after the accepted fashion. + +Hosmer was seated at table, having finished his breakfast. He had also +finished glancing over the contents of a small memorandum book, which +he replaced in his pocket. He then looked at his wife sitting opposite +him, but turned rather hastily to gaze with a certain entreaty into +the big kind eyes of the great shaggy dog who stood--the shameless +beggar--at his side. + +“I knew there was something wrong,” he said abruptly, with his eyes +still fixed on the dog, and his fingers thrust into the animal’s +matted wool, “Where’s the mail this morning?” + +“I don’t know if that stupid boy’s gone for it or not. I told him. You +can’t depend on any one in a place like this.” + +Fanny had scarcely touched the breakfast before her, and now pushed +aside her cup still half filled with coffee. + +“Why, how’s that? Sampson seems to do the right thing.” + +“Yes, Sampson; but he ain’t here. That boy of Minervy’s been doing his +work all morning.” + +Minervy’s boy was even now making his appearance, carrying a good +sized bundle of papers and letters, with which he walked boldly up to +Hosmer, plainly impressed with the importance of this new rôle. + +“Well, colonel; so you’ve taken Sampson’s place?” Hosmer observed, +receiving the mail from the boy’s little black paws. + +“My name’s Major, suh. Maje; dats my name. I ain’t tuck Sampson’s +place: no, suh.” + +“Oh, he’s having a day off--” Hosmer went on, smiling quizzingly at +the dapper little darkey, and handing him a red apple from the dish of +fruit standing in the center of the table. Maje received it with a +very unmilitary bob of acknowledgment. + +“He yonda home ’cross de riva, suh. He ben too late fu’ kotch de +flat’s mornin’ An’ he holla an’ holla. He know dey warn’t gwine cross +dat flat ’gin jis’ fu’ Sampson.” + +Hosmer had commenced to open his letters. Fanny with her elbows on the +table, asked the boy--with a certain uneasiness in her voice--“Ain’t +he coming at all to-day? Don’t he know all the work he’s got to do? +His mother ought to make him.” + +“Don’t reckon. Dat away Sampson: he git mad he stay mad,” with which +assurance Maje vanished through the rear door, towards the region of +the kitchen, to seek more substantial condiments than the apple which +he still clutched firmly. + +One of the letters was for Fanny, which her husband handed her. When +he had finished reading his own, he seemed disposed to linger, for he +took from the fruit dish the mate to the red apple he had given Maje, +and commenced to peel it with his clasp knife. + +“What has our friend Belle Worthington to say for herself?” he +inquired good humoredly. “How does she get on with those Creoles down +there?” + +“You know as well as I do, Belle Worthington ain’t going to mix with +Creoles. She can’t talk French if she wanted to. She says Muddy-Graw +don’t begin to compare with the Veiled Prophets. It’s just what I +thought--with their ‘Muddy-Graw,’ ” Fanny added, contemptuously. + +“Coming from such high authority, we’ll consider that verdict a final +clincher,” Hosmer laughed a little provokingly. + +Fanny was looking again through the several sheets of Belle +Worthington’s letter. “She says if I’ll agree to go back with her, +she’ll pass this way again.” + +“Well, why don’t you? A little change wouldn’t hurt.” + +“ ’Tain’t because I want to stay here, Lord knows. A God-forsaken +place like this. I guess you’d be glad enough,” she added, with voice +shaking a little at her own boldness. + +He closed his knife, placed it in his pocket, and looked at his wife, +completely puzzled. + +The power of speech had come to her, for she went on, in an unnatural +tone, however, and fumbling nervously with the dishes before her. “I’m +fool enough about some things, but I ain’t quite such a fool as that.” + +“What are you talking about, Fanny?” + +“That woman wouldn’t ask anything better than for me to go to St. +Louis.” + +Hosmer was utterly amazed. He leaned his arms on the table, clasping +his hands together and looked at his wife. + +“That woman? Belle Worthington? What _do_ you mean, any way?” + +“I don’t mean Belle Worthington,” she said excitedly, with two deep +red spots in her cheeks. “I’m talking about Mrs. Laferm.” + +He thrust his hand into his pockets and leaned back in his chair. No +amazement now, but very pale, and with terrible concentration of +glance. + +“Well, then, don’t talk about Mrs. Lafirme,” he said very slowly, not +taking his eyes from her face. + +“I will talk about her, too. She ain’t worth talking about,” she +blurted incoherently. “It’s time for somebody to talk about a woman +passing herself off for a saint, and trying to take other women’s +husbands--” + +“Shut up!” cried Hosmer maddened with sudden fury, and rising +violently from his chair. + +“I won’t shut up,” Fanny cried excitedly back at him; rising also. +“And what’s more I won’t stay here and have you making love under my +very eyes to a woman that’s no better than she ought to be.” + +She meant to say more, but Hosmer grasped her arm with such a grasp, +that had it been her throat she would never have spoken more. The +other hand went to his pocket, with fingers clutching the clasp knife +there. + +“By heaven--I’ll--kill you!” every word weighted with murder, panted +close in her terrified face. What she would have uttered died upon her +pale lips, when her frightened eyes beheld the usually calm face of +her husband distorted by a passion of which she had not dreamed. + +“David,” she faltered, “let go my arm.” + +Her voice broke the spell that held him, and brought him again to his +senses. His fingers slowly relaxed their tense hold. A sigh that was +something between a moan and a gasp came with his deliverance and +shook him. All the horror now was in his own face as he seized his hat +and hurried speechless away. + +Fanny remained for a little while dazed. Hers was not the fine nature +that would stay cruelly stunned after such a scene. Her immediate +terror being past, the strongest resultant emotion was one of +self-satisfaction at having spoken out her mind. + +But there was a stronger feeling yet, moving and possessing her; +crowding out every other. A pressing want that only Sampson’s coming +would relieve, and which bade fair to drive her to any extremity if it +were not appeased. + + + + +XV + +A Fateful Solution. + + +Hosmer passed the day with a great pain at his heart. His hasty and +violent passion of the morning had added another weight for his spirit +to drag about, and which he could not cast off. No feeling of +resentment remained with him; only wonder at his wife’s misshapen +knowledge and keen self-rebuke of his own momentary forgetfulness. +Even knowing Fanny as he did, he could not rid himself of the haunting +dread of having wounded her nature cruelly. He felt much as a man who +in a moment of anger inflicts an irreparable hurt upon some small, +weak, irresponsible creature, and must bear regret for his madness. +The only reparation that lay within his power--true, one that seemed +inadequate--was an open and manly apology and confession of wrong. He +would feel better when it was made. He would perhaps find relief in +discovering that the wound he had inflicted was not so deep--so +dangerous as he feared. + +With such end in view he came home early in the afternoon. His wife +was not there. The house was deserted. Even the servants had +disappeared. It took but a moment for him to search the various rooms +and find them one after the other, unoccupied. He went out on the +porch and looked around. The raw air chilled him. The wind was blowing +violently, bringing dashes of rain along with it from massed clouds +that hung leaden between sky and earth. Could she have gone over to +the house? It was unlikely, for he knew her to have avoided Mrs. +Lafirme of late, with a persistence that had puzzled him to seek its +cause, which had only fully revealed itself in the morning Yet, where +else could she be? An undefined terror was laying hold of him. His +sensitive nature, in exaggerating its own heartlessness, was blindly +overestimating the delicacy of hers. To what may he not have driven +her? What hitherto untouched chord may he not have started into +painful quivering? Was it for him to gauge the endurance of a woman’s +spirit? Fanny was not now the wife whom he hated; his own act of the +morning had changed her into the human being, the weak creature whom +he had wronged. + +In quitting the house she must have gone unprepared for the inclement +weather, for there hung her heavy wrap in its accustomed place, with +her umbrella beside it. He seized both and buttoning his own great +coat about him, hurried away and over to Mrs. Lafirme’s. He found that +lady in the sitting-room. + +“Isn’t Fanny here?” he asked abruptly, with no word of greeting. + +“No,” she answered looking up at him, and seeing the evident +uneasiness in his face. “Isn’t she at home? Is anything wrong?” + +“Oh, everything is wrong,” he returned desperately, “But the immediate +wrong is that she has disappeared--I must find her.” + +Thérèse arose at once and called to Betsy who was occupied on the +front veranda. + +“Yas, um,” the girl answered to her mistress’ enquiry. “I seed ma’am +Hosma goin’ to’ads de riva good hour ’go. She mus’ crost w’en Nathan +tuck dat load ova. I yain’t seed ’er comin’ back yit.” + +Hosmer left the house hastily, hardly reassured by Betsy’s +information. Thérèse’s glance--speculating and uneasy--followed his +hurrying figure till it disappeared from sight. + +The crossing was an affair of extreme difficulty, and which Nathan was +reluctant to undertake until he should have gathered a “load” that +would justify him in making it. In his estimation, Hosmer did not meet +such requirement, even taken in company with the solitary individual +who had been sitting on his horse with Egyptian patience for long +unheeded moments, the rain beating down upon his back, while he waited +the ferryman’s pleasure. But Nathan’s determination was not proof +against the substantial inducements which Hosmer held out to him; and +soon they were launched, all hands assisting in the toilsome passage. + +The water, in rising to an unaccustomed height, had taken on an added +and tremendous swiftness. The red turbid stream was eddying and +bulging and hurrying with terrific swiftness between its shallow +banks, striking with an immensity of power against the projection of +land on which stood Marie Louise’s cabin, and rebounding in great +circling waves that spread and lost themselves in the seething +turmoil. The cable used in crossing the unwieldly flat had long been +submerged and the posts which held it wrenched from their fastenings. +The three men, each with his long heavy oar in hand began to pull up +stream, using a force that brought the swelling veins like iron +tracings upon their foreheads where the sweat had gathered as if the +day were midsummer. They made their toilsome way by slow inches, that +finally landed them breathless and exhausted on the opposite side. + +What could have been the inducement to call Fanny out on such a day +and such a venture? The answer came only too readily from Hosmer’s +reproaching conscience. And now, where to seek her? There was nothing +to guide him; to indicate the course she might have taken. The rain +was falling heavily and in gusts and through it he looked about at the +small cabins standing dreary in their dismantled fields. Marie +Louise’s was the nearest at hand and towards it he directed his steps. + +The big good-natured negress had seen his approach from the window, +for she opened the door to him before he had time to knock, and +entering he saw Fanny seated before the fire holding a pair of very +wet smoking feet to dry. His first sensation was one of relief at +finding her safe and housed. His next, one of uncertainty as to the +kind and degree of resentment which he felt confident must now show +itself. But this last was soon dispelled, for turning, she greeted him +with a laugh. He would have rather a blow. That laugh said so many +things--too many things. True, it removed the dread which had been +haunting him all day, but it shattered what seemed to have been now +his last illusion regarding this woman. That unsounded chord which he +feared he had touched was after all but one in harmony with the rest +of her common nature. He saw too at a glance that her dominant passion +had been leading and now controlled her. And by one of those rapid +trains of thought in which odd and detached fancies, facts, +impressions and observations form themselves into an orderly sequence +leading to a final conviction--all was made plain to him that before +had puzzled him. She need not have told him her reason for crossing +the river, he knew it. He dismissed at once the attitude with which he +had thought to approach her. Here was no forgiveness to be asked of +dulled senses. No bending in expiation of faults committed. He was +here as master. + +“Fanny, what does this mean?” he asked in cold anger; with no heat +now, no passion. + +“Yaas, me tell madame, she goin’ fur ketch cole si she don’ mine out. +Dat not fur play dat kine wedder, no. Teck chair, M’sieur; dry +you’se’f leet beet. Me mek you one cup coffee.” + +Hosmer declined the good Marie Louise’s kind proffer of coffee, but he +seated himself and waited for Fanny to speak. + +“You know if you want a thing done in this place, you’ve got to do it +yourself. I’ve heard you say it myself, time and time again about +those people at the mill,” she said. + +“Could it have been so urgent as to call you out on a day like this, +and with such a perilous crossing? Couldn’t you have found some one +else to come for you?” + +“Who? I’d like to know. Just tell me who? It’s nothing to you if we’re +without servants, but I’m not going to stand it. I ain’t going to let +Samp_son_ act like that without knowing what he means,” said Fanny +sharply. + +“Dat Samp_son_, he one leet dev’,” proffered Marie Louise, with +laudable design of shifting blame upon the easy shoulders of Sampson, +in event of the domestic jar which she anticipated. “No use try do +nuttin’ ’id Sampson, M’sieur.” + +“I had to know something, one way or the other,” Fanny said in a tone +which carried apology, rather by courtesy than by what she considered +due. + +Hosmer walked to the window where he looked out upon the dreary, +desolate scene, little calculated to cheer him. The river was just +below; and from this window he could gaze down upon the rushing +current as it swept around the bend further up and came striking +against this projection with a force all its own. The rain was falling +still; steadily, blindingly, with wild clatter against the shingled +roof so close above their heads. It coursed in little swift rivulets +down the furrows of the almost perpendicular banks. It mingled in a +demon dance with the dull, red water. There was something inviting to +Hosmer in the scene. He wanted to be outside there making a part of +it. He wanted to feel that rain and wind beating upon him. Within, it +was stifling, maddening; with his wife’s presence there, charging the +room with an atmosphere of hate that was possessing him and beginning +to course through his veins as it had never done before. + +“Do you want to go home?” he asked bluntly, turning half around. + +“You must be crazy,” she replied, with a slow, upward glance out the +window, then down at her feet that were still poised on the low stool +that Marie Louise had placed for her. + +“You’d better come.” He could not have said what moved him, unless it +were recklessness and defiance. + +“I guess you’re dreaming, or something, David. You go on home if you +want. Nobody asked you to come after me any way. I’m able to take care +of myself, I guess. Ain’t you going to take the umbrella?” she added, +seeing him start for the door empty handed. + +“Oh, it doesn’t matter about the rain,” he answered without a look +back as he went out and slammed the door after him. + +“M’sieur look lak he not please,” said Marie Louise, with plain regret +at the turn of affairs. “You see he no lak you go out in dat kine +wedder, me know dat.” + +“Oh, bother,” was Fanny’s careless reply. “This suits me well enough; +I don’t care how long it lasts.” + +She was in Marie Louise’s big rocker, balancing comfortably back and +forth with a swing that had become automatic. She felt “good,” as she +would have termed it herself; her visit to Sampson’s hut having not +been without results tending to that condition. The warmth of the room +was very agreeable in contrast to the bleakness of out-doors. She felt +free and moved to exercise a looseness of tongue with the amiable old +negress which was not common with her. The occurrences of the morning +were gradually withdrawing themselves into a distant perspective that +left her in the attitude of a spectator rather than that of an actor. +And she laughed and talked with Marie Louise, and rocked, and rocked +herself on into drowsiness. + +Hosmer had no intention of returning home without his wife. He only +wanted to be out under the sky; he wanted to breathe, to use his +muscles again. He would go and help cross the flat if need be; an +occupation that promised him relief in physical effort. He joined +Nathan, whom he found standing under a big live-oak, disputing with an +old colored woman who wanted to cross to get back to her family before +supper time. + +“You didn’ have no call to come ova in de fus’ place,” he was saying +to her, “you womens is alluz runnin’ back’ards and for’ards like +skeard rabbit in de co’n fiel’.” + +“I don’ stan’ no sich talk is dat f’om you. Ef you kiant tin’ to yo’ +business o’ totin’ folks w’en dey wants, you betta quit. You done +cheat Mose out o’ de job, anyways; we all knows dat.” + +“Mine out, woman, you gwine git hu’t. Jis’ le’me see Mose han’le dat +’ar flat onct: Jis’ le’me. He lan’ you down to de Mouf ’fo’ you knows +it.” + +“Let me tell you, Nathan,” said Hosmer, looking at his watch, “say you +wait a quarter of an hour and if no one else comes, we’ll cross Aunt +Agnes anyway.” + +“Dat ’nudda t’ing ef you wants to go back, suh.” + +Aunt Agnes was grumbling now at Hosmer’s proposal that promised to +keep her another quarter of an hour from her expectant family, when a +big lumbering creaking wagon drove up, with its load of baled cotton +all covered with tarpaulins. + +“Dah!” exclaimed Nathan at sight of the wagon, “ef I’d ’a listened to +yo’ jawin’--what?” + +“Ef you’d listen to me, you’d ’tin’ to yo’ business betta ’an you +does,” replied Aunt Agnes, raising a very battered umbrella over her +grotesquely apparelled figure, as she stepped from under the shelter +of the tree to take her place in the flat. + +But she still met with obstacles, for the wagon must needs go first. +When it had rolled heavily into place with much loud and needless +swearing on the part of the driver who, being a white man, considered +Hosmer’s presence no hindrance, they let go the chain, and once again +pulled out. The crossing was even more difficult now, owing to the +extra weight of the wagon. + +“I guess you earn your money, Nathan,” said Hosmer bending and +quivering with the efforts he put forth. + +“Yas, suh, I does; an’ dis job’s wuf mo’ ’an I gits fu’ it.” + +“All de same you done lef’ off wurking crap sence you start it,” +mumbled Aunt Agnes. + +“You gwine git hu’t, woman; I done tole you dat; don’ wan’ listen,” +returned Nathan with halting breath. + +“Who gwine hu’t me?” + +Whether from tardy gallantry or from pre-occupation with his arduous +work, Nathan offered no reply to this challenge, and his silence left +Aunt Agnes in possession of the field. + +They were in full mid-stream. Hosmer and the teamster were in the fore +end of the boat; Nathan in the rear, and Aunt Agnes standing in the +center between the wagon and the protecting railing, against which she +leaned her clasped hands that still upheld the semblance of umbrella. + +The ill-mated horses stood motionless, letting fall their dejected +heads with apathetic droop. The rain was dripping from their +glistening coats, and making a great patter as it fell upon the +tarpaulins covering the cotton bales. + +Suddenly came an exclamation: “Gret God!” from Aunt Agnes, so genuine +in its amazement and dismay, that the three men with one accord looked +quickly up at her, then at the point on which her terrified gaze was +fixed. Almost on the instant of the woman’s cry, was heard a shrill, +piercing, feminine scream. + +What they saw was the section of land on which stood Marie Louise’s +cabin, undermined--broken away from the main body and gradually +gliding into the water. It must have sunk with a first abrupt wrench, +for the brick chimney was shaken from its foundation, the smoke +issuing in dense clouds from its shattered sides, the house toppling +and the roof caving. For a moment Hosmer lost his senses. He could but +look, as if at some awful apparition that must soon pass from sight +and leave him again in possession of his reason. The leaning house was +half submerged when Fanny appeared at the door, like a figure in a +dream; seeming a natural part of the awfulness of it. He only gazed +on. The two negroes uttered loud lamentations. + +“Pull with the current!” cried the teamster, first to regain his +presence of mind. It had needed but this, to awaken Hosmer to the +situation. + +“Leave off,” he cried at Nathan, who was wringing his hands. “Take +hold that oar or I’ll throw you overboard.” The trembling ashen negro +obeyed on the instant. + +“Hold fast--for God’s sake--hold fast!” he shouted to Fanny, who was +clinging with swaying figure to the door post. Of Marie Louise there +was no sign. + +The caved bank now remained fixed; but Hosmer knew that at any instant +it was liable to disappear before his riveted gaze. + +How heavy the flat was! And the horses had caught the contagion of +terror and were plunging madly. + +“Whip those horses and their load into the river,” called Hosmer, +“we’ve got to lighten at any price.” + +“Them horses an’ cotton’s worth money,” interposed the alarmed +teamster. + +“Force them into the river, I say; I’ll pay you twice their value.” + +“You ’low to pay fur the cotton, too?” + +“Into the river with them or I’ll brain you!” he cried, maddened at +the weight and delay that were holding them back. + +The frightened animals seemed to ask nothing more than to plunge into +the troubled water; dragging their load with them. + +They were speeding rapidly towards the scene of catastrophe; but to +Hosmer they crawled--the moments were hours. “Hold on! hold fast!” he +called again and again to his wife. But even as he cried out, the +detached section of earth swayed, lurched to one side--plunged to the +other, and the whole mass was submerged--leaving the water above it in +wild agitation. + +A cry of horror went up from the spectators--all but Hosmer. He cast +aside his oar--threw off his coat and hat; worked an instant without +avail at his wet clinging boots, and with a leap was in the water, +swimming towards the spot where the cabin had gone down. The current +bore him on without much effort of his own. The flat was close up with +him; but he could think of it no longer as a means of rescue. Detached +pieces of timber from the ruined house were beginning to rise to the +surface. Then something floating softly on the water: a woman’s dress, +but too far for him to reach it. + +When Fanny appeared again, Hosmer was close beside her. His left arm +was quickly thrown about her. She was insensible, and he remembered +that it was best so, for had she been in possession of her reason, she +might have struggled and impeded his movements. He held her +fast--close to him and turned to regain the shore. Another horrified +shriek went up from the occupants of the flat-boat not far away, and +Hosmer knew no more--for a great plunging beam struck him full upon +the forehead. + +When consciousness came back to him, he found that he lay extended in +the flat, which was fastened to the shore. The confused sound of many +voices mingled with a ringing din that filled his ears. A warm stream +was trickling down over his cheek. Another body lay beside him. Now +they were lifting him. Thérèse’s face was somewhere--very near, he saw +it dimly and that it was white--and he fell again into insensibility. + + + + +XVI + +To Him Who Waits. + + +The air was filled with the spring and all its promises. Full with the +sound of it, the smell of it, the deliciousness of it. Such sweet air; +soft and strong, like the touch of a brave woman’s hand. The air of an +early March day in New Orleans. It was folly to shut it out from nook +or cranny. Worse than folly the lady thought who was making futile +endeavors to open the car window near which she sat. Her face had +grown pink with the effort. She had bit firmly into her red nether +lip, making it all the redder; and then sat down from the +unaccomplished feat to look ruefully at the smirched finger tips of +her Parisian gloves. This flavor of Paris was well about her; in the +folds of her graceful wrap that set to her fine shoulders. It was +plainly a part of the little black velvet toque that rested on her +blonde hair. Even the umbrella and one small valise which she had just +laid on the seat opposite her, had Paris written plain upon them. + +These were impressions which the little grey-garbed conventional +figure, some seats removed, had been noting since the striking lady +had entered the car. Points likely to have escaped a man, who--unless +a minutely observant one,--would only have seen that she was handsome +and worthy of an admiration that he might easily fancy rising to +devotion. + +Beside herself and the little grey-garbed figure was an interesting +family group at the far end of the car. A husband, but doubly a +father, surrounded and sat upon by a small band of offspring. A +wife--presumably a mother--absorbed with the view of the outside world +and the elaborate gold chain that hung around her neck. + +The presence of a large valise, an overcoat, a cane and an umbrella +disposed on another seat, bespoke a further occupant, likely to be at +present in the smoking car. + +The train pushed out from the depôt. The porter finally made tardy +haste to the assistance of the lady who had been attempting to open +the window, and when the fresh morning air came blowing in upon her +Thérèse leaned back in her seat with a sigh of content. + +There was a full day’s journey before her. She would not reach +Place-du-Bois before dark, but she did not shrink from those hours +that were to be passed alone. She rather welcomed the quiet of them +after a visit to New Orleans full of pleasant disturbances. She was +eager to be home again. She loved Place-du-Bois with a love that was +real; that had grown deep since it was the one place in the world +which she could connect with the presence of David Hosmer. She had +often wondered--indeed was wondering now--if the memory of those +happenings to which he belonged would ever grow strange and far away +to her. It was a trick of memory with which she indulged herself on +occasion, this one of retrospection. Beginning with that June day when +she had sat in the hall and watched the course of a white sunshade +over the tops of the bending corn. + +Such idle thoughts they were with their mingling of bitter and +sweet--leading nowhere. But she clung to them and held to them as if +to a refuge which she might again and again return to. + +The picture of that one terrible day of Fanny’s death, stood out in +sharp prominent lines; a touch of the old agony always coming back as +she remembered how she had believed Hosmer dead too--lying so pale and +bleeding before her. Then the parting which had held not so much of +sorrow as of awe and bewilderment in it: when sick, wounded and broken +he had gone away at once with the dead body of his wife; when the two +had clasped hands without words that dared be uttered. + +But that was a year ago. And Thérèse thought many things might come +about in a year. Anyhow, might not such length of time be hoped to rub +the edge off a pain that was not by its nature lasting? + +That time of acute trouble seemed to have thrown Hosmer back upon his +old diffidence. The letter he wrote her after a painful illness which +prostrated him on his arrival in St. Louis, was stiff and formal, as +men’s letters are apt to be, though it had breathed an untold story of +loyalty which she had felt at the time, and still cherished. Other +letters--a few--had gone back and forth between them, till Hosmer had +gone away to the sea-shore with Melicent, to recuperate, and June +coming, Thérèse had sailed from New Orleans for Paris, whither she had +passed six months. + +Things had not gone well at Place-du-Bois during her absence, the +impecunious old kinsman whom she had left in charge, having a decided +preference for hunting the _Gros-Bec_ and catching trout in the lake +to supervising the methods of a troublesome body of blacks. So Thérèse +had had much to engage her thoughts from the morbid channel into which +those of a more idle woman might have drifted. + +She went occasionally enough to the mill. There at least she was +always sure to hear Hosmer’s name--and what a charm the sound of it +had for her. And what a delight it was to her eyes when she caught +sight of an envelope lying somewhere on desk or table of the office, +addressed in his handwriting. That was a weakness which she could not +pardon herself; but which staid with her, seeing that the same +trifling cause never failed to awaken the same unmeasured delight. She +had even trumped up an excuse one day for carrying off one of Hosmer’s +business letters--indeed of the dryest in substance, and which, when +half-way home, she had torn into the smallest bits and scattered to +the winds, so overcome was she by a sense of her own absurdity. + +Thérèse had undergone the ordeal of having her ticket scrutinized, +commented upon and properly punched by the suave conductor. The little +conventional figure had given over the contemplation of Parisian +styles and betaken herself to the absorbing pages of a novel which she +read through smoked glasses. The husband and father had peeled and +distributed his second outlay of bananas amongst his family. It was at +this moment that Thérèse, looking towards the door, saw Hosmer enter +the car. + +She must have felt his presence somewhere near; his being there and +coming towards her was so much a part of her thoughts. She held out +her hand to him and made place beside her, as if he had left her but a +half hour before. All the astonishment was his. But he pressed her +hand and took the seat she offered him. + +“You knew I was on the train?” he asked. + +“Oh, no, how should I?” + +Then naturally followed question and answer. + +Yes, he was going to Place-du-Bois. + +No, the mill did not require his presence; it had been very well +managed during his absence. + +Yes, she had been to New Orleans. Had had a very agreeable visit. +Beautiful weather for city dwellers. But such dryness. So disastrous +to the planters. + +Yes--quite likely there would be rain next month: there usually was in +April. But indeed there was need of more than April showers for that +stiff land--that strip along the bayou, if he remembered? Oh, he +remembered quite well, but for all that he did not know what she was +talking about. She did not know herself. Then they grew silent; not +from any feeling of the absurdity of such speech between them, for +each had but listened to the other’s voice. They became silently +absorbed by the consciousness of each other’s nearness. She was +looking at his hand that rested on his knee, and thinking it fuller +than she remembered it before. She was aware of some change in him +which she had not the opportunity to define; but this firmness and +fullness of the hand was part of it. She looked up into his face then, +to find the same change there, together with a new content. But what +she noted beside was the dull scar on his forehead, coming out like a +red letter when his eyes looked into her own. The sight of it was like +a hurt. She had forgotten it might be there, telling its story of pain +through the rest of his life. + +“Thérèse,” Hosmer said finally, “won’t you look at me?” + +She was looking from the window. She did not turn her head, but her +hand went out and met his that was on the seat close beside her. He +held it firmly; but soon with an impatient movement drew down the +loose wristlet of her glove and clasped his fingers around her warm +wrist. + +“Thérèse,” he said again; but more unsteadily, “look at me.” + +“Not here,” she answered him, “not now, I mean.” And presently she +drew her hand away from him and held it for a moment pressed firmly +over her eyes. Then she looked at him with brave loving glance. + +“It’s been so long,” she said, with the suspicion of a sigh. + +“Too long,” he returned, “I couldn’t have borne it but for you--the +thought of you always present with me; helping me to take myself out +of the past. That was why I waited--till I could come to you free. +Have you an idea, I wonder, how you have been a promise, and can be +the fulfillment of every good that life may give to a man?” + +“No, I don’t know,” she said a little hopelessly, taking his hand +again, “I have seen myself at fault in following what seemed the only +right. I feel as if there were no way to turn for the truth. Old +supports appear to be giving way beneath me. They were so secure +before. It commenced, you remember--oh, you know when it must have +begun. But do you think, David, that it’s right we should find our +happiness out of that past of pain and sin and trouble?” + +“Thérèse,” said Hosmer firmly, “the truth in its entirety isn’t given +to man to know--such knowledge, no doubt, would be beyond human +endurance. But we make a step towards it, when we learn that there is +rottenness and evil in the world, masquerading as right and +morality--when we learn to know the living spirit from the dead +letter. I have not cared to stop in this struggle of life to question. +You, perhaps, wouldn’t dare to alone. Together, dear one, we will work +it out. Be sure there is a way--we may not find it in the end, but we +will at least have tried.” + + + + +XVII + +Conclusion. + + +One month after their meeting on the train, Hosmer and Thérèse had +gone together to Centerville where they had been made one, as the +saying goes, by the good Père Antoine; and without more ado, had +driven back to Place-du-Bois: Mr. and Mrs. Hosmer. The event had +caused more than the proverbial nine days’ talk. Indeed, now, two +months after, it was still the absorbing theme that occupied the +dwellers of the parish: and such it promised to remain till supplanted +by something of sufficient dignity and importance to usurp its place. + +But of the opinions, favorable and other, that were being exchanged +regarding them and their marriage, Hosmer and Thérèse heard little and +would have cared less, so absorbed were they in the overmastering +happiness that was holding them in thralldom. They could not yet bring +themselves to look at it calmly--this happiness. Even the intoxication +of it seemed a thing that promised to hold. Through love they had +sought each other, and now the fulfillment of that love had brought +more than tenfold its promise to both. It was a royal love; a generous +love and a rich one in its revelation. It was a magician that had +touched life for them and changed it into a glory. In giving them to +each other, it was moving them to the fullness of their own +capabilities. Much to do in two little months; but what cannot love +do? + +“Could it give a woman more than this?” Thérèse was saying softly to +herself. Her hands were clasped as in prayer and pressed together +against her bosom. Her head bowed and her lips touching the +intertwined fingers. She spoke of her own emotion; of a certain sweet +turmoil that was stirring within her, as she stood out in the soft +June twilight waiting for her husband to come. Waiting to hear the new +ring in his voice that was like a song of joy. Waiting to see that new +strength and courage in his face, of whose significance she lost +nothing. To see the new light that had come in his eyes with +happiness. All gifts which love had given her. + +“Well, at last,” she said, going to the top of the steps to meet him +when he came. Her welcome was in her eyes. + +“At last,” he echoed, with a sigh of relief; pressing her hand which +she held out to him and raising it to his lips. + +He did not let it go, but passed it through his arm, and together they +turned to walk up and down the veranda. + +“You didn’t expect me at noon, did you?” he asked, looking down at +her. + +“No; you said you’d be likely not to come; but I hoped for you all the +same. I thought you’d manage it some way.” + +“No,” he answered her, laughing, “my efforts failed. I used even +strategy. Held out the temptation of your delightful Creole dishes and +all that. Nothing was of any avail. They were all business and I had +to be all business too, the whole day long. It was horribly stupid.” + +She pressed his arm significantly. + +“And do you think they will put all that money into the mill, David? +Into the business?” + +“No doubt of it, dear. But they’re shrewd fellows: didn’t commit +themselves in any way. Yet I could see they were impressed. We rode +for hours through the woods this morning and they didn’t leave a stick +of timber unscrutinized. We were out on the lake, too, and they were +like ferrets into every cranny of the mill.” + +“But won’t that give you more to do?” + +“No, it will give me less: division of labor, don’t you see? It will +give me more time to be with you.” + +“And to help with the plantation,” his wife suggested. + +“No, no, Madame Thérèse,” he laughed, “I’ll not rob you of your +occupation. I’ll put no bungling hand into your concerns. I know a +sound piece of timber when I see it; but I should hardly be able to +tell a sample of Sea Island cotton from the veriest low middling.” + +“Oh, that’s absurd, David. Do you know you’re getting to talk such +nonsense since we’re married; you remind me sometimes of Melicent.” + +“Of Melicent? Heaven forbid! Why, I have a letter from her,” he said, +feeling in his breast pocket. “The size and substance of it have +actually weighted my pocket the whole day.” + +“Melicent talking weighty things? That’s something new,” said Thérèse +interested. + +“Is Melicent ever anything else than new?” he enquired. + +They went and sat together on the bench at the corner of the veranda, +where the fading Western light came over their shoulders. A quizzical +smile came into his eyes as he unfolded his sister’s letter--with +Thérèse still holding his arm and sitting very close to him. + +“Well,” he said, glancing over the first few pages--his wife +following--“she’s given up her charming little flat and her quaint +little English woman: concludes I was right about the expense, etc., +etc. But here comes the gist of the matter,” he said, reading from the +letter--“ ‘I know you won’t object to the trip, David, I have my heart +so set on it. The expense will be trifling, seeing there are four of +us to divide carriage hire, restaurant and all that: and it counts. + +“ ‘If you only knew Mrs. Griesmann I’d feel confident of your consent. +You’d be perfectly fascinated with her. She’s one of those highly +gifted women who knows everything. She’s very much interested in me. +Thinks to have found that I have a quick comprehensive intellectualism +(she calls it) that has been misdirected. I think there is something +in that, David; you know yourself I never did care really for society. +She says it’s impossible to ever come to a true knowledge of life as +it is--which should be every one’s aim--without studying certain +fundamental truths and things.’ ” + +“Oh,” breathed Thérèse, overawed. + +“But wait--but listen,” said Hosmer, “ ‘Natural History and all +that--and we’re going to take that magnificent trip through the +West--the Yosemite and so forth. It appears the flora of California is +especially interesting and we’re to carry those delicious little tin +boxes strapped over our shoulders to hold specimens. Her son and +daughter are both, in their way, striking. He isn’t handsome; rather +the contrary; but so serene and collected--so intensely bitter--his +mother tells me he’s a pessimist. And the daughter really puts me to +shame, child as she is, with the amount of her knowledge. She labels +all her mother’s specimens in Latin. Oh, I feel there’s so much to be +learned. Mrs. Griesmann thinks I ought to wear glasses during the +trip. Says we often require them without knowing it ourselves--that +they are so restful. She has some theory about it. I’m trying a pair, +and see a great deal better through them than I expected to. Only they +don’t hold on very well, especially when I laugh. + +“ ‘Who do you suppose seized on to me in Vandervoort’s the other day, +but that impertinent Mrs. Belle Worthington! Positively took me by the +coat and commenced to gush about dear sister Thérèse. She said: “I +tell you what, my dear--” called me my dear at the highest pitch, and +that odious Mrs. Van Wycke behind us listening and pretending to +examine a lace handkerchief. “That Mrs. Lafirme’s a trump,” she +said--“too good for most any man. Hope you won’t take offense, but I +must say, your brother David’s a perfect stick--it’s what I always +said.” Can you conceive of such shocking impertinence?’ + +“Well; Belle Worthington does possess the virtue of candor,” said +Hosmer amused and folding the letter. “That’s about all there is, +except a piece of scandal concerning people you don’t know; that +wouldn’t interest you.” + +“But it would interest me,” Thérèse insisted, with a little wifely +resentment that her husband should have a knowledge of people that +excluded her. + +“Then you shall hear it,” he said, turning to the letter again. “Let’s +see--‘conceive--shocking impertinence--’ oh, here it is. + +“ ‘Don’t know if you have learned the horrible scandal; too dreadful +to talk about. I shall send you the paper. I always knew that Lou +Dawson was a perfidious creature--and Bert Rodney! You never did like +him, David; but he was always so much the gentleman in his +manners--you must admit that. Who could have dreamed it of him. Poor +Mrs. Rodney is after all the one to be pitied. She is utterly +prostrated. Refuses to see even her most intimate friends. It all came +of those two vile wretches thinking Jack Dawson out of town when he +wasn’t; for he was right there following them around in their +perambulations. And the outcome is that Mr. Rodney has his beauty +spoiled they say forever; the shot came very near being fatal. But +poor, poor Mrs. Rodney! + +“ ‘Well, good-bye, you dearest David mine. How I wish you both knew +Mrs. Griesmann. Give that sweet sister Thérèse as many kisses as she +will stand for me. + + Melicent.’ ” + +This time Hosmer put the letter into his pocket, and Thérèse asked +with a little puzzled air: “What do you suppose is going to become of +Melicent, anyway, David?” + +“I don’t know, love, unless she marries my friend Homeyer.” + +“Now, David, you are trying to mystify me. I believe there’s a streak +of perversity in you after all.” + +“Of course there is; and here comes Mandy to say that ‘suppa’s gittin’ +cole.’ ” + +“Aunt B’lindy ’low suppa on de table gittin’ cole,” said Mandy, +retreating at once from the fire of their merriment. + +Thérèse arose and held her two hands out to her husband. + +He took them but did not rise; only leaned further back on the seat +and looked up at her. + +“Oh, supper’s a bore; don’t you think so?” he asked. + +“No, I don’t,” she replied. “I’m hungry, and so are you. Come, David.” + +“But look, Thérèse, just when the moon has climbed over the top of +that live-oak? We can’t go now. And then Melicent’s request; we must +think about that.” + +“Oh, surely not, David,” she said, drawing back. + +“Then let me tell you something,” and he drew her head down and +whispered something in her pink ear that he just brushed with his +lips. It made Thérèse laugh and turn very rosy in the moonlight. + +Can that be Hosmer? Is this Thérèse? Fie, fie. It is time we were +leaving them. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At Fault, by Kate Chopin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT FAULT *** + +***** This file should be named 23810-0.txt or 23810-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/8/1/23810/ + +Produced by Bernard Koloski + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/23810-0.zip b/23810-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a9c905 --- /dev/null +++ b/23810-0.zip diff --git a/23810-8.txt b/23810-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a82ff8 --- /dev/null +++ b/23810-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7205 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of At Fault, by Kate Chopin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: At Fault + +Author: Kate Chopin + +Release Date: December 10, 2007 [EBook #23810] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT FAULT *** + + + + +Produced by Bernard Koloski + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: There was no table of contents in the original +book; one has been added in this project to ease the navigation.] + + + + +At Fault + +by Kate Chopin + + + + +Part I. + + I. The Mistress of Place-du-Bois. + II. At the Mill. + III. In the Pirogue. + IV. A Small Interruption. + V. In the Pine Woods. + VI. Melicent Talks. + VII. Painful Disclosures. + VIII. Treats of Melicent. + IX. Face to Face. + X. Fanny's Friends. + XI. The Self-Assumed Burden. + XII. Severing Old Ties. + + +Part II. + + I. Fanny's First Night at Place-du-Bois. + II. "Neva to See You!" + III. A Talk Under the Cedar Tree. + IV. Thrse Crosses the River. + V. One Afternoon. + VI. One Night. + VII. Melicent Leaves Place-du-Bois. + VIII. With Loose Rein. + IX. The Reason Why. + X. Perplexing Things. + XI. A Social Evening. + XII. Tidings That Sting. + XIII. Melicent Hears the News. + XIV. A Step Too Far. + XV. A Fateful Solution. + XVI. To Him Who Waits. + XVII. Conclusion. + + + + +PART I + + + + +I + +The Mistress of Place-du-Bois. + + +When Jrme Lafirme died, his neighbors awaited the results of his +sudden taking off with indolent watchfulness. It was a matter of +unusual interest to them that a plantation of four thousand acres had +been left unincumbered to the disposal of a handsome, inconsolable, +childless Creole widow of thirty. A _btise_ of some sort might safely +be looked for. But time passing, the anticipated folly failed to +reveal itself; and the only wonder was that Thrse Lafirme so +successfully followed the methods of her departed husband. + +Of course Thrse had wanted to die with her Jrme, feeling that life +without him held nothing that could reconcile her to its further +endurance. For days she lived alone with her grief; shutting out the +appeals that came to her from the demoralized "hands," and unmindful +of the disorder that gathered about her. Till Uncle Hiram came one day +with a respectful tender of sympathy, offered in the guise of a +reckless misquoting of Scripture--and with a grievance. + +"Mistuss," he said, "I 'lowed 'twar best to come to de house an' tell +you; fur Massa he alluz did say 'Hi'urm, I counts on you to keep a eye +open endurin' my appersunce;' you ricollic, marm?" addressing an +expanse of black bordered cambric that veiled the features of his +mistress. "Things is a goin' wrong; dat dey is. I don't wants to name +no names 'doubt I'se 'bleeged to; but dey done start a kiarrin' de +cotton seed off de place, and dats how." + +If Hiram's information had confined itself to the bare statement of +things "goin' wrong," such intimation, of its nature vague and +susceptible of uncertain interpretation, might have failed to rouse +Thrse from her lethargy of grief. But that wrong doing presented as +a tangible abuse and defiance of authority, served to move her to +action. She felt at once the weight and sacredness of a trust, whose +acceptance brought consolation and awakened unsuspected powers of +doing. + +In spite of Uncle Hiram's parting prediction "de cotton 'll be a goin' +naxt" no more seed was hauled under cover of darkness from +Place-du-Bois. + +The short length of this Louisiana plantation stretched along Cane +River, meeting the water when that stream was at its highest, with a +thick growth of cotton-wood trees; save where a narrow convenient +opening had been cut into their midst, and where further down the pine +hills started in abrupt prominence from the water and the dead level +of land on either side of them. These hills extended in a long line of +gradual descent far back to the wooded borders of Lac du Bois; and +within the circuit which they formed on the one side, and the +irregular half circle of a sluggish bayou on the other, lay the +cultivated open ground of the plantation--rich in its exhaustless +powers of reproduction. + +Among changes which the railroad brought soon after Jrme Lafirme's +death, and which were viewed by many as of questionable benefit, was +one which drove Thrse to seek another domicile. The old homestead +that nestled to the hill side and close to the water's edge, had been +abandoned to the inroads of progressive civilization; and Mrs. Lafirme +had rebuilt many rods away from the river and beyond sight of the +mutilated dwelling, converted now into a section house. In building, +she avoided the temptations offered by modern architectural +innovations, and clung to the simplicity of large rooms and broad +verandas: a style whose merits had stood the test of easy-going and +comfort-loving generations. + +The negro quarters were scattered at wide intervals over the land, +breaking with picturesque irregularity into the systematic division of +field from field; and in the early spring-time gleaming in their new +coat of whitewash against the tender green of the sprouting cotton and +corn. + +Thrse loved to walk the length of the wide verandas, armed with her +field-glass, and to view her surrounding possessions with comfortable +satisfaction. Then her gaze swept from cabin to cabin; from patch to +patch; up to the pine-capped hills, and down to the station which +squatted a brown and ugly intruder within her fair domain. + +She had made pouting resistance to this change at first, opposing it +step by step with a conservatism that yielded only to the resistless. +She pictured a visionary troop of evils coming in the wake of the +railroad, which, in her eyes no conceivable benefits could mitigate. +The occasional tramp, she foresaw as an army; and the travelers whom +chance deposited at the store that adjoined the station, she dreaded +as an endless procession of intruders forcing themselves upon her +privacy. + +Grgoire, the young nephew of Mrs. Lafirme, whose duty on the +plantation was comprehended in doing as he was bid, qualified by a +propensity for doing as he liked, rode up from the store one day in +the reckless fashion peculiar to Southern youth, breathless with the +information that a stranger was there wishing audience with her. + +Thrse at once bristled with objections. Here was a confirmation of +her worst dread. But encouraged by Grgoire's reiteration "he 'pear to +me like a nice sort o' person," she yielded a grudging assent to the +interview. + +She sat within the wide hall-way beyond the glare and heat that were +beating mercilessly down upon the world out of doors, engaged in a +light work not so exacting as to keep her thoughts and glance from +wandering. Looking through the wide open back doors, the picture which +she saw was a section of the perfect lawn that encircled the house for +an acre around, and from which Hiram was slowly raking the leaves cast +from a clump of tall magnolias. Beneath the spreading shade of an +umbrella-China tree, lay the burly Hector, but half awake to the +possible nearness of tramps; and Betsy, a piece of youthful ebony in +blue cottonade, was crossing leisurely on her way to the poultry yard; +unheeding the scorching sun-rays that she thought were sufficiently +parried by the pan of chick feed that she balanced adroitly on her +bushy black head. + +At the front, the view at certain seasons would have been clear and +unbroken: to the station, the store, and out-lying hills. But now she +could see beyond the lawn only a quivering curtain of rich green which +the growing corn spread before the level landscape, and above whose +swaying heads appeared occasionally the top of an advancing white +sun-shade. + +Thrse was of a roundness of figure suggesting a future of excessive +fullness if not judiciously guarded; and she was fair, with a warm +whiteness that a passing thought could deepen into color. The waving +blonde hair, gathered in an abundant coil on top of her head, grew +away with a pretty sweep from the temples, the low forehead and nape +of the white neck that showed above a frill of soft lace. Her eyes +were blue, as certain gems are; that deep blue that lights, and glows, +and tells things of the soul. When David Hosmer presented himself, +they were intense only with expectancy and the color was in her cheek +like the blush in a shell. + +He was a tall individual of perhaps forty; thin and sallow. His black +hair was streaked abundantly with grey, and his face marked with +premature lines; left there by care, no doubt, and, by a too close +attention to what men are pleased to call the main chances of life. + +"A serious one," was Thrse's first thought in looking at him. "A man +who has never learned to laugh or who has forgotten how." Though +plainly feeling the effects of the heat, he did not seem to appreciate +the relief offered by the grateful change into this shadowy, sweet +smelling, cool retreat; used as he was to ignore the comforting things +of life when presented to him as irrelevant to that dominant main +chance. He accepted under protest a glass of ice water from the +wide-eyed Betsy, and suffered a fan to be thrust into his hand, +seemingly to save his time or his timidity by its possibly unheeded +rejection. + +"Lor'-zee folks," exclaimed the observant Betsy on re-entering the +kitchen, "dey'se a man in yonda, look like he gwine eat somebody up. I +was fur gittin' 'way quick me." + +It can be readily imagined that Hosmer lost little time in preliminary +small talk. He introduced himself vaguely as from the West; then +perceiving the need of being more specific as from Saint Louis. She +had guessed he was no Southerner. He had come to Mrs. Lafirme on the +part of himself and others with a moneyed offer for the privilege of +cutting timber from her land for a given number of years. The amount +named was alluring, but here was proposed another change and she felt +plainly called on for resistance. + +The company which he represented had in view the erection of a sawmill +some two miles back in the woods, close beside the bayou and at a +convenient distance from the lake. He was not wordy, nor was he eager +in urging his plans; only in a quiet way insistent in showing points +to be considered in her own favor which she would be likely herself to +overlook. + +Mrs. Lafirme, a clever enough business woman, was moved by no undue +haste to give her answer. She begged for time to think the matter +over, which Hosmer readily agreed to; expressing a hope that a +favorable answer be sent to him at Natchitoches, where he would await +her convenience. Then resisting rather than declining all further +hospitality, he again took his way through the scorching fields. + +Thrse wanted but time to become familiar with this further change. +Alone she went out to her beloved woods, and at the hush of mid-day, +bade a tearful farewell to the silence. + + + + +II + +At the Mill. + + +David Hosmer sat alone in his little office of roughly fashioned pine +board. So small a place, that with his desk and his clerk's desk, a +narrow bed in one corner, and two chairs, there was scant room for a +man to more than turn himself comfortably about. He had just +dispatched his clerk with the daily bundle of letters to the +post-office, two miles away in the Lafirme store, and he now turned +with the air of a man who had well earned his moment of leisure, to +the questionable relaxation of adding columns and columns of figures. + +The mill's unceasing buzz made pleasant music to his ears and stirred +reflections of a most agreeable nature. A year had gone by since Mrs. +Lafirme had consented to Hosmer's proposal; and already the business +more than gave promise of justifying the venture. Orders came in from +the North and West more rapidly than they could be filled. That +"Cypresse Funerall" which stands in grim majesty through the dense +forests of Louisiana had already won its just recognition; and +Hosmer's appreciation of a successful business venture was showing +itself in a little more pronounced stoop of shoulder, a deepening of +pre-occupation and a few additional lines about mouth and forehead. + +Hardly had the clerk gone with his letters than a light footstep +sounded on the narrow porch; the quick tap of a parasol was heard on +the door-sill; a pleasant voice asking, "Any admission except on +business?" and Thrse crossed the small room and seated herself +beside Hosmer's desk before giving him time to arise. + +She laid her hand and arm,--bare to the elbow--across his work, and +said, looking at him reproachfully:-- + +"Is this the way you keep a promise?" + +"A promise?" he questioned, smiling awkwardly and looking furtively at +the white arm, then very earnestly at the ink-stand beyond. + +"Yes. Didn't you promise to do no work after five o'clock?" + +"But this is merely pastime," he said, touching the paper, yet leaving +it undisturbed beneath the fair weight that was pressing it down. "My +work is finished: you must have met Henry with the letters." + +"No, I suppose he went through the woods; we came on the hand-car. Oh, +dear! It's an ungrateful task, this one of reform," and she leaned +back, fanning leisurely, whilst he proceeded to throw the contents of +his desk into hopeless disorder by pretended efforts at arrangement. + +"My husband used sometimes to say, and no doubt with reason," she +continued, "that in my eagerness for the rest of mankind to do right, +I was often in danger of losing sight of such necessity for myself." + +"Oh, there could be no fear of that," said Hosmer with a short laugh. +There was no further pretext for continued occupation with his pens +and pencils and rulers, so he turned towards Thrse, rested an arm on +the desk, pulled absently at his black moustache, and crossing his +knee, gazed with deep concern at the toe of his boot, and set of his +trouser about the ankle. + +"You are not what my friend Homeyer would call an individualist," he +ventured, "since you don't grant a man the right to follow the +promptings of his character." + +"No, I'm no individualist, if to be one is to permit men to fall into +hurtful habits without offering protest against it. I'm losing faith +in that friend Homeyer, who I strongly suspect is a mythical apology +for your own short-comings." + +"Indeed he's no myth; but a friend who is fond of going into such +things and allows me the benefit of his deeper perceptions." + +"You having no time, well understood. But if his influence has had the +merit of drawing your thoughts from business once in a while we won't +quarrel with it." + +"Mrs. Lafirme," said Hosmer, seeming moved to pursue the subject, and +addressing the spray of white blossoms that adorned Thrse's black +hat, "you admit, I suppose, that in urging your views upon me, you +have in mind the advancement of my happiness?" + +"Well understood." + +"Then why wish to substitute some other form of enjoyment for the one +which I find in following my inclinations?" + +"Because there is an unsuspected selfishness in your inclinations that +works harm to yourself and to those around you. I want you to know," +she continued warmly, "the good things of life that cheer and warm, +that are always at hand." + +"Do you think the happiness of Melicent or--or others could be +materially lessened by my fondness for money getting?" he asked dryly, +with a faint elevation of eyebrow. + +"Yes, in proportion as it deprives them of a charm which any man's +society loses, when pursuing one object in life, he grows insensible +to every other. But I'll not scold any more. I've made myself +troublesome enough for one day. You haven't asked about Melicent. It's +true," she laughed, "I haven't given you much chance. She's out on the +lake with Grgoire." + +"Ah?" + +"Yes, in the pirogue. A dangerous little craft, I'm afraid; but she +tells me she can swim. I suppose it's all right." + +"Oh, Melicent will look after herself." + +Hosmer had great faith in his sister Melicent's ability to look after +herself; and it must be granted that the young lady fully justified +his belief in her. + +"She enjoys her visit more than I thought she would," he said. + +"Melicent's a dear girl," replied Thrse cordially, "and a wise one +too in guarding herself against a somber influence that I know," with +a meaning glance at Hosmer, who was preparing to close his desk. + +She suddenly perceived the picture of a handsome boy, far back in one +of the pigeon-holes, and with the familiarity born of country +intercourse, she looked intently at it, remarking upon the boy's +beauty. + +"A child whom I loved very much," said Hosmer. "He's dead," and he +closed the desk, turning the key in the lock with a sharp click which +seemed to add--"and buried." + +Thrse then approached the open door, leaned her back against its +casing, and turned her pretty profile towards Hosmer, who, it need not +be supposed, was averse to looking at it--only to being caught in the +act. + +"I want to look in at the mill before work closes," she said; and not +waiting for an answer she went on to ask--moved by some association of +ideas:-- + +"How is Joint doing?" + +"Always unruly, the foreman tells me. I don't believe we shall be able +to keep him." + +Hosmer then spoke a few words through the telephone which connected +with the agent's desk at the station, put on his great slouch hat, and +thrusting keys and hands into his pocket, joined Thrse in the +door-way. + +Quitting the office and making a sharp turn to the left, they came in +direct sight of the great mill. She quickly made her way past the huge +piles of sawed timber, not waiting for her companion, who loitered at +each step of the way, with observant watchfulness. Then mounting the +steep stairs that led to the upper portions of the mill, she went at +once to her favorite spot, quite on the edge of the open platform that +overhung the dam. Here she watched with fascinated delight the great +logs hauled dripping from the water, following each till it had +changed to the clean symmetry of sawed planks. The unending work made +her giddy. For no one was there a moment of rest, and she could well +understand the open revolt of the surly Joint; for he rode the day +long on that narrow car, back and forth, back and forth, with his +heart in the pine hills and knowing that his little Creole pony was +roaming the woods in vicious idleness and his rifle gathering an +unsightly rust on the cabin wall at home. + +The boy gave but ugly acknowledgment to Thrse's amiable nod; for he +thought she was one upon whom partly rested the fault of this +intrusive Industry which had come to fire the souls of indolent +fathers with a greedy ambition for gain, at the sore expense of +revolting youth. + + + + +III + +In the Pirogue. + + +"You got to set mighty still in this pirogue," said Grgoire, as with +a long oar-stroke he pulled out into mid stream. + +"Yes, I know," answered Melicent complacently, arranging herself +opposite him in the long narrow boat: all sense of danger which the +situation might arouse being dulled by the attractiveness of a new +experience. + +Her resemblance to Hosmer ended with height and slenderness of figure, +olive tinted skin, and eyes and hair which were of that dark brown +often miscalled black; but unlike his, her face was awake with an +eagerness to know and test the novelty and depth of unaccustomed +sensation. She had thus far lived an unstable existence, free from the +weight of responsibilities, with a notion lying somewhere deep in her +consciousness that the world must one day be taken seriously; but that +contingency was yet too far away to disturb the harmony of her days. + +She had eagerly responded to her brother's suggestion of spending a +summer with him in Louisiana. Hitherto, having passed her summers +North, West, or East as alternating caprice prompted, she was ready at +a word to fit her humor to the novelty of a season at the South. She +enjoyed in advance the startling effect which her announced intention +produced upon her intimate circle at home; thinking that her whim +deserved the distinction of eccentricity with which they chose to +invest it. But Melicent was chiefly moved by the prospect of an +uninterrupted sojourn with her brother, whom she loved blindly, and to +whom she attributed qualities of mind and heart which she thought the +world had discovered to use against him. + +"You got to set mighty still in this pirogue." + +"Yes, I know; you told me so before," and she laughed. + +"W'at are you laughin' at?" asked Grgoire with amused but uncertain +expectancy. + +"Laughing at you, Grgoire; how can I help it?" laughing again. + +"Betta wait tell I do somethin' funny, I reckon. Ain't this a putty +sight?" he added, referring to the dense canopy of an overarching +tree, beneath which they were gliding, and whose extreme branches +dipped quite into the slow moving water. + +The scene had not attracted Melicent. For she had been engaged in +observing her companion rather closely; his personality holding her +with a certain imaginative interest. + +The young man whom she so closely scrutinized was slightly undersized, +but of close and brawny build. His hands were not so refinedly white +as those of certain office bred young men of her acquaintance, yet +they were not coarsened by undue toil: it being somewhat an axiom with +him to do nothing that an available "nigger" might do for him. + +Close fitting, high-heeled boots of fine quality incased his feet, in +whose shapeliness he felt a pardonable pride; for a young man's +excellence was often measured in the circle which he had frequented, +by the possession of such a foot. A peculiar grace in the dance and a +talent for bold repartee were further characteristics which had made +Grgoire's departure keenly felt among certain belles of upper Red +River. His features were handsome, of sharp and refined cut; and his +eyes black and brilliant as eyes of an alert and intelligent animal +sometimes are. Melicent could not reconcile his voice to her liking; +it was too softly low and feminine, and carried a note of pleading or +pathos, unless he argued with his horse, his dog, or a "nigger," at +which times, though not unduly raised, it acquired a biting quality +that served the purpose of relieving him from further form of +insistence. + +He pulled rapidly and in silence down the bayou, that was now so +entirely sheltered from the open light of the sky by the meeting +branches above, as to seem a dim leafy tunnel fashioned by man's +ingenuity. There were no perceptible banks, for the water spread out +on either side of them, further than they could follow its flashings +through the rank underbrush. The dull plash of some object falling +into the water, or the wild call of a lonely bird were the only sounds +that broke upon the stillness, beside the monotonous dipping of the +oars and the occasional low undertones of their own voices. When +Grgoire called the girl's attention to an object near by, she fancied +it was the protruding stump of a decaying tree; but reaching for his +revolver and taking quiet aim, he drove a ball into the black upturned +nozzle that sent it below the surface with an angry splash. + +"Will he follow us?" she asked, mildly agitated. + +"Oh no; he's glad 'nough to git out o' the way. You betta put down yo' +veil," he added a moment later. + +Before she could ask a reason--for it was not her fashion to obey at +word of command--the air was filled with the doleful hum of a gray +swarm of mosquitoes, which attacked them fiercely. + +"You didn't tell me the bayou was the refuge of such savage +creatures," she said, fastening her veil closely about face and neck, +but not before she had felt the sharpness of their angry sting. + +"I reckoned you'd 'a knowed all about it: seems like you know +everything." After a short interval he added, "you betta take yo' veil +off." + +She was amused at Grgoire's authoritative tone and she said to him +laughing, yet obeying his suggestion, which carried a note of command: +"you shall tell me always, why I should do things." + +"All right," he replied; "because they ain't any mo' mosquitoes; +because I want you to see somethin' worth seein' afta while; and +because I like to look at you," which he was doing, with the innocent +boldness of a forward child. "Ain't that 'nough reasons?" + +"More than enough," she replied shortly. + +The rank and clustering vegetation had become denser as they went on, +forming an impenetrable tangle on either side, and pressing so closely +above that they often needed to lower their heads to avoid the blow of +some drooping branch. Then a sudden and unlooked for turn in the bayou +carried them out upon the far-spreading waters of the lake, with the +broad canopy of the open sky above them. + +"Oh," cried Melicent, in surprise. Her exclamation was like a sigh of +relief which comes at the removal of some pressure from body or brain. + +The wildness of the scene caught upon her erratic fancy, speeding it +for a quick moment into the realms of romance. She was an Indian +maiden of the far past, fleeing and seeking with her dusky lover some +wild and solitary retreat on the borders of this lake, which offered +them no seeming foot-hold save such as they would hew themselves with +axe or tomahawk. Here and there, a grim cypress lifted its head above +the water, and spread wide its moss covered arms inviting refuge to +the great black-winged buzzards that circled over and about it in +mid-air. Nameless voices--weird sounds that awake in a Southern forest +at twilight's approach,--were crying a sinister welcome to the +settling gloom. + +"This is a place thet can make a man sad, I tell you," said Grgoire, +resting his oars, and wiping the moisture from his forehead. "I +wouldn't want to be yere alone, not fur any money." + +"It is an awful place," replied Melicent with a little appreciative +shudder; adding "do you consider me a bodily protection?" and feebly +smiling into his face. + +"Oh; I ain't 'fraid o' any thing I can see an on'erstan'. I can han'le +mos' any thing thet's got a body. But they do tell some mighty queer +tales 'bout this lake an' the pine hills yonda." + +"Queer--how?" + +"W'y, ole McFarlane's buried up there on the hill; an' they's folks +'round yere says he walks about o' nights; can't res' in his grave fur +the niggas he's killed." + +"Gracious! and who was old McFarlane?" + +"The meanest w'ite man thet ever lived, seems like. Used to own this +place long befo' the Lafirmes got it. They say he's the person that +Mrs. W'at's her name wrote about in Uncle Tom's Cabin." + +"Legree? I wonder if it could be true?" Melicent asked with interest. + +"Thet's w'at they all say: ask any body." + +"You'll take me to his grave, won't you Grgoire," she entreated. + +"Well, not this evenin'--I reckon not. It'll have to be broad day, an' +the sun shinin' mighty bright w'en I take you to ole McFarlane's +grave." + +They had retraced their course and again entered the bayou, from which +the light had now nearly vanished, making it needful that they watch +carefully to escape the hewn logs that floated in numbers upon the +water. + +"I didn't suppose you were ever sad, Grgoire," Melicent said gently. + +"Oh my! yes;" with frank acknowledgment. "You ain't ever seen me w'en +I was real lonesome. 'Tain't so bad sence you come. But times w'en I +git to thinkin' 'bout home, I'm boun' to cry--seems like I can't he'p +it." + +"Why did you ever leave home?" she asked sympathetically. + +"You see w'en father died, fo' year ago, mother she went back to +France, t'her folks there; she never could stan' this country--an' +lef' us boys to manage the place. Hec, he took charge the firs' year +an' run it in debt. Placide an' me did'n' have no betta luck the naxt +year. Then the creditors come up from New Orleans an' took holt. +That's the time I packed my duds an' lef'." + +"And you came here?" + +"No, not at firs'. You see the Santien boys had a putty hard name in +the country. Aunt Thrse, she'd fallen out with father years ago +'bout the way, she said, he was bringin' us up. Father, he wasn't the +man to take nothin' from nobody. Never 'lowed any of us to come down +yere. I was in Texas, goin' to the devil I reckon, w'en she sent for +me, an' yere I am." + +"And here you ought to stay, Grgoire." + +"Oh, they ain't no betta woman in the worl' then Aunt Thrse, w'en +you do like she wants. See 'em yonda waitin' fur us? Reckon they +thought we was drowned." + + + + +IV + +A Small Interruption. + + +When Melicent came to visit her brother, Mrs. Lafirme persuaded him to +abandon his uncomfortable quarters at the mill and take up his +residence in the cottage, which stood just beyond the lawn of the big +house. This cottage had been furnished _de pied en cap_ many years +before, in readiness against an excess of visitors, which in days gone +by was not of infrequent occurrence at Place-du-Bois. It was +Melicent's delighted intention to keep house here. And she foresaw no +obstacle in the way of procuring the needed domestic aid in a place +which was clearly swarming with idle women and children. + +"Got a cook yet, Mel?" was Hosmer's daily enquiry on returning home, +to which Melicent was as often forced to admit that she had no cook, +but was not without abundant hope of procuring one. + +Betsy's Aunt Cynthy had promised with a sincerity which admitted not +of doubt, that "de Lord willin'" she would "be on han' Monday, time +to make de mornin' coffee." Which assurance had afforded Melicent a +Sunday free of disturbing doubts concerning the future of her +undertaking. But who may know what the morrow will bring forth? Cynthy +had been "tuck sick in de night." So ran the statement of the wee +pickaninny who appeared at Melicent's gate many hours later than +morning coffee time: delivering his message in a high voice of +complaint, and disappearing like a vision without further word. + +Uncle Hiram, then called to the breach, had staked his patriarchal +honor on the appearance of his niece Suze on Tuesday. Melicent and +Thrse meeting Suze some days later in a field path, asked the cause +of her bad faith. The girl showed them all the white teeth which +nature had lavished on her, saying with the best natured laugh in the +world: "I don' know how come I didn' git dere Chewsday like I +promise." + +If the ladies were not disposed to consider that an all-sufficient +reason, so much the worse, for Suze had no other to offer. + +From Mose's wife, Minervy, better things might have been expected. But +after a solemn engagement to take charge of Melicent's kitchen on +Wednesday, the dusky matron suddenly awoke to the need of "holpin' +Mose hoe out dat co'n in the stiff lan." + +Thrse, seeing that the girl was really eager to play in the brief +role of housekeeper had used her powers, persuasive and authoritative, +to procure servants for her, but without avail. She herself was not +without an abundance of them, from the white-haired Hiram, whose +position on the place had long been a sinecure, down to the little +brown legged tot Mandy, much given to falling asleep in the sun, when +not chasing venturesome poultry off forbidden ground, or stirring +gentle breezes with an enormous palm leaf fan about her mistress +during that lady's after dinner nap. + +When pressed to give a reason for this apparent disinclination of the +negroes to work for the Hosmers, Nathan, who was at the moment being +interviewed on the front veranda by Thrse and Melicent, spoke out. + +"Dey 'low 'roun' yere, dat you's mean to de black folks, ma'am: dat +what dey says--I don' know me." + +"Mean," cried Melicent, amazed, "in what way, pray?" + +"Oh, all sort o' ways," he admitted, with a certain shy brazenness; +determined to go through with the ordeal. + +"Dey 'low you wants to cut de little gals' plaits off, an' sich--I +don' know me." + +"Do you suppose, Nathan," said Thrse attempting but poorly to hide +her amusement at Melicent's look of dismay, "that Miss Hosmer would +bother herself with darkies' plaits?" + +"Dat's w'at I tink m'sef. Anyways, I'll sen' Ar'minty 'roun' +to-morrow, sho." + +Melicent was not without the guilty remembrance of having one day +playfully seized one of the small Mandy's bristling plaits, daintily +between finger and thumb, threatening to cut them all away with the +scissors which she carried. Yet she could not but believe that there +was some deeper motive underlying this systematic reluctance of the +negroes to give their work in exchange for the very good pay which she +offered. Thrse soon enlightened her with the information that the +negroes were very averse to working for Northern people whose speech, +manners, and attitude towards themselves were unfamiliar. She was +given the consoling assurance of not being the only victim of this +boycott, as Thrse recalled many examples of strangers whom she knew +to have met with a like cavalier treatment at the darkies' hands. + +Needless to say, Araminty never appeared. + +Hosmer and Melicent were induced to accept Mrs. Lafirme's generous +hospitality; and one of that lady's many supernumeraries was detailed +each morning to "do up" Miss Melicent's rooms, but not without the +previous understanding that the work formed part of Miss T'rse's +system. + +Nothing which had happened during the year of his residence at +Place-du-Bois had furnished Hosmer such amusement as these +misadventures of his sister Melicent, he having had no like experience +with his mill hands. + +It is not unlikely that his good humor was partly due to the +acceptable arrangement which assured him the daily society of Thrse, +whose presence was growing into a need with him. + + + + +V + +In the Pine Woods. + + +When Grgoire said to Melicent that there was no better woman in the +world than his Aunt Thrse, "W'en you do like she wants," the +statement was so incomplete as to leave one in uncomfortable doubt of +the expediency of venturing within the influence of so exacting a +nature. True, Thrse required certain conduct from others, but she +was willing to further its accomplishment by personal efforts, even +sacrifices--that could leave no doubt of the pure unselfishness of her +motive. There was hardly a soul at Place-du-Bois who had not felt the +force of her will and yielded to its gentle influence. + +The picture of Joint as she had last seen him, stayed with her, till +it gave form to a troubled desire moving her to see him again and +speak with him. He had always been an unruly subject, inclined to a +surreptitious defiance of authority. Repeatedly had he been given work +on the plantation and as many times dismissed for various causes. +Thrse would have long since removed him had it not been for his old +father Morico, whose long life spent on the place had established a +claim upon her tolerance. + +In the late afternoon, when the shadows of the magnolias were +stretching in grotesque lengths across the lawn, Thrse stood waiting +for Uncle Hiram to bring her sleek bay Beauregard around to the front. +The dark close fitting habit which she wore lent brilliancy to her +soft blonde coloring; and there was no mark of years about her face or +figure, save the settling of a thoughtful shadow upon the eyes, which +joys and sorrows that were past and gone had left there. + +As she rode by the cottage, Melicent came out on the porch to wave a +laughing good-bye. The girl was engaged in effacing the simplicity of +her rooms with certain bizarre decorations that seemed the promptings +of a disordered imagination. Yards of fantastic calico had been +brought up from the store, which Grgoire with hammer and tacks was +amiably forming into impossible designs at the prompting of the girl. +The little darkies had been enlisted to bring their contributions of +palm branches, pine cones, ferns, and bright hued bird wings--and a +row of those small recruits stood on the porch, gaping in wide-mouthed +admiration at a sight that stirred within their breasts such remnant +of savage instinct as past generations had left there in dormant +survival. + +One of the small audience permitted her attention to be drawn for a +moment from the gorgeous in-door spectacle, to follow the movements of +her mistress. + +"Jis' look Miss T'rse how she go a lopin' down de lane. Dere she +go--dere she go--now she gone," and she again became contemplative. + +Thrse, after crossing the railroad, for a space kept to the brow of +the hill where stretched a well defined road, which by almost +imperceptible degrees led deeper and always higher into the woods. +Presently, leaving this road and turning into a bridle path where an +unpracticed eye would have discovered no sign of travel, she rode on +until reaching a small clearing among the pines, in the center of +which stood a very old and weather beaten cabin. + +Here she dismounted, before Morico knew of her presence, for he sat +with his back partly turned to the open door. As she entered and +greeted him, he arose from his chair, all trembling with excitement at +her visit; the long white locks, straggling and unkept, falling about +his brown visage that had grown old and weather beaten with his cabin. +Sinking down into his seat--the hide covered chair that had been worn +smooth by years of usefulness--he gazed well pleased at Thrse, who +seated herself beside him. + +"Ah, this is quite the handsomest you have made yet, Morico," she said +addressing him in French, and taking up the fan that he was curiously +fashioning of turkey feathers. + +"I am taking extra pains with it," he answered, looking complacently +at his handiwork and smoothing down the glossy feathers with the ends +of his withered old fingers. "I thought the American lady down at the +house might want to buy it." + +Thrse could safely assure him of Melicent's willingness to seize on +the trophy. + +Then she asked why Joint had not been to the house with news of him. +"I have had chickens and eggs for you, and no way of sending them." + +At mention of his son's name, the old man's face clouded with +displeasure and his hand trembled so that he was at some pains to +place the feather which he was at the moment adding to the widening +fan. + +"Joint is a bad son, madame, when even you have been able to do +nothing with him. The trouble that boy has given me no one knows; but +let him not think I am too old to give him a sound drubbing." + +Joint meanwhile had returned from the mill and seeing Thrse's horse +fastened before his door, was at first inclined to skulk back into the +woods; but an impulse of defiance moved him to enter, and gave to his +ugly countenance a look that was far from agreeable as he mumbled a +greeting to Thrse. His father he did not address. The old man looked +from son to visitor with feeble expectancy of some good to come from +her presence there. + +Joint's straight and coarse black hair hung in a heavy mop over his +low retreating forehead, almost meeting the ill-defined line of +eyebrow that straggled above small dusky black eyes, that with the +rest of his physique was an inheritance from his Indian mother. + +Approaching the safe or _garde manger_, which was the most prominent +piece of furniture in the room, he cut a wedge from the round loaf of +heavy soggy corn bread that he found there, added a layer of fat pork, +and proceeded to devour the unpalatable morsel with hungry relish. + +"That is but poor fare for your old father, Joint," said Thrse, +looking steadily at the youth. + +"Well, I got no chance me, fu' go fine nuttin in de 'ood" (woods), he +answered purposely in English, to annoy his father who did not +understand the language. + +"But you are earning enough to buy him something better; and you know +there is always plenty at the house that I am willing to spare him." + +"I got no chance me fu' go to de 'ouse neider," he replied +deliberately, after washing down the scant repast with a long draught +from the tin bucket which he had replenished at the cistern before +entering. He swallowed the water regardless of the "wiggles" whose +presence was plainly visible. + +"What does he say?" asked Morico scanning Thrse's face appealingly. + +"He only says that work at the mill keeps him a good deal occupied," +she said with attempted carelessness. + +As she finished speaking, Joint put on his battered felt hat, and +strode out the back door; his gun on his shoulder and a yellow cur +following close at his heels. + +Thrse remained a while longer with the old man, hearing +sympathetically the long drawn story of his troubles, and cheering him +as no one else in the world was able to do, then she went away. + +Joint was not the only one who had seen Beauregard fastened at +Morico's door. Hosmer was making a tour of inspection that afternoon +through the woods, and when he came suddenly upon Thrse some moments +after she had quitted the cabin, the meeting was not so wholly +accidental as that lady fancied it was. + +If there could be a situation in which Hosmer felt more than in +another at ease in Thrse's company, it was the one in which he found +himself. There was no need to seek occupation for his hands, those +members being sufficiently engaged with the management of his horse. +His eyes found legitimate direction in following the various details +which a rider is presumed to observe; and his manner freed from the +necessity of self direction took upon itself an ease which was +occasional enough to mark it as noteworthy. + +She told him of her visit. At mention of Joint's name he reddened: +then followed the acknowledgment that the youth in question had caused +him to lose his temper and forget his dignity during the afternoon. + +"In what way?" asked Thrse. "It would be better to dismiss him than +to rail at him. He takes reproof badly and is extremely treacherous." + +"Mill hands are not plentiful, or I should send him off at once. Oh, +he is an unbearable fellow. The men told me of a habit he has of +letting the logs roll off the carriage, causing a good deal of +annoyance and delay in replacing them. I was willing enough to believe +it might be accidental, until I caught him today in the very act. I am +thankful not to have knocked him down." + +Hosmer felt exhilarated. The excitement of his encounter with Joint +had not yet died away; this softly delicious atmosphere; the subtle +aroma of the pines; his unlooked for meeting with Thrse--all +combined to stir him with unusual emotions. + +"What a splendid creature Beauregard is," he said, smoothing the +animal's glossy mane with the end of his riding whip. The horses were +walking slowly in step, and close together. + +"Of course he is," said Thrse proudly, patting the arched neck of +her favorite. "Beauregard is a blooded animal, remember. He quite +throws poor Nelson in the shade," looking pityingly at Hosmer's +heavily built iron-grey. + +"Don't cast any slurs on Nelson, Mrs. Lafirme. He's done me service +that's worthy of praise--worthy of better treatment than he gets." + +"I know. He deserves the best, poor fellow. When you go away you +should turn him out to pasture, and forbid any one to use him." + +"It would be a good idea; but--I'm not so certain about going away." + +"Oh I beg your pardon. I fancied your movements were directed by some +unchangeable laws." + +"Like the planets in their orbits? No, there is no absolute need of my +going; the business which would have called me away can be done as +readily by letter. If I heed my inclination it certainly holds me +here." + +"I don't understand that. It's natural enough that I should be fond of +the country; but you--I don't believe you've been away for three +months, have you? and city life certainly has its attractions." + +"It's beastly," he answered decidedly. "I greatly prefer the +country--this country; though I can imagine a condition under which it +would be less agreeable; insupportable, in fact." + +He was looking fixedly at Thrse, who let her eyes rest for an +instant in the unaccustomed light of his, while she asked "and the +condition?" + +"If you were to go away. Oh! it would take the soul out of my life." + +It was now her turn to look in all directions save the one in which +his glance invited her. At a slight and imperceptible motion of the +bridle, well understood by Beauregard, the horse sprang forward into a +quick canter, leaving Nelson and his rider to follow as they could. + +Hosmer overtook her when she stopped to let her horse drink at the +side of the hill where the sparkling spring water came trickling from +the moist rocks, and emptied into the long out-scooped trunk of a +cypress, that served as trough. The two horses plunged their heads +deep in the clear water; the proud Beauregard quivering with +satisfaction, as arching his neck and shaking off the clinging +moisture, he waited for his more deliberate companion. + +"Doesn't it give one a sympathetic pleasure," said Thrse, "to see +the relish with which they drink?" + +"I never thought of it," replied Hosmer, cynically. His face was +unusually flushed, and diffidence was plainly seizing him again. + +Thrse was now completely mistress of herself, and during the +remainder of the ride she talked incessantly, giving him no chance for +more than the briefest answers. + + + + +VI + +Melicent Talks. + + +"David Hosmer, you are the most supremely unsatisfactory man +existing." + +Hosmer had come in from his ride, and seating himself in the large +wicker chair that stood in the center of the room, became at once +absorbed in reflections. Being addressed, he looked up at his sister, +who sat sidewards on the edge of a table slightly removed, swaying a +dainty slippered foot to and fro in evident impatience. + +"What crime have I committed now, Melicent, against your code?" he +asked, not fully aroused from his reverie. + +"You've committed nothing; your sin is one of omission. I absolutely +believe you go through the world with your eyes, to all practical +purposes, closed. Don't you notice anything; any change?" + +"To be sure I do," said Hosmer, relying on a knowledge lent him by +previous similar experiences, and taking in the clinging artistic +drapery that enfolded her tall spare figure, "you've a new gown on. I +didn't think to mention it, but I noticed it all the same." + +This admission of a discernment that he had failed to make evident, +aroused Melicent's uncontrolled mirth. + +"A new gown!" and she laughed heartily. "A threadbare remnant! A thing +that holds by shreds and tatters." + +She went behind her brother's chair, taking his face between her +hands, and turning it upward, kissed him on the forehead. With his +head in such position, he could not fail to observe the brilliant +folds of muslin that were arranged across the ceiling to simulate the +canopy of a tent. Still holding his face, she moved it sidewards, so +that his eyes, knowing now what office was expected of them, followed +the line of decorations about the room. + +"It's immense, Mel; perfectly immense. When did you do it all?" + +"This afternoon, with Grgoire's help," she answered, looking proudly +at her work. "And my poor hands are in such condition! But really, +Dave," she continued, seating herself on the side of his chair, with +an arm about his neck, and he leaning his head back on the improvised +cushion, "I wonder that you ever got on in business, observing things +as little as you do." + +"Oh, that's different." + +"Well, I don't believe you see half that you ought to," adding +naively, "How did you and Mrs. Lafirme happen to come home together +this evening?" + +The bright lamp-light made the flush quite evident that arose to his +face under her near gaze. + +"We met in the woods; she was coming from Morico's." + +"David, do you know that woman is an angel. She's simply the most +perfect creature I ever knew." + +Melicent's emphasis of speech was a thing so recurrent, so singularly +her own, as to startle an unaccustomed hearer. + +"That opinion might carry some weight, Mel, if I hadn't heard it +scores of times from you, and of as many different women." + +"Indeed you have not. Mrs. Lafirme is exceptional. Really, when she +stands at the end of the veranda, giving orders to those darkies, her +face a little flushed, she's positively a queen." + +"As far as queenliness may be compatible with the angelic state," +replied Hosmer, but not ill pleased with Melicent's exaggerated praise +of Thrse. + +Neither had heard a noiseless step approaching, and they only became +aware of an added human presence, when Mandy's small voice was heard +to issue from Mandy's small body which stood in the mingled light and +shadow of the door-way. + +"Aunt B'lindy 'low supper on de table gittin' cole." + +"Come here, Mandy," cried Melicent, springing after the child. But +Mandy was flying back through the darkness. She was afraid of +Melicent. + +Laughing heartily, the girl disappeared into her bedroom, to make some +needed additions to her toilet; and Hosmer, waiting for her, returned +to his interrupted reflections. The words which he had spoken during a +moment of emotion to Thrse, out in the piny woods, had served a +double purpose with him. They had shown him more plainly than he had +quite been certain of, the depth of his feeling for her; and also had +they settled his determination. He was not versed in the reading of a +woman's nature, and he found himself at a loss to interpret Thrse's +actions. He recalled how she had looked away from him when he had +spoken the few tender words that were yet whirling in his memory; how +she had impetuously ridden ahead,--leaving him to follow alone; and +her incessant speech that had forced him into silence. All of which +might or might not be symptoms in his favor. He remembered her kind +solicitude for his comfort and happiness during the past year; but he +as readily recalled that he had not been the only recipient of such +favors. His reflections led to no certainty, except that he loved her +and meant to tell her so. + +Thrse's door being closed, and moreover locked, Aunt Belindy, the +stout negress who had superintended the laying of supper, felt free to +give low speech to her wrath as she went back and forth between +dining-room and kitchen. + +"Suppa gittin' dat cole 'tain' gwine be fittin' fu' de dogs te' tech. +Believe half de time w'ite folks ain't got no feelin's, no how. If dey +speck I'se gwine stan' up heah on my two feet all night, dey's foolin' +dey sef. I ain't gwine do it. Git out dat doo' you Mandy! you want me +dash dis heah coffee pot at you--blockin' up de doo's dat away? W'ar +dat good fu' nuttin Betsy? Look yonda, how she done flung dem dere +knife an forks on de table. Jis let Miss T'rse kotch'er. Good God +A'mighty, Miss T'rse mus' done gone asleep. G'long dar an' see." + +There was no one on the plantation who would have felt at liberty to +enter Thrse's bedroom without permission, the door being closed; yet +she had taken the needless precaution of bringing lock and bolt to the +double security of her moment of solitude. The first announcement of +supper had found her still in her riding habit, with head thrown back +upon the cushion of her lounging chair, and her mind steeped in a +semi-stupor that it would be injustice to her brighter moments to call +reflection. + +Thrse was a warm-hearted woman, and a woman of clear mental vision; +a combination not found so often together as to make it ordinary. +Being a woman of warm heart, she had loved her husband with the +devotion which good husbands deserve; but being a clear-headed woman, +she was not disposed to rebel against the changes which Time brings, +when so disposed, to the human sensibilities. She was not steeped in +that agony of remorse which many might consider becoming in a widow of +five years' standing at the discovery that her heart which had fitted +well the holding of a treasure, was not narrowed to the holding of a +memory,--the treasure being gone. + +Mandy's feeble knock at the door was answered by her mistress in +person who had now banished all traces of her ride and its resultant +cogitations. + +The two women, with Hosmer and Grgoire, sat out on the veranda after +supper as their custom was during these warm summer evenings. There +was no attempt at sustained conversation; they talked by snatches to +and at one another, of the day's small events; Melicent and Grgoire +having by far the most to say. The girl was half reclining in the +hammock which she kept in a slow, unceasing motion by the impetus of +her slender foot; he sitting some distance removed on the steps. +Hosmer was noticeably silent; even Joint as a theme failing to rouse +him to more than a few words of dismissal. His will and tenacity were +controlling him to one bent. He had made up his mind that he had +something to say to Mrs. Lafirme, and he was impatient at any enforced +delay in the telling. + +Grgoire slept now in the office of the mill, as a measure of +precaution. To-night, Hosmer had received certain late telegrams that +necessitated a return to the mill, and his iron-grey was standing +outside in the lane with Grgoire's horse, awaiting the pleasure of +his rider. When Grgoire quitted the group to go and throw the saddles +across the patient animals, Melicent, who contemplated an additional +hour's chat with Thrse, crossed over to the cottage to procure a +light wrap for her sensitive shoulders against the chill night air. +Hosmer, who had started to the assistance of Grgoire, seeing that +Thrse had remained alone, standing at the top of the stairs, +approached her. Remaining a few steps below her, and looking up into +her face, he held out his hand to say good-night, which was an unusual +proceeding, for they had not shaken hands since his return to +Place-du-Bois three months before. She gave him her soft hand to hold +and as the warm, moist palm met his, it acted like a charged electric +battery turning its subtle force upon his sensitive nerves. + +"Will you let me talk to you to-morrow?" he asked. + +"Yes, perhaps; if I have time." + +"Oh, you will make the time. I can't let the day go by without telling +you many things that you ought to have known long ago." The battery +was still doing its work. "And I can't let the night go by without +telling you that I love you." + +Grgoire called out that the horses were ready. Melicent was +approaching in her diaphanous envelope, and Hosmer reluctantly let +drop Thrse's hand and left her. + +As the men rode away, the two women stood silently following their +diminishing outlines into the darkness and listening to the creaking +of the saddles and the dull regular thud of the horses' feet upon the +soft earth, until the sounds grew inaudible, when they turned to the +inner shelter of the veranda. Melicent once more possessed herself of +the hammock in which she now reclined fully, and Thrse sat near +enough beside her to intertwine her fingers between the tense cords. + +"What a great difference in age there must be between you and your +brother," she said, breaking the silence. + +"Yes--though he is younger and I older than you perhaps think. He was +fifteen and the only child when I was born. I am twenty-four, so he of +course is thirty-nine." + +"I certainly thought him older." + +"Just imagine, Mrs. Lafirme, I was only ten when both my parents died. +We had no kindred living in the West, and I positively rebelled +against being separated from David; so you see he's had the care of me +for a good many years." + +"He appears very fond of you." + +"Oh, not only that, but you've no idea how splendidly he's done for me +in every way. Looked after my interest and all that, so that I'm +perfectly independent. Poor Dave," she continued, heaving a profound +sigh, "he's had more than his share of trouble, if ever a man had. I +wonder when his day of compensation will come." + +"Don't you think," ventured Thrse, "that we make too much of our +individual trials. We are all so prone to believe our own burden +heavier than our neighbor's." + +"Perhaps--but there can be no question about the weight of David's. +I'm not a bit selfish about him though; poor fellow, I only wish he'd +marry again." + +Melicent's last words stung Thrse like an insult. Her native pride +rebelled against the reticence of this man who had shared her +confidence while keeping her in ignorance of so important a feature of +his own life. But her dignity would not permit a show of disturbance; +she only asked:-- + +"How long has his wife been dead?" + +"Oh," cried Melicent, in dismay. "I thought you knew of course; +why--she isn't dead at all--they were divorced two years ago." + +The girl felt intuitively that she had yielded to an indiscretion of +speech. She could not know David's will in the matter, but since he +had all along left Mrs. Lafirme in ignorance of his domestic trials, +she concluded it was not for her to enlighten that lady further. Her +next remark was to call Thrse's attention to the unusual number of +glow-worms that were flashing through the darkness, and to ask the +sign of it, adding "every thing seems to be the sign of something down +here." + +"Aunt Belindy might tell you," replied Thrse, "I only know that I +feel the signs of being very sleepy after that ride through the woods +to-day. Don't mind if I say good night?" + +"Certainly not. Good night, dear Mrs. Lafirme. Let me stay here till +David comes back; I should die of fright, to go to the cottage alone." + + + + +VII + +Painful Disclosures. + + +Thrse possessed an independence of thought exceptional enough when +considered in relation to her life and its surrounding conditions. But +as a woman who lived in close contact with her fellow-beings she was +little given to the consideration of abstract ideas, except in so far +as they touched the individual man. If ever asked to give her opinion +of divorce, she might have replied that the question being one which +did not immediately concern her, its remoteness had removed it from +the range of her inquiry. She felt vaguely that in many cases it might +be a blessing; conceding that it must not infrequently be a necessity, +to be appealed to however only in an extremity beyond which endurance +could scarcely hold. With the prejudices of her Catholic education +coloring her sentiment, she instinctively shrank when the theme +confronted her as one having even a remote reference to her own clean +existence. There was no question with her of dwelling upon the matter; +it was simply a thing to be summarily dismissed and as far as possible +effaced from her remembrance. + +Thrse had not reached the age of thirty-five without learning that +life presents many insurmountable obstacles which must be accepted, +whether with the callousness of philosophy, the revolt of weakness or +the dignity of self-respect. The following morning, the only sign +which she gave of her mental disturbance, was an appearance that might +have succeeded a night of unrefreshing sleep. + +Hosmer had decided that his interview with Mrs. Lafirme should not be +left further to the caprice of accident. An hour or more before noon +he rode up from the mill knowing it to be a time when he would likely +find her alone. Not seeing her he proceeded to make inquiry of the +servants; first appealing to Betsy. + +"I don' know whar Miss T'rse," with a rising inflection on the +"whar." "I yain't seed her sence mornin', time she sont Unc' Hi'um +yonda to old Morico wid de light bread an' truck," replied the verbose +Betsy. "Aunt B'lindy, you know whar Miss T'rse?" + +"How you want me know? standin' up everlastin' in de kitchen a bakin' +light-bread fu' lazy trash det betta be in de fiel' wurkin' a crap +like people, stid o' 'pendin' on yeda folks." + +Mandy, who had been a silent listener, divining that she had perhaps +better make known certain information that was exclusively her own +piped out:-- + +"Miss T'rse shet up in de parla; 'low she want we all lef 'er +'lone." + +Having as it were forced an entrance into the stronghold where Thrse +had supposed herself secure from intrusion, Hosmer at once seated +himself beside her. + +This was a room kept for the most part closed during the summer days +when the family lived chiefly on the verandas or in the wide open hall +There lingered about it the foreign scent of cool clean matting, +mingled with a faint odor of rose which came from a curious Japanese +jar that stood on the ample hearth. Through the green half-closed +shutters the air came in gentle ripples, sweeping the filmy curtains +back and forth in irregular undulations. A few tasteful pictures hung +upon the walls, alternating with family portraits, for the most part +stiff and unhandsome, except in the case of such as were of so remote +date that age gave them a claim upon the interest and admiration of a +far removed generation. + +It was not entirely clear to the darkies whether this room were not a +sort of holy sanctuary, where one should scarce be permitted to +breathe, except under compulsion of a driving necessity. + +"Mrs. Lafirme," began Hosmer, "Melicent tells me that she made you +acquainted last night with the matter which I wished to talk to you +about to-day." + +"Yes," Thrse replied, closing the book which she had made a pretense +of reading, and laying it down upon the window-sill near which she +sat; adding very simply, "Why did you not tell me long ago, Mr. +Hosmer?" + +"God knows," he replied; the sharp conviction breaking upon him, that +this disclosure had some how changed the aspect of life for him. +"Natural reluctance to speak of a thing so painful--native +reticence--I don't know what. I hope you forgive me; that you will let +it make no difference in whatever regard you may have for me." + +"I had better tell you at once that there must be no repetition of--of +what you told me last night." + +Hosmer had feared it. He made no protest in words; his revolt was +inward and showed itself only in an added pallor and increased +rigidity of face lines. He arose and went to a near window, peering +for a while aimlessly out between the partly open slats. + +"I hadn't thought of your being a Catholic," he said, finally turning +towards her with folded arms. + +"Because you have never seen any outward signs of it. But I can't +leave you under a false impression: religion doesn't influence my +reason in this." + +"Do you think then that a man who has had such misfortune, should be +debarred the happiness which a second marriage could give him?" + +"No, nor a woman either, if it suit her moral principle, which I hold +to be something peculiarly one's own." + +"That seems to me to be a prejudice," he replied. "Prejudices may be +set aside by an effort of the will," catching at a glimmer of hope. + +"There are some prejudices which a woman can't afford to part with, +Mr. Hosmer," she said a little haughtily, "even at the price of +happiness. Please say no more about it, think no more of it." + +He seated himself again, facing her; and looking at him all her +sympathetic nature was moved at sight of his evident trouble. + +"Tell me about it. I would like to know every thing in your life," she +said, feelingly. + +"It's very good of you," he said, holding a hand for a moment over his +closed eyes. Then looking up abruptly, "It was a painful enough +experience, but I never dreamed that it could have had this last blow +in reserve for me." + +"When did you marry?" she asked, wishing to start him with the story +which she fancied he would feel better for the telling. + +"Ten years ago. I am a poor hand to analyze character: my own or +another's. My reasons for doing certain things have never been quite +clear to me; or I have never schooled myself to inquiry into my own +motives for action. I have been always thoroughly the business man. I +don't make a boast of it, but I have no reason to be ashamed of the +admission. Socially, I have mingled little with my fellow-beings, +especially with women, whose society has had little attraction for me; +perhaps, because I have never been thrown much into it, and I was +nearly thirty when I first met my wife." + +"Was it in St. Louis?" Thrse asked. + +"Yes. I had been inveigled into going on a river excursion," he said, +plunging into the story, "Heaven knows how. Perhaps I was feeling +unwell--I really can't remember. But at all events I met a friend who +introduced me early in the day to a young girl--Fanny Larimore. She +was a pretty little thing, not more than twenty, all pink and white +and merry blue eyes and stylish clothes. Whatever it was, there was +something about her that kept me at her side all day. Every word and +movement of hers had an exaggerated importance for me. I fancied such +things had never been said or done quite in the same way before." + +"You were in love," sighed Thrse. Why the sigh she could not have +told. + +"I presume so. Well, after that, I found myself thinking of her at the +most inopportune moments. I went to see her again and again--my first +impression deepened, and in two weeks I had asked her to marry me. I +can safely say, we knew nothing of each other's character. After +marriage, matters went well enough for a while." Hosmer here arose, +and walked the length of the room. + +"Mrs. Lafirme," he said, "can't you understand that it must be a +painful thing for a man to disparage one woman to another: the woman +who has been his wife to the woman he loves? Spare me the rest." + +"Please have no reservations with me; I shall not misjudge you in any +case," an inexplicable something was moving her to know what remained +to be told. + +"It wasn't long before she attempted to draw me into what she called +society," Hosmer continued. "I am little versed in defining shades of +distinction between classes, but I had seen from the beginning that +Fanny's associates were not of the best social rank by any means. I +had vaguely expected her to turn from them, I suppose, when she +married. Naturally, I resisted anything so distasteful as being +dragged through rounds of amusement that had no sort of attraction +whatever for me. Besides, my business connections were extending, and +they claimed the greater part of my time and thoughts. + +"A year after our marriage our boy was born." Here Hosmer ceased +speaking for a while, seemingly under pressure of a crowding of +painful memories. + +"The child whose picture you have at the office?" asked Thrse. + +"Yes," and he resumed with plain effort: "It seemed for a while that +the baby would give its mother what distraction she sought so +persistently away from home; but its influence did not last and she +soon grew as restless as before. Finally there was nothing that united +us except the child. I can't really say that we were united through +him, but our love for the boy was the one feeling that we had in +common. When he was three years old, he died. Melicent had come to +live with us after leaving school. She was a high-spirited girl full +of conceits as she is now, and in her exaggerated way became filled +with horror of what she called the msalliance I had made. After a +month she went away to live with friends. I didn't oppose her. I saw +little of my wife, being often away from home; but as feebly observant +as I was, I had now and again marked a peculiarity of manner about her +that vaguely troubled me. She seemed to avoid me and we grew more and +more divided. + +"One day I returned home rather early. Melicent was with me. We found +Fanny in the dining-room lying on the sofa. As we entered, she looked +at us wildly and in striving to get up grasped aimlessly at the back +of a chair. I felt on a sudden as if there were some awful calamity +threatening my existence. I suppose, I looked helplessly at Melicent, +managing to ask her what was the matter with my wife. Melicent's black +eyes were flashing indignation. 'Can't you see she's been drinking. +God help you,' she said. Mrs. Lafirme, you know now the reason which +drove me away from home and kept me away. I never permitted my wife to +want for the comforts of life during my absence; but she sued for +divorce some years ago and it was granted, with alimony which I +doubled. You know the miserable story now. Pardon me for dragging it +to such a length. I don't see why I should have told it after all." + +Thrse had remained perfectly silent; rigid at times, listening to +Hosmer often with closed eyes. + +He waited for her to speak, but she said nothing for a while till +finally: "Your--your wife is still quite young--do her parents live +with her?" + +"Oh no, she has none. I suppose she lives alone." + +"And those habits; you don't know if she continues them?" + +"I dare say she does. I know nothing of her, except that she receipts +for the amount paid her each month." + +The look of painful thought deepened on Thrse's face but her +questions having been answered, she again became silent. + +Hosmer's eyes were imploring her for a look, but she would not answer +them. + +"Haven't you a word to say to me?" he entreated. + +"No, I have nothing to say, except what would give you pain." + +"I can bear anything from you," he replied, at a loss to guess her +meaning. + +"The kindest thing I can say, Mr. Hosmer, is, that I hope you have +acted blindly. I hate to believe that the man I care for, would +deliberately act the part of a cruel egotist." + +"I don't understand you." + +"I have learned one thing through your story, which appears very plain +to me," she replied. "You married a woman of weak character. You +furnished her with every means to increase that weakness, and shut her +out absolutely from your life and yourself from hers. You left her +then as practically without moral support as you have certainly done +now, in deserting her. It was the act of a coward." Thrse spoke the +last words with intensity. + +"Do you think that a man owes nothing to himself?" Hosmer asked, in +resistance to her accusation. + +"Yes. A man owes to his manhood, to face the consequences of his own +actions." + +Hosmer had remained seated. He did not even with glance follow Thrse +who had arisen and was moving restlessly about the room. He had so +long seen himself as a martyr; his mind had become so habituated to +the picture, that he could not of a sudden look at a different one, +believing that it could be the true one. Nor was he eager to accept a +view of the situation that would place him in his own eyes in a +contemptible light. He tried to think that Thrse must be wrong; but +even admitting a doubt of her being right, her words carried an +element of truth that he was not able to shut out from his conscience. +He felt her to be a woman with moral perceptions keener than his own +and his love, which in the past twenty-four hours had grown to +overwhelm him, moved him now to a blind submission. + +"What would you have me do, Mrs. Lafirme?" + +"I would have you do what is right," she said eagerly, approaching +him. + +"O, don't present me any questions of right and wrong; can't you see +that I'm blind?" he said, self accusingly. "What ever I do, must be +because you want it; because I love you." + +She was standing beside him and he took her hand. + +"To do a thing out of love for you, would be the only comfort and +strength left me." + +"Don't say that," she entreated. "Love isn't everything in life; there +is something higher." + +"God in heaven, there shouldn't be!" he exclaimed, passionately +pressing her hand to his forehead, his cheek, his lips. + +"Oh, don't make it harder for me," Thrse said softly, attempting to +withdraw her hand. + +It was her first sign of weakness, and he seized on it for his +advantage. He arose quickly--unhesitatingly--and took her in his arms. + +For a moment that was very brief, there was danger that the task of +renunciation would not only be made harder, but impossible, for both; +for it was in utter blindness to everything but love for each other, +that their lips met. + +The great plantation bell was clanging out the hour of noon; the hour +for sweet and restful enjoyment; but to Hosmer, the sound was like the +voice of a derisive demon, mocking his anguish of spirit, as he +mounted his horse, and rode back to the mill. + + + + +VIII + +Treats of Melicent. + + +Melicent knew that there were exchanges of confidence going on between +her brother and Mrs. Lafirme, from which she was excluded. She had +noted certain lengthy conferences held in remote corners of the +verandas. The two had deliberately withdrawn one moonlight evening to +pace to and fro the length of gravel walk that stretched from door +front to lane; and Melicent had fancied that they rather lingered when +under the deep shadow of the two great live-oaks that overarched the +gate. But that of course was fancy; a young girl's weakness to think +the world must go as she would want it to. + +She was quite sure of having heard Mrs. Lafirme say "I will help you." +Could it be that David had fallen into financial straights and wanted +assistance from Thrse? No, that was improbable and furthermore, +distasteful, so Melicent would not burden herself with the suspicion. +It was far more agreeable to believe that affairs were shaping +themselves according to her wishes regarding her brother and her +friend. Yet her mystification was in no wise made clearer, when David +left them to go to St. Louis. + +Melicent was not ready or willing to leave with him. She had not had +her "visit out" as she informed him, when he proposed it to her. To +remain in the cottage during his absence was out of the question, so +she removed herself and all her pretty belongings over to the house, +taking possession of one of the many spare rooms. The act of removal +furnished her much entertainment of a mild sort, into which, however, +she successfully infused something of her own intensity by making the +occasion one to bring a large detachment of the plantation force into +her capricious service. + +Melicent was going out, and she stood before her mirror to make sure +that she looked properly. She was black from head to foot. From the +great ostrich plume that nodded over her wide-brimmed hat, to the +pointed toe of the patent leather boot that peeped from under her +gown--a filmy gauzy thing setting loosely to her slender shapely +figure. She laughed at the somberness of her reflection, which she at +once set about relieving with a great bunch of geraniums--big and +scarlet and long-stemmed, that she thrust slantwise through her belt. + +Melicent, always charming, was very pretty when she laughed. She +thought so herself and laughed a second time into the depths of her +dark handsome eyes. One corner of the large mouth turned saucily +upward, and the lips holding their own crimson and all that the cheeks +were lacking, parted only a little over the gleaming whiteness of her +teeth. As she looked at herself critically, she thought that a few +more pounds of flesh would have well become her. It had been only the +other day that her slimness was altogether to her liking; but at +present she was in love with plumpness as typified in Mrs. Lafirme. +However, on the whole, she was not ill pleased with her appearance, +and gathering up her gloves and parasol, she quitted the room. + +It was "broad day," one of the requirements which Grgoire had named +as essential for taking Melicent to visit old McFarlane's grave. But +the sun was not "shining mighty bright," the second condition, and +whose absence they were willing enough to overlook, seeing that the +month was September. + +They had climbed quite to the top of the hill, and stood on the very +brink of the deep toilsome railroad cut all fringed with matted grass +and young pines, that had but lately sprung there. Up and down the +track, as far as they could see on either side the steel rails +glittered on into gradual dimness. There were patches of the field +before them, white with bursting cotton which scores of negroes, men, +women and children were dexterously picking and thrusting into great +bags that hung from their shoulders and dragged beside them on the +ground; no machine having yet been found to surpass the sufficiency of +five human fingers for wrenching the cotton from its tenacious hold. +Elsewhere, there were squads "pulling fodder" from the dry corn +stalks; hot and distasteful work enough. In the nearest field, where +the cotton was young and green, with no show of ripening, the overseer +rode slowly between the rows, sprinkling plentifully the dry powder of +paris green from two muslin bags attached to the ends of a short pole +that lay before him across the saddle. + +Grgoire's presence would be needed later in the day, when the cotton +was hauled to gin to be weighed; when the mules were brought to +stable, to see them properly fed and cared for, and the gearing all +put in place. In the meanwhile he was deliciously idle with Melicent. + +They retreated into the woods, soon losing sight of everything but the +trees that surrounded them and the underbrush, that was scant and +scattered over the turf which the height of the trees permitted to +grow green and luxuriant. + +There, on the far slope of the hill they found McFarlane's grave, +which they knew to be such only by the battered and weather-worn cross +of wood, that lurched disreputably to one side--there being no hand in +all the world that cared enough to make it straight--and from which +all lettering had long since been washed away. This cross was all that +marked the abiding place of that mist-like form, so often seen at dark +to stalk down the hill with threatening stride, or of moonlight nights +to cross the lake in a pirogue, whose substance though visible was +nought; with sound of dipping oars that made no ripple on the lake's +smooth surface. On stormy nights, some more gifted with spiritual +insight than their neighbors, and with hearing better sharpened to +delicate intonations of the supernatural, had not only seen the mist +figure mounted and flying across the hills, but had heard the panting +of the blood-hounds, as the invisible pack swept by in hot pursuit of +the slave so long ago at rest. + +But it was "broad day," and here was nothing sinister to cause +Melicent the least little thrill of awe. No owl, no bat, no ill-omened +creature hovering near; only a mocking bird high up in the branches of +a tall pine tree, gushing forth his shrill staccatoes as blithely as +though he sang paeans to a translated soul in paradise. + +"Poor old McFarlane," said Melicent, "I'll pay a little tribute to his +memory; I dare say his spirit has listened to nothing but abuse of +himself there in the other world, since it left his body here on the +hill;" and she took one of the long-stemmed blood-red flowers and laid +it beside the toppling cross. + +"I reckon he's in a place w'ere flowers don't git much waterin', if +they got any there." + +"Shame to talk so cruelly; I don't believe in such places." + +"You don't believe in hell?" he asked in blank surprise. + +"Certainly not. I'm a Unitarian." + +"Well, that's new to me," was his only comment. + +"Do you believe in spirits, Grgoire? I don't--in day time." + +"Neva mine 'bout spirits," he answered, taking her arm and leading her +off, "let's git away f'om yere." + +They soon found a smooth and gentle slope where Melicent sat herself +comfortably down, her back against the broad support of a tree trunk, +and Grgoire lay prone upon the ground with--his head in Melicent's +lap. + +When Melicent first met Grgoire, his peculiarities of speech, so +unfamiliar to her, seemed to remove him at once from the possibility +of her consideration. She was not then awake to certain fine +psychological differences distinguishing man from man; precluding the +possibility of naming and classifying him in the moral as one might in +the animal kingdom. But short-comings of language, which finally +seemed not to detract from a definite inheritance of good breeding, +touched his personality as a physical deformation might, adding to it +certainly no charm, yet from its pathological aspect not without a +species of fascination, for a certain order of misregulated mind. + +She bore with him, and then she liked him. Finally, whilst indulging +in a little introspection; making a diagnosis of various symptoms, +indicative by no means of a deep-seated malady, she decided that she +was in love with Grgoire. But the admission embraced the +understanding with herself, that nothing could come of it. She +accepted it as a phase of that relentless fate which in pessimistic +moments she was inclined to believe pursued her. + +It could not be thought of, that she should marry a man whose +eccentricity of speech would certainly not adapt itself to the +requirements of polite society. + +He had kissed her one day. Whatever there was about the kiss--possibly +an over exuberance--it was not to her liking, and she forbade that he +ever repeat it, under pain of losing her affection. Indeed, on the few +occasions when Melicent had been engaged, kissing had been excluded as +superfluous to the relationship, except in the case of the young +lieutenant out at Fort Leavenworth who read Tennyson to her, as an +angel might be supposed to read, and who in moments of rapturous +self-forgetfulness, was permitted to kiss her under the ear: a +proceeding not positively distasteful to Melicent, except in so much +as it tickled her. + +Grgoire's hair was soft, not so dark as her own, and possessed an +inclination to curl about her slender fingers. + +"Grgoire," she said, "you told me once that the Santien boys were a +hard lot; what did you mean by that?" + +"Oh no," he answered, laughing good-humoredly up into her eyes, "you +did'n year me right. W'at I said was that we had a hard name in the +country. I don' see w'y eitha, excep' we all'ays done putty much like +we wanted. But my! a man can live like a saint yere at Place-du-Bois, +they ain't no temptations o' no kine." + +"There's little merit in your right doing, if you have no temptations +to withstand," delivering the time worn aphorism with the air and tone +of a pretty sage, giving utterance to an inspired truth. + +Melicent felt that she did not fully know Grgoire; that he had always +been more or less under restraint with her, and she was troubled by +something other than curiosity to get at the truth concerning him. One +day when she was arranging a vase of flowers at a table on the back +porch, Aunt Belindy, who was scouring knives at the same table, had +followed Grgoire with her glance, when he walked away after +exchanging a few words with Melicent. + +"God! but dats a diffunt man sence you come heah." + +"Different?" questioned the girl eagerly, and casting a quick sideward +look at Aunt Belindy. + +"Lord yas honey, 'f you warn't heah dat same Mista Grgor 'd be in +Centaville ev'y Sunday, a raisin' Cain. Humph--I knows 'im." + +Melicent would not permit herself to ask more, but picked up her vase +of flowers and walked with it into the house; her comprehension of +Grgoire in no wise advanced by the newly acquired knowledge that he +was liable to "raise Cain" during her absence--a proceeding which she +could not too hastily condemn, considering her imperfect apprehension +of what it might imply. + +Meanwhile she would not allow her doubts to interfere with the +kindness which she lavished on him, seeing that he loved her to +desperation. Was he not at this very moment looking up into her eyes, +and talking of his misery and her cruelty? turning his face downward +in her lap--as she knew to cry--for had she not already seen him lie +on the ground in an agony of tears, when she had told him he should +never kiss her again? + +And so they lingered in the woods, these two curious lovers, till the +shadows grew so deep about old McFarlane's grave that they passed it +by with hurried step and averted glance. + + + + +IX + +Face to Face. + + +After a day of close and intense September heat, it had rained during +the night. And now the morning had followed chill and crisp, yet with +possibilities of a genial sunshine breaking through the mist that had +risen at dawn from the great sluggish river and spread itself through +the mazes of the city. + +The change was one to send invigorating thrills through the blood, and +to quicken the step; to make one like the push and jostle of the +multitude that thronged the streets; to make one in love with +intoxicating life, and impatient with the grudging dispensation that +had given to mankind no wings wherewith to fly. + +But with no reacting warmth in his heart, the change had only made +Hosmer shiver and draw his coat closer about his chest, as he pushed +his way through the hurrying crowd. + +The St. Louis Exposition was in progress with all its many allurements +that had been heralded for months through the journals of the State. + +Hence, the unusual press of people on the streets this bright +September morning. Home people, whose air of ownership to the +surroundings classified them at once, moving unobservantly about their +affairs. Women and children from the near and rich country towns, in +for the Exposition and their fall shopping; wearing gowns of ultra +fashionable tendencies; leaving in their toilets nothing to +expediency; taking no chances of so much as a ribbon or a loop set in +disaccordance with the book. + +There were whole families from across the bridge, hurrying towards the +Exposition. Fathers and mothers, babies and grandmothers, with baskets +of lunch and bundles of provisional necessities, in for the day. + +Nothing would escape their observation nor elude their criticism, from +the creations in color lining the walls of the art gallery, to the +most intricate mechanism of inventive genius in the basement. All +would pass inspection, with drawing of comparison between the present, +the past year and the "year before," likely in a nasal drawl with the +R's brought sharply out, leaving no doubt as to their utterance. + +The newly married couple walking serenely through the crowd, young, +smiling, up-country, hand-in-hand; well pleased with themselves, with +their new attire and newer jewelry, would likely have answered +Hosmer's "beg pardon" with amiability if he had knocked them down. But +he had only thrust them rather violently to one side in his eagerness +to board the cable car that was dashing by, with no seeming +willingness to stay its mad flight. He still possessed the agility in +his unpracticed limbs to swing himself on the grip, where he took a +front seat, well buttoned up as to top-coat, and glad of the bodily +rest that his half hour's ride would bring him. + +The locality in which he descended presented some noticeable changes +since he had last been there. Formerly, it had been rather a quiet +street, with a leisurely horse car depositing its passengers two +blocks away to the north from it; awaking somewhat of afternoons when +hordes of children held possession. But now the cable had come to +disturb its long repose, adding in the office, nothing to its +attractiveness. + +There was the drug store still at the corner, with the same +proprietor, tilted back in his chair as of old, and as of old reading +his newspaper with only the change which a newly acquired pair of +spectacles gave to his appearance. The "drug store boy" had unfolded +into manhood, plainly indicated by the mustache that in adding +adornment and dignity to his person, had lifted him above the menial +office of window washing. A task relegated to a mustacheless urchin +with a leaning towards the surreptitious abstraction of caramels and +chewing gum in the intervals of such manual engagements as did not +require the co-operation of a strategic mind. + +Where formerly had been the vacant lot "across the street," the Sunday +afternoon elysium of the youthful base ball fiend from Biddle Street, +now stood a row of brand new pressed-brick "flats." Marvelous must +have been the architectural ingenuity which had contrived to unite so +many dwellings into so small a space. Before each spread a length of +closely clipped grass plot, and every miniature front door wore its +fantastic window furnishing; each set of decorations having seemingly +fired the next with efforts of surpassing elaboration. + +The house at which Hosmer rang--a plain two-storied red brick, +standing close to the street--was very old-fashioned in face of its +modern opposite neighbors, and the recently metamorphosed dwelling +next door, that with added porches and appendages to tax man's faculty +of conjecture, was no longer recognizable for what it had been. Even +the bell which he pulled was old-fashioned and its tingle might be +heard throughout the house long after the servant had opened the door, +if she were only reasonably alert to the summons. Its reverberations +were but dying away when Hosmer asked if Mrs. Larimore were in. Mrs. +Larimore was in; an admission which seemed to hold in reserve a +defiant "And what if she is, sir." + +Hosmer was relieved to find the little parlor into which he was +ushered, with its adjoining dining-room, much changed. The carpets +which he and Fanny had gone out together to buy during the early days +of their housekeeping, were replaced by rugs that lay upon the bare, +well polished floors. The wall paper was different; so were the +hangings. The furniture had been newly re-covered. Only the small +household gods were as of old: things--trifles--that had never much +occupied or impressed him, and that now, amid their altered +surroundings stirred no sentiment in him of either pleased or sad +remembrance. + +It had not been his wish to take his wife unawares, and he had +previously written her of his intended coming, yet without giving her +a clue for the reason of it. + +There was an element of the bull-dog in Hosmer. Having made up his +mind, he indulged in no regrets, in no nursing of if's and and's, but +stood like a brave soldier to his post, not a post of danger, +true--but one well supplied with discomfiting possibilities. + +And what had Homeyer said of it? He had railed of course as usual, at +the submission of a human destiny to the exacting and ignorant rule of +what he termed moral conventionalities. He had startled and angered +Hosmer with his denunciation of Thrse's sophistical guidance. +Rather--he proposed--let Hosmer and Thrse marry, and if Fanny were +to be redeemed--though he pooh-poohed the notion as untenable with +certain views of what he called the rights to existence: the existence +of wrongs--sorrows--diseases--death--let them all go to make up the +conglomerate whole--and let the individual man hold on to his +personality. But if she must be redeemed--granting this point to their +littleness, let the redemption come by different ways than those of +sacrifice: let it be an outcome from the capability of their united +happiness. + +Hosmer did not listen to his friend Homeyer. Love was his god now, and +Thrse was Love's prophet. + +So he was sitting in this little parlor waiting for Fanny to come. + +She came after an interval that had been given over to the indulgence +of a little feminine nervousness. Through the open doors Hosmer could +hear her coming down the back stairs; could hear that she halted +mid-way. Then she passed through the dining-room, and he arose and +went to meet her, holding out his hand, which she was not at once +ready to accept, being flustered and unprepared for his manner in +whichever way it might direct itself. + +They sat opposite each other and remained for a while silent; he with +astonishment at sight of the "merry blue eyes" faded and sunken into +deep, dark round sockets; at the net-work of little lines all traced +about the mouth and eyes, and spreading over the once rounded cheeks +that were now hollow and evidently pale or sallow, beneath a layer of +rouge that had been laid on with an unsparing hand. Yet was she still +pretty, or pleasing, especially to a strong nature that would find an +appeal in the pathetic weakness of her face. There was no guessing at +what her figure might be, it was disguised under a very fashionable +dress, and a worsted shawl covered her shoulders, which occasionally +quivered as with an inward chill. She spoke first, twisting the end of +this shawl. + +"What did you come for, David? why did you come now?" with peevish +resistance to the disturbance of his coming. + +"I know I have come without warrant," he said, answering her +implication. "I have been led to see--no matter how--that I made +mistakes in the past, and what I want to do now is to right them, if +you will let me." + +This was very unexpected to her, and it startled her, but neither with +pleasure nor pain; only with an uneasiness which showed itself in her +face. + +"Have you been ill?" he asked suddenly as the details of change in her +appearance commenced to unfold themselves to him. + +"Oh no, not since last winter, when I had pneumonia so bad. They +thought I was going to die. Dr. Franklin said I would 'a died if Belle +Worthington hadn't 'a took such good care of me. But I don't see what +you mean coming now. It'll be the same thing over again: I don't see +what's the use, David." + +"We won't talk about the use, Fanny. I want to take care of you for +the rest of your life--or mine--as I promised to do ten years ago; and +I want you to let me do it." + +"It would be the same thing over again," she reiterated, helplessly. + +"It will not be the same," he answered positively. "I will not be the +same, and that will make all the difference needful." + +"I don't see what you want to do it for, David. Why we'd haf to get +married over again and all that, wouldn't we?" + +"Certainly," he answered with a faint smile. "I'm living in the South +now, in Louisiana, managing a sawmill down there." + +"Oh, I don't like the South. I went down to Memphis, let's see, it was +last spring, with Belle and Lou Dawson, after I'd been sick; and I +don't see how a person can live down there." + +"You would like the place where I'm living. It's a fine large +plantation, and the lady who owns it would be the best of friends to +you. She knew why I was coming, and told me to say she would help to +make your life a happy one if she could." + +"It's her told you to come," she replied in quick resentment. "I don't +see what business it is of hers." + +Fanny Larimore's strength of determination was not one to hold against +Hosmer's will set to a purpose, during the hour or more that they +talked, he proposing, she finally acquiescing. And when he left her, +it was with a gathering peace in her heart to feel that his nearness +was something that would belong to her again; but differently as he +assured her. And she believed him, knowing that he would stand to his +promise. + +Her life was sometimes very blank in the intervals of street +perambulations and matines and reading of morbid literature. That +elation which she had felt over her marriage with Hosmer ten years +before, had soon died away, together with her weak love for him, when +she began to dread him and defy him. But now that he said he was ready +to take care of her and be good to her, she felt great comfort in her +knowledge of his honesty. + + + + +X + +Fanny's Friends. + + +It was on the day following Hosmer's visit, that Mrs. Lorenzo +Worthington, familiarly known to her friends as Belle Worthington, was +occupied in constructing a careful and extremely elaborate street +toilet before her dressing bureau which stood near the front window of +one of the "flats" opposite Mrs. Larimore's. The Nottingham curtain +screened her effectually from the view of passers-by without hindering +her frequent observance of what transpired in the street. + +The lower portion of this lady's figure was draped, or better, +seemingly supported, by an abundance of stiffly starched white +petticoats that rustled audibly at her slightest movement. Her neck +was bare, as were the well shaped arms that for the past five minutes +had been poised in mid-air, in the arrangement of a front of +exquisitely soft blonde curls, which she had taken from her "top +drawer" and was adjusting, with the aid of a multitude of tiny +invisible hair-pins, to her own very smoothly brushed hair. Yellow +hair it was, with a suspicious darkness about the roots, and a +streakiness about the back, that to an observant eye would have more +than hinted that art had assisted nature in coloring Mrs. +Worthington's locks. + +Dressed, and evidently waiting with forced patience for the +termination of these overhead maneuvers of her friend, sat Lou,--Mrs. +Jack Dawson,--a woman whom most people called handsome. If she were +handsome, no one could have told why, for her beauty was a thing which +could not be defined. She was tall and thin, with hair, eyes, and +complexion of a brownish neutral tint, and bore in face and figure, a +stamp of defiance which probably accounted for a certain eccentricity +in eschewing hair dyes and cosmetics. Her face was full of little +irregularities; a hardly perceptible cast in one eye; the nose drawn a +bit to one side, and the mouth twitched decidedly to the other when +she talked or laughed. It was this misproportion which gave a piquancy +to her expression and which in charming people, no doubt made them +believe her handsome. + +Mrs. Worthington's coiffure being completed, she regaled herself with +a deliberate and comprehensive glance into the street, and the outcome +of her observation was the sudden exclamation. + +"Well I'll be switched! come here quick Lou. If there ain't Fanny +Larimore getting on the car with Dave Hosmer!" + +Mrs. Dawson approached the window, but without haste; and in no wise +sharing her friend's excitement, gave utterance to her calm opinion. + +"They've made it up, I'll bet you what you want." + +Surprise seemed for the moment to have deprived Mrs. Worthington of +further ability to proceed with her toilet, for she had fallen into a +chair as limply as her starched condition would permit, her face full +of speculation. + +"See here, Belle Worthington, if we've got to be at the 'Lympic at two +o'clock, you'd better be getting a move on yourself." + +"Yes, I know; but I declare, you might knock me down with a feather." + +A highly overwrought figure of speech on the part of Mrs. Worthington, +seeing that the feather which would have prostrated her must have met +a resistance of some one hundred and seventy-five pounds of solid +avoirdupois. + +"After all she said about him, too!" seeking to draw her friend into +some participation in her own dumbfoundedness. + +"Well, you ought to know Fanny Larimore's a fool, don't you?" + +"Well, but I just can't get over it; that's all there is about it." +And Mrs. Worthington went about completing the adornment of her person +in a state of voiceless stupefaction. + +In full garb, she presented the figure of a splendid woman; trim and +tight in a black silk gown of expensive quality, heavy with jets which +hung and shone, and jangled from every available point of her person. +Not a thread of her yellow hair was misplaced. She shone with +cleanliness, and her broad expressionless face and meaningless blue +eyes were set to a good-humored readiness for laughter, which would be +wholesome if not musical. She exhaled a fragrance of patchouly or +jockey-club, or something odorous and "strong" that clung to every +article of her apparel, even to the yellow kid gloves which she would +now be forced to put on during her ride in the car. Mrs. Dawson, +attired with equal richness and style, showed more of individuality in +her toilet. + +As they quitted the house she observed to her friend: + +"I wish you'd let up on that smell; it's enough to sicken a body." + +"I know you don't like it, Lou," was Mrs. Worthington's apologetic and +half disconcerted reply, "and I was careful as could be. Give you my +word, I didn't think you could notice it." + +"Notice it? Gee!" responded Mrs. Dawson. + +These were two ladies of elegant leisure, the conditions of whose +lives, and the amiability of whose husbands, had enabled them to +develop into finished and professional time-killers. + +Their intimacy with each other, as also their close acquaintance with +Fanny Larimore, dated from a couple of years after that lady's +marriage, when they had met as occupants of the same big up-town +boarding house. The intercourse had never since been permitted to die +out. Once, when the two former ladies were on a visit to Mrs. +Larimore, seeing the flats in course of construction, they were at +once assailed with the desire to abandon their hitherto nomadic life, +and settle to the responsibilities of housekeeping; a scheme which +they carried into effect as soon as the houses became habitable. + +There was a Mr. Lorenzo Worthington; a gentleman employed for many +years past in the custom house. Whether he had been overlooked, which +his small unobtrusive, narrow-chested person made possible--or whether +his many-sided usefulness had rendered him in a manner indispensable +to his employers, does not appear; but he had remained at his post +during the various changes of administration that had gone by since +his first appointment. + +During intervals of his work--intervals often occurring of afternoon +hours, when he had been given night work--he was fond of sitting at +the sunny kitchen window, with his long thin nose, and shortsighted +eyes plunged between the pages of one of his precious books: a small +hoard of which he had collected at some cost and more self-denial. + +One of the grievances of his life was the necessity under which he +found himself of protecting his treasure from the Philistine abuse and +contempt of his wife. When they moved into the flat, Mrs. Worthington, +during her husband's absence, had ranged them all, systematically +enough, on the top shelf of the kitchen closet to "get them out of the +way." But at this he had protested, and taken a positive stand, to +which his wife had so far yielded as to permit that they be placed on +the top shelf of the bedroom closet; averring that to have them laying +around was a thing that she would not do, for they spoilt the looks of +any room. + +He had not foreseen the possibility of their usefulness being a +temptation to his wife in so handy a receptacle. + +Seeking once a volume of Ruskin's Miscellanies, he discovered that it +had been employed to support the dismantled leg of a dressing bureau. +On another occasion, a volume of Schopenhauer, which he had been at +much difficulty and expense to procure, Emerson's Essays, and two +other volumes much prized, he found had served that lady as weights to +hold down a piece of dry goods which she had sponged and spread to dry +on an available section of roof top. + +He was glad enough to transport them all back to the safer refuge of +the kitchen closet, and pay the hired girl a secret stipend to guard +them. + +Mr. Worthington regarded women as being of peculiar and unsuitable +conformation to the various conditions of life amid which they are +placed; with strong moral proclivities, for the most part subservient +to a weak and inadequate mentality. + +It was not his office to remodel them; his rle was simply to endure +with patience the vagaries of an order of human beings, who after all, +offered an interesting study to a man of speculative habit, apart from +their usefulness as propagators of the species. + +As regards this last qualification, Mrs. Worthington had done less +than her fair share, having but one child, a daughter of twelve, whose +training and education had been assumed by an aunt of her father's, a +nun of some standing in the Sacred Heart Convent. + +Quite a different type of man was Jack Dawson, Lou's husband. Short, +round, young, blonde, good looking and bald--as what St. Louis man +past thirty is not? he rejoiced in the agreeable calling of a +traveling salesman. + +On the occasions when he was at home; once in two weeks--sometimes +seldomer--never oftener--the small flat was turned inside out and +upside down. He filled it with noise and merriment. If a theater party +were not on hand, it was a spin out to Forest park behind a fast team, +closing with a wine supper at a road-side restaurant. Or a card party +would be hastily gathered to which such neighbors as were congenial +were bid in hot haste; deficiencies being supplied from his large +circle of acquaintances who happened not to be on the road, and who at +the eleventh hour were rung up by telephone. On such occasions Jack's +voice would be heard loud in anecdote, introduced in some such wise as +"When I was in Houston, Texas, the other day," or "Tell you what it +is, sir, those fellers over in Albuquerque are up to a thing or two." + +One of his standing witticisms was to inquire in a stage whisper of +Belle or Lou--whether the little gal over the way had taken the pledge +yet. + +This gentleman and his wife were on the most amiable of terms +together, barring the small grievance that he sometimes lost money at +poker. But as losing was exceptional with him, and as he did not make +it a matter of conscience to keep her at all times posted as to the +fluctuations of his luck, this grievance had small occasion to show +itself. + +What he thought of his wife, might best be told in his own language: +that Lou was up to the mark and game every time; feminine +characteristics which he apparently held in high esteem. + +The two ladies in question had almost reached the terminus of their +ride, when Mrs. Worthington remarked incidentally to her friend, "It +was nothing in the God's world but pure sass brought those two fellers +to see you last night, Lou." + +Mrs. Dawson bit her lip and the cast in her eye became more +accentuated, as it was apt to do when she was ruffled. + +"I notice you didn't treat 'em any too cool yourself," she retorted. + +"Oh, they weren't my company, or I'd a give 'em a piece of my mind +pretty quick. You know they're married, and they know you're married, +and they hadn't a bit o' business there." + +"They're perfect gentlemen, and I don't see what business 'tis of +yours, anyway." + +"Oh that's a horse of another color," replied Mrs. Worthington, +bridling and relapsing into injured silence for the period of ten +seconds, when she resumed, "I hope they ain't going to poke themselves +at the matine." + +"Likely they will 's long as they gave us the tickets." + +One of the gentlemen was at the matine: Mr. Bert Rodney, but he +certainly had not "poked" himself there. He never did any thing vulgar +or in bad taste. He had only "dropped in!" Exquisite in dress and +manner, a swell of the upper circles, versed as was no one better in +the code of gentlemanly etiquette--he was for the moment awaiting +disconsolately the return of his wife and daughter from Narragansett. + +He took a vacant seat behind the two ladies, and bending forward began +to talk to them in his low and fascinating drawl. + +Mrs. Worthington, who often failed to accomplish her fierce designs, +was as gracious towards him as if she had harbored no desire to give +him a piece of her mind; but she was resolute in her refusal to make +one of a proposed supper party. + +A quiet sideward look from Mrs. Dawson, told Mr. Rodney as plainly as +words, that in the event of his _partie-carre_ failing him, he might +count upon her for a _tte--tte_. + + + + +XI + +The Self-Assumed Burden. + + +The wedding was over. Hosmer and Fanny had been married in the small +library of their Unitarian minister whom they had found intent upon +the shaping of his Sunday sermon. + +Out of deference, he had been briefly told the outward circumstances +of the case, which he knew already; for these two had been formerly +members of his congregation, and gossip had not been reluctant in +telling their story. Hosmer, of course, had drifted away from his +knowledge, and in late years, he had seen little of Fanny, who when +moved to attend church at all usually went to the Redemptorist's Rock +Church with her friend Belle Worthington. This lady was a good +Catholic to the necessary extent of hearing a mass on Sundays, +abstaining from meat on Fridays and Ember days, and making her +"Easters." Which concessions were not without their attendant +discomforts, counterbalanced, however, by the soothing assurance which +they gave her of keeping on the safe side. + +The minister had been much impressed with the significance of this +re-marriage which he was called upon to perform, and had offered some +few and well chosen expressions of salutary advice as to its future +guidance. The sexton and housekeeper had been called in as witnesses. +Then Hosmer had taken Fanny back home in a cab as she requested, +because of her eyes that were red and swollen. + +Inside the little hall-way he took her in his arms and kissed her, +calling her "my child." He could not have told why, except that it +expressed the responsibility he accepted of bearing all things that a +father must bear from the child to whom he has given life. + +"I should like to go out for an hour, Fanny; but if you would rather +not, I shall stay." + +"No, David, I want to be alone," she said, turning into the little +parlor, with eyes big and heavy from weariness and inward clashing +emotions. + +Along the length of Lindell avenue from Grand avenue west to Forest +park, reaches for two miles on either side of the wide and well kept +gravel drive a smooth stone walk, bordered its full extent with a +double row of trees which were young and still uncertain, when Hosmer +walked between them. + +Had it been Sunday, he would have found himself making one of a +fashionable throng of promenaders; it being at that time a fad with +society people to walk to Forest park and back of a Sunday afternoon. +Driving was then considered a respectable diversion only on the six +work days of the week. + +But it was not Sunday and this inviting promenade was almost deserted. +An occasional laborer would walk clumsily by; apathetic; swinging his +tin bucket and bearing some implement of toil with the yellow clay yet +clinging to it. Or it might be a brace of strong-minded girls walking +with long and springing stride, which was then fashionable; looking +not to the right nor left; indulging in no exchange of friendly and +girlish chatter, but grimly intent upon the purpose of their walk. + +A steady line of vehicles was pushing on towards the park at the +moderate speed which the law required. On both sides the wide +boulevard tasteful dwellings, many completed, but most of them in +course of construction, were in constant view. Hosmer noted every +thing, but absently; and yet he was not pre-occupied with thought. He +felt himself to be hurrying away from something that was fast +overtaking him, and his faculties for the moment were centered in the +mere act of motion. It is said that motion is pleasurable to man. No +doubt, in connection with a healthy body and free mind, movement +brings to the normal human being a certain degree of enjoyment. But +where the healthful conditions are only physical, rapid motion changes +from a source of pleasure to one of mere expediency. + +So long as Hosmer could walk he kept a certain pressing consciousness +at bay. He would have liked to run if he had dared. Since he had +entered the park there were constant trains of cars speeding somewhere +overhead; he could hear them at near intervals clashing over the stone +bridge. And there was not a train which passed that he did not long to +be at the front of it to measure and let out its speed. What a mad +flight he would have given it, to make men hold their breath with +terror! How he would have driven it till its end was death and +chaos!--so much the better. + +There suddenly formed in Hosmer's mind a sentence--sharp and distinct. +We are all conscious of such quick mental visions whether of words or +pictures, coming sometimes from a hidden and untraceable source, +making us quiver with awe at this mysterious power of mind manifesting +itself with the vividness of visible matter. + +"It was the act of a coward." + +Those were the words which checked him, and forbade him to go farther: +which compelled him to turn about and face the reality of his +convictions. + +It is no unusual sight, that of a man lying full length in the soft +tender grass of some retired spot of Forest park--with his face hidden +in his folded arms. To the few who may see him, if they speculate at +all about him he sleeps or he rests his body after a day's fatigue. +"Am I never to be the brave man?" thought Hosmer, "always the coward, +flying even from my own thoughts?" + +How hard to him was this unaccustomed task of dealing with moral +difficulties, which all through his life before, however lightly they +had come, he had shirked and avoided! He realized now, that there was +to be no more of that. If he did not wish his life to end in +disgraceful shipwreck, he must take command and direction of it upon +himself. + +He had felt himself capable of stolid endurance since love had +declared itself his guide and helper. But now--only to-day--something +beside had crept into his heart. Not something to be endured, but a +thing to be strangled and thrust away. It was the demon of hate; so +new, so awful, so loathsome, he doubted that he could look it in the +face and live. + +Here was the problem of his new existence. + +The woman who had formerly made his life colorless and empty he had +quietly turned his back upon, carrying with him a pity that was not +untender. But the woman who had unwittingly robbed him of all +possibility of earthly happiness--he hated her. The woman who for the +remainder of a life-time was to be in all the world the nearest thing +to him, he hated her. He hated this woman of whom he must be careful, +to whom he must be tender, and loyal and generous. And to give no sign +or word but of kindness; to do no action that was not considerate, was +the task which destiny had thrust upon his honor. + +He did not ask himself if it were possible of accomplishment. He had +flung hesitancy away, to make room for the all-powerful "Must be." + +He walked slowly back to his home. There was no need to run now; +nothing pursued him. Should he quicken his pace or drag himself ever +so slowly, it could henceforth make no difference. The burden from +which he had fled was now banded upon him and not to be loosed, unless +he fling himself with it into forgetfulness. + + + + +XII + +Severing Old Ties. + + +Returning from the matine, Belle and her friend Lou Dawson, before +entering their house, crossed over to Fanny's. Mrs. Worthington tried +the door and finding it fastened, rang the bell, then commenced to +beat a tattoo upon the pane with her knuckles; an ingenuous manner +which she had of announcing her identity. Fanny opened to them +herself, and the three walked into the parlor. + +"I haven't seen you for a coon's age, Fanny," commenced Belle, "where +on earth have you been keeping yourself?" + +"You saw me yesterday breakfast time, when you came to borrow the +wrapper pattern," returned Fanny, in serious resentment to her +friend's exaggeration. + +"And much good the old wrapper pattern did me: a mile too small every +way, no matter how much I let out the seams. But see here--" + +"Belle's the biggest idiot about her size: there's no convincing her +she's not a sylph." + +"_Thank_ you, Mrs. Dawson." + +"Well, it's a fact. Didn't you think Furgeson's scales were all wrong +the other day because you weighed a hundred and eighty pounds?" + +"O that's the day I had that heavy rep on." + +"Heavy nothing. We were coming over last night, Fanny, but we had +company," continued Mrs. Dawson. + +"Who d'you have?" asked Fanny mechanically and glad of the respite. + +"Bert Rodney and Mr. Grant. They're so anxious to meet you. I'd 'a +sent over for you, but Belle--" + +"See here, Fanny, what the mischief was Dave Hosmer doing here to-day, +and going down town with you and all that sort o' thing?" + +Fanny flushed uneasily. "Have you seen the evening paper?" she asked. + +"How d'you want us to see the paper? we just come from the matine." + +"David came yesterday," Fanny said working nervously at the window +shade. "He'd wrote me a note the postman brought right after you left +with the pattern. When you saw us getting on the car, we were going +down to Dr. Martin's, and we've got married again." + +Mrs. Dawson uttered a long, low whistle by way of comment. Mrs. +Worthington gave vent to her usual "Well I'll be switched," which she +was capable of making expressive of every shade of astonishment, from +the lightest to the most pronounced; at the same time unfastening the +bridle of her bonnet which plainly hindered her free respiration after +such a shock. + +"Say that Fanny isn't sly, after that, Belle." + +"Sly? My God, she's a fool! If ever a woman had a snap! and to go to +work and let a man get around her like that." + +Mrs. Worthington seemed powerless to express herself in anything but +disconnected exclamations. + +"What are you going to do, Fanny?" asked Lou, who having aired all the +astonishment which she cared to show, in her whistle, was collected +enough to want her natural curiosity satisfied. + +"David's living down South. I guess we'll go down there pretty soon. +Soon's he can get things fixed up here." + +"Where--down South?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Somewheres in Louisiana." + +"It's to be hoped in New Orleans," spoke Belle didactically, "that's +the only decent place in Louisiana where a person could live." + +"No, 'tain't in New Orleans. He's got a saw mill somewheres down +there." + +"Heavens and earth! a saw mill?" shrieked Belle. Lou was looking +calmly resigned to the startling news. + +"Oh, I ain't going to live in a saw mill. I wisht you'd all let me +alone, any way," she returned pettishly. "There's a lady keeps a +plantation, and that's where he lives." + +"Well of all the rigmaroles! a lady, and a saw mill and a plantation. +It's my opinion that man could make you believe black's white, Fanny +Larimore." + +As Hosmer approached his house, he felt mechanically in his pocket for +his latch key; so small a trick having come back to him with the old +habit of misery. Of course he found no key. His ring startled Fanny, +who at once sprang from her seat to open the door for him; but having +taken a few steps, she hesitated and irresolutely re-seated herself. +It was only his second ring that the servant unamiably condescended to +answer. + +"So you're going to take Fanny away from us, Mr. Hosmer," said Belle, +when he had greeted them and seated himself beside Mrs. Dawson on the +small sofa that stood between the door and window. Fanny sat at the +adjoining window, and Mrs. Worthington in the center of the room; +which was indeed so small a room that any one of them might have +reached out and almost touched the hand of the others. + +"Yes, Fanny has agreed to go South with me," he answered briefly. +"You're looking well, Mrs. Worthington." + +"Oh, Law yes, I'm never sick. As I tell Mr. Worthington, he'll never +get rid of me, unless he hires somebody to murder me. But I tell you +what, you came pretty near not having any Fanny to take away with you. +She was the sickest woman! Did you tell him about it, Fanny? Come to +think of it, I guess the climate down there'll be the very thing to +bring her round." + +Mrs. Dawson without offering apology interrupted her friend to inquire +of Hosmer if his life in the South were not of the most interesting, +and begging that he detail them something of it; with a look to +indicate that she felt the deepest concern in anything that touched +him. + +A masculine presence had always the effect of rousing Mrs. Dawson into +an animation which was like the glow of a slumbering ember, when a +strong pressure of air is brought to bear upon it. + +Hosmer had always considered her an amiable woman, with rather +delicate perceptions; frivolous, but without the vulgarisms of Mrs. +Worthington, and consequently a less objectionable friend for Fanny. +He answered, looking down into her eyes, which were full of +attentiveness. + +"My life in the South is not one that you would think interesting. I +live in the country where there are no distractions such as you ladies +call amusements--and I work pretty hard. But it's the sort of life +that one grows attached to and finds himself longing for again if he +have occasion to change it." + +"Yes, it must be very satisfying," she answered; for the moment +perfectly sincere. + +"Oh very!" exclaimed Mrs. Worthington, with a loud and aggressive +laugh. "It would just suit you to a T, Lou, but how it's going to +satisfy Fanny! Well, I've got nothing to say about it, thanks be; it +don't concern me." + +"If Fanny finds that she doesn't like it after a fair trial, she has +the privilege of saying so, and we shall come back again," he said +looking at his wife whose elevation of eyebrow, and droop of mouth +gave her the expression of martyred resignation, which St. Lawrence +might have worn, when invited to make himself comfortable on the +gridiron--so had Mrs. Worthington's words impressed her with the force +of their prophetic meaning. + +Mrs. Dawson politely hoped that Hosmer would not leave before Jack +came home; it would distress Jack beyond everything to return and find +that he had missed an old friend whom he thought so much of. + +Hosmer could not say precisely when they would leave. He was in +present negotiation with a person who wanted to rent the house, +furnished; and just as soon as he could arrange a few business +details, and Fanny could gather such belongings as she wished to take +with her they would go. + +"You seem mighty struck on Dave Hosmer, all of a sudden," remarked +Mrs. Worthington to her friend, as the two crossed over the street. "A +feller without any more feelings than a stick; it's what I always said +about him." + +"Oh, I always did like Hosmer," replied Mrs. Dawson. "But I thought he +had more sense than to tie himself to that little gump again, after +he'd had the luck to get rid of her." + +A few days later Jack came home. His return was made palpable to the +entire neighborhood; for no cab ever announced itself with quite the +dash and clatter and bang of door that Jack's cabs did. + +The driver had staggered behind him under the weight of the huge +yellow valise, and had been liberally paid for the service. + +Immediately the windows were thrown wide open, and the lace curtains +drawn aside until no smallest vestige of them remained visible from +the street. A condition of things which Mrs. Worthington upstairs +bitterly resented, and naturally, spoiling as it necessarily did, the +general _coup d'oeil_ of the flat to passers-by. But Mrs. Dawson had +won her husband's esteem by just such acts as this one of amiable +permission to ventilate the house according to methods of his own and +essentially masculine; regardless of dust that might be flying, or sun +that might be shining with disastrous results to the parlor carpet. + +Clouds of tobacco smoke were seen to issue from the open windows. +Those neighbors whose openings commanded a view of the Dawson's +alley-gate might have noted the hired girl starting for the grocery +with unusual animation of step, and returning with her basket well +stocked with beer and soda bottles--a provision made against a need +for "dutch-cocktails," likely to assail Jack during his hours of +domesticity. + +In the evening the same hired girl, breathless from the multiplicity +of errands which she had accomplished during the day, appeared at the +Hosmers with a message that Mrs. Dawson wanted them to "come over." + +They were preparing to leave on the morrow, but concluded that they +could spare a few moments in which to bid adieu to their friends. + +Jack met them at the very threshold, with warm and hearty +hand-shaking, and loud protest when he learned that they had not come +to spend the evening and that they were going away next day. + +"Great Scott! you're not leaving to-morrow? And I ain't going to have +a chance to get even with Mrs. Hosmer on that last deal? By Jove, she +knows how to do it," he said, addressing Hosmer and holding Fanny +familiarly by the elbow. "Drew to the middle, sir, and hang me, if she +didn't fill. Takes a woman to do that sort o' thing; and me a laying +for her with three aces. Hello there, girls! here's Hosmer and Fanny," +in response to which summons his wife and Mrs. Worthington issued from +the depths of the dining-room, where they had been engaged in +preparing certain refreshments for the expected guests. + +"See here, Lou, we'll have to fix it up some way to go and see them +off to-morrow. If you'd manage to lay over till Thursday I could join +you as far as Little Rock. But no, that's a fact," he added +reflectively, "I've got to be in Cincinnati on Thursday." + +They had all entered the parlor, and Mrs. Worthington suggested that +Hosmer go up and make a visit to her husband, whom he would find up +there "poring over those everlasting books." + +"I don't know what's got into Mr. Worthington lately," she said, "he's +getting that religious. If it ain't the Bible he's poring over, well +it's something or other just as bad." + +The brightly burning light guided Hosmer to the kitchen, where he +found Lorenzo Worthington seated beside his student lamp at the table, +which was covered with a neat red cloth. On the gas-stove was spread a +similar cloth and the floor was covered with a shining oil-cloth. + +Mr. Worthington was startled, having already forgotten that his wife +had told him of Hosmer's return to St. Louis. + +"Why, Mr. Hosmer, is this you? come, come into the parlor, this is no +place," shaking Hosmer's hand and motioning towards the parlor. + +"No, it's very nice and cozy here, and I have only a moment to stay," +said Hosmer, seating himself beside the table on which the other had +laid his book, with his spectacles between the pages to mark his +place. Mr. Worthington then did a little hemming and hawing +preparatory to saying something fitting the occasion; not wishing to +be hasty in offering the old established form of congratulation, in a +case whose peculiarity afforded him no precedential guide. Hosmer came +to his relief by observing quite naturally that he and his wife had +come over to say good-bye, before leaving for the South, adding "no +doubt Mrs. Worthington has told you." + +"Yes, yes, and I'm sure we're very sorry to lose you; that is, Mrs. +Larimore--I should say Mrs. Hosmer. Isabella will certainly regret her +departure, I see them always together, you know." + +"You cling to your old habit, I see, Mr. Worthington," said Hosmer, +indicating his meaning by a motion of the hand towards the book on the +table. + +"Yes, to a certain extent. Always within the forced limits, you +understand. At this moment I am much interested in tracing the history +of various religions which are known to us; those which have died out, +as well as existing religions. It is curious, indeed, to note the +circumstances of their birth, their progress and inevitable death; +seeming to follow the course of nations in such respect. And the +similitude which stamps them all, is also a feature worthy of study. +You would perhaps be surprised, sir, to discover the points of +resemblance which indicate in them a common origin. To observe the +slight differences, indeed technical differences, distinguishing the +Islam from the Hebrew, or both from the Christian religion. The creeds +are obviously ramifications from the one deep-rooted trunk which we +call religion. Have you ever thought of this, Mr. Hosmer?" + +"No, I admit that I've not gone into it. Homeyer would have me think +that all religions are but mythological creations invented to satisfy +a species of sentimentality--a morbid craving in man for the unknown +and undemonstrable." + +"That is where he is wrong; where I must be permitted to differ from +him. As you would find, my dear sir, by following carefully the +history of mankind, that the religious sentiment is implanted, a true +and legitimate attribute of the human soul--with peremptory right to +its existence. Whatever may be faulty in the creeds--that makes no +difference, the foundation is there and not to be dislodged. Homeyer, +as I understand him from your former not infrequent references, is an +Iconoclast, who would tear down and leave devastation behind him; +building up nothing. He would deprive a clinging humanity of the +supports about which she twines herself, and leave her helpless and +sprawling upon the earth." + +"No, no, he believes in a natural adjustment," interrupted Hosmer. "In +an innate reserve force of accommodation. What we commonly call laws +in nature, he styles accidents--in society, only arbitrary methods of +expediency, which, when they outlive their usefulness to an advancing +and exacting civilization, should be set aside. He is a little +impatient to always wait for the inevitable natural adjustment." + +"Ah, my dear Mr. Hosmer, the world is certainly to-day not prepared to +stand the lopping off and wrenching away of old traditions. She must +take her stand against such enemies of the conventional. Take religion +away from the life of man--" + +"Well, I knew it--I was just as sure as preaching," burst out Mrs. +Worthington, as she threw open the door and confronted the two +men--resplendent in "baby blue" and much steel ornamentation. "As I +tell Mr. Worthington, he ought to turn Christian Brother or something +and be done with it." + +"No, no, my dear; Mr. Hosmer and I have merely been interchanging a +few disjointed ideas." + +"I'll be bound they were disjointed. I guess Fanny wants you, Mr. +Hosmer. If you listen to Mr. Worthington he'll keep you here till +daylight with his ideas." + +Hosmer followed Mrs. Worthington down-stairs and into Mrs. Dawson's. +As he entered the parlor he heard Fanny laughing gaily, and saw that +she stood near the sideboard in the dining-room, just clicking her +glass of punch to Jack Dawson's, who was making a gay speech on the +occasion of her new marriage. + +They did not leave when they had intended. Need the misery of that one +day be told? + +But on the evening of the following day, Fanny peered with pale, +haggard face from the closed window of the Pullman car as it moved +slowly out of Union dept, to see Lou and Jack Dawson smiling and +waving good-bye, Belle wiping her eyes and Mr. Worthington looking +blankly along the line of windows, unable to see them without his +spectacles, which he had left between the pages of his Schopenhauer on +the kitchen table at home. + + + + +PART II + + + + +I + +Fanny's First Night at Place-du-Bois. + + +The journey South had not been without attractions for Fanny. She had +that consciousness so pleasing to the feminine mind of being well +dressed; for her husband had been exceedingly liberal in furnishing +her the means to satisfy her fancy in that regard. Moreover the change +holding out a promise of novelty, irritated her to a feeble +expectancy. The air, that came to her in puffs through the car window, +was deliciously soft and mild; steeped with the rich languor of the +Indian summer, that had already touched the tree tops, the sloping +hill-side, and the very air, with russet and gold. + +Hosmer sat beside her, curiously inattentive to his newspaper; +observant of her small needs, and anticipating her timid half +expressed wishes. Was there some mysterious power that had so soon +taught the man such methods to a woman's heart, or was he not rather +on guard and schooling himself for the rle which was to be acted out +to the end? But as the day was approaching its close, Fanny became +tired and languid; a certain mistrust was creeping into her heart with +the nearing darkness. It had grown sultry and close, and the view from +the car window was no longer cheerful, as they whirled through +forests, gloomy with trailing moss, or sped over an unfamiliar country +whose features were strange and held no promise of a welcome for her. + +They were nearing Place-du-Bois, and Hosmer's spirits had risen almost +to the point of gaiety as he began to recognize the faces of those who +loitered about the stations at which they stopped. At the Centerville +station, five miles before reaching their own, he had even gone out on +the platform to shake hands with the rather mystified agent who had +not known of his absence. And he had waved a salute to the little +French priest of Centerville who stood out in the open beside his +horse, booted, spurred and all equipped for bad weather, waiting for +certain consignments which were to come with the train, and who +answered Hosmer's greeting with a sober and uncompromising sweep of +the hand. When the whistle sounded for Place-du-Bois, it was nearly +dark. Hosmer hurried Fanny on to the platform, where stood Henry, his +clerk. There were a great many negroes loitering about, some of whom +offered him a cordial "how'dy Mr. Hosma," and pushing through was +Grgoire, meeting them with the ease of a courtier, and acknowledging +Hosmer's introduction of his wife, with a friendly hand shake. + +"Aunt Thrse sent the buggy down fur you," he said, "we had rain this +mornin' and the road's putty heavy. Come this way. Mine out fur that +ba'el, Mrs. Hosma, it's got molasses in. Hiurm bring that buggy ova +yere." + +"What's the news, Grgoire?" asked Hosmer, as they waited for Hiram to +turn the horses about. + +"Jus' about the same's ev'a. Miss Melicent wasn't ver' well a few days +back; but she's some betta. I reckon you're all plum wore out," he +added, taking in Fanny's listless attitude, and thinking her very +pretty as far as he could discover in the dim light. + +They drove directly to the cottage, and on the porch Thrse was +waiting for them. She took Fanny's two hands and pressed them warmly +between her own; then led her into the house with an arm passed about +her waist. She shook hands with Hosmer, and stood for a while in +cheerful conversation, before leaving them. + +The cottage was fully equipped for their reception, with Minervy in +possession of the kitchen and the formerly reluctant Suze as +housemaid: though Thrse had been silent as to the methods which she +had employed to prevail with these unwilling damsels. + +Hosmer then went out to look after their baggage, and when he +returned, Fanny sat with her head pillowed on the sofa, sobbing +bitterly. He knelt beside her, putting his arm around her, and asked +the cause of her distress. + +"Oh it's so lonesome, and dreadful, I don't believe I can stand it," +she answered haltingly through her tears. + +And here was he thinking it was so home-like and comforting, and +tasting the first joy that he had known since he had gone away. + +"It's all strange and new to you, Fanny; try to bear up for a day or +two. Come now, don't be a baby--take courage. It will all seem quite +different by and by, when the sun shines." + +A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a young colored +boy carrying an armful of wood. + +"Miss T'rse sont me kin'le fiar fu' Miss Hosma; 'low he tu'nin' +cole," he said depositing his load on the hearth; and Fanny, drying +her eyes, turned to watch him at his work. + +He went very deliberately about it, tearing off thin slathers from the +fat pine, and arranging them into a light frame-work, beneath a +topping of kindling and logs that he placed on the massive brass +andirons. He crawled about on hands and knees, picking up the stray +bits of chips and moss that had fallen from his arms when he came in. +Then sitting back on his heels he looked meditatively into the blaze +which he had kindled and scratched his nose with a splinter of pine +wood. When Hosmer presently left the room, he rolled his big black +eyes towards Fanny, without turning his head, and remarked in a tone +plainly inviting conversation "yo' all come f'om way yonda?" + +He was intensely black, and if Fanny had been a woman with the +slightest sense of humor, she could not but have been amused at the +picture which he presented in the revealing fire-light with his elfish +and ape like body much too small to fill out the tattered and +ill-fitting garments that hung about it. But she only wondered at him +and his rags, and at his motive for addressing her. + +"We're come from St. Louis," she replied, taking him with a +seriousness which in no wise daunted him. + +"Yo' all brung de rain," he went on sociably, leaving off the +scratching of his nose, to pass his black yellow-palmed hand slowly +through the now raging fire, a feat which filled her with +consternation. After prevailing upon him to desist from this +salamander like exhibition, she was moved to ask if he were not very +poor to be thus shabbily clad. + +"No 'um," he laughed, "I got some sto' close yonda home. Dis yere coat +w'at Mista Grgor gi'me," looking critically down at its length, which +swept the floor as he remained on his knees. "He done all to'e tu +pieces time he gi' him tu me, whar he scuffle wid Joint yonda tu de +mill. Mammy 'low she gwine mek him de same like new w'en she kin kotch +de time." + +The entrance of Minervy bearing a tray temptingly arranged with a +dainty supper, served to silence the boy, who at seeing her, threw +himself upon all fours and appeared to be busy with the fire. The +woman, a big raw-boned field hand, set her burden awkwardly down on a +table, and after staring comprehensively around, addressed the boy in +a low rich voice, "Dar ain't no mo' call to bodda wid dat fiar, you +Sampson; how come Miss T'rse sont you lazy piece in yere tu buil' +fiar?" + +"Don' know how come," he replied, vanishing with an air of the utmost +self-depreciation. + +Hosmer and Fanny took tea together before the cheerful fire and he +told her something of methods on the plantation, and made her further +acquainted with the various people whom she had thus far encountered. +She listened apathetically; taking little interest in what he said, +and asking few questions. She did express a little bewilderment at the +servant problem. Mrs. Lafirme, during their short conversation, had +deplored her inability to procure more than two servants for her; and +Fanny could not understand why it should require so many to do the +work which at home was accomplished by one. But she was tired--very +tired, and early sought her bed, and Hosmer went in quest of his +sister whom he had not yet seen. + +Melicent had been told of his marriage some days previously, and had +been thrown into such a state of nerves by the intelligence, as to +seriously alarm those who surrounded her and whose experience with +hysterical girls had been inadequate. + +Poor Grgoire had betaken himself with the speed of the wind to the +store to procure bromide, valerian, and whatever else should be +thought available in prevailing with a malady of this distressing +nature. But she was "some betta," as he told Hosmer, who found her +walking in the darkness of one of the long verandas, all enveloped in +filmy white wool. He was a little prepared for a cool reception from +her, and ten minutes before she might have received him with a studied +indifference. But her mood had veered about and touched the point +which moved her to fall upon his neck, and in a manner, condole with +him; seasoning her sympathy with a few tears. + +"Whatever possessed you, David? I have been thinking, and thinking, +and I can see no reason which should have driven you to do this thing. +Of course I can't meet her; you surely don't expect it?" + +He took her arm and joined her in her slow walk. + +"Yes, I do expect it, Melicent, and if you have the least regard for +me, I expect more. I want you to be good to her, and patient, and show +yourself her friend. No one can do such things more amiably than you, +when you try." + +"But David, I had hoped for something so different." + +"You couldn't have expected me to marry Mrs. Lafirme, a Catholic," he +said, making no pretense of misunderstanding her. + +"I think that woman would have given up religion--anything for you." + +"Then you don't know her, little sister." + +It must have been far in the night when Fanny awoke suddenly. She +could not have told whether she had been awakened by the long, wailing +cry of a traveler across the narrow river, vainly trying to rouse the +ferryman; or the creaking of a heavy wagon that labored slowly by in +the road and moved Hector to noisy enquiry. Was it not rather the +pattering rain that the wind was driving against the window panes? The +lamp burned dimly upon the high old-fashioned mantel-piece and her +husband had thoughtfully placed an improvised screen before it, to +protect her against its disturbance. He himself was not beside her, +nor was he in the room. She slid from her bed and moved softly on her +bare feet over to the open sitting-room door. + +The fire had all burned away. Only the embers lay in a glowing heap, +and while she looked, the last stick that lay across the andirons, +broke through its tapering center and fell amongst them, stirring a +fitful light by which she discovered her husband seated and bowed like +a man who has been stricken. Uncomprehending, she stood a moment +speechless, then crept back noiselessly to bed. + + + + +II + +"Neva to See You!" + + +Thrse judged it best to leave Fanny a good deal to herself during +her first days on the plantation, without relinquishing a certain +watchful supervision of her comfort, and looking in on her for a few +moments each day. The rain which had come with them continued fitfully +and Fanny remained in doors, clad in a warm handsome gown, her small +slippered feet cushioned before the fire, and reading the latest novel +of one of those prolific female writers who turn out their unwholesome +intellectual sweets so tirelessly, to be devoured by the girls and +women of the age. + +Melicent, who always did the unexpected, crossed over early on the +morning after Fanny's arrival; penetrated to her sleeping room and +embraced her effusively, even as she lay in bed, calling her "poor +dear Fanny" and cautioning her against getting up on such a morning. + +The tears which had come to Fanny on arriving, and which had dried on +her cheek when she turned to gaze into the cheer of the great wood +fire, did not return. Everybody seemed to be making much of her, which +was a new experience in her life; she having always felt herself as of +little consequence, and in a manner, overlooked. The negroes were +overawed at the splendor of her toilettes and showed a respect for her +in proportion to the money value which these toilettes reflected. Each +morning Grgoire left at her door his compliments with a huge bouquet +of brilliant and many colored crysanthemums, and enquiry if he could +serve her in any way. And Hosmer's time, that was not given to work, +was passed at her side; not in brooding or pre-occupied silence, but +in talk that invited her to friendly response. + +With Thrse, she was at first shy and diffident, and over watchful of +herself. She did not forget that Hosmer had told her "The lady knows +why I have come" and she resented that knowledge which Thrse +possessed of her past intimate married life. + +Melicent's attentions did not last in their ultra-effusiveness, but +she found Fanny less objectionable since removed from her St. Louis +surroundings; and the evident consideration with which she had been +accepted at Place-du-Bois seemed to throw about her a halo of +sufficient distinction to impel the girl to view her from a new and +different stand-point. + +But the charm of plantation life was letting go its hold upon +Melicent. Grgoire's adoration alone, and her feeble response to it +were all that kept her. + +"I neva felt anything like this befo'," he said, as they stood +together and their hands touched in reaching for a splendid rose that +hung invitingly from its tall latticed support out in mid lawn. The +sun had come again and dried the last drop of lingering moisture on +grass and shrubbery. + +"W'en I'm away f'om you, even fur five minutes, 't seems like I mus' +hurry quick, quick, to git back again; an' w'en I'm with you, +everything 'pears all right, even if you don't talk to me or look at +me. Th' otha day, down at the gin," he continued, "I was figurin' on +some weights an' wasn't thinkin' about you at all, an' all at once I +remember'd the one time I'd kissed you. Goodness! I couldn't see the +figures any mo', my head swum and the pencil mos' fell out o' my han'. +I neva felt anything like it: hones', Miss Melicent, I thought I was +goin' to faint fur a minute." + +"That's very unwise, Grgoire," she said, taking the roses that he +handed her to add to the already large bunch. "You must learn to think +of me calmly: our love must be something like a sacred memory--a sweet +recollection to help us through life when we are apart." + +"I don't know how I'm goin' to stan' it. Neva to see you! neva--my +God!" he gasped, paling and crushing between his nervous fingers the +flower she would have taken from him. + +"There is nothing in this world that one cannot grow accustomed to, +dear," spoke the pretty philosopher, picking up her skirts daintily +with one hand and passing the other through his arm--the hand which +held the flowers, whose peculiar perfume ever afterwards made Grgoire +shiver through a moment of pain that touched very close upon rapture. + +He was more occupied than he liked during those busy days of +harvesting and ginning, that left him only brief and snatched +intervals of Melicent's society. If he could have rested in the +comfort of being sure of her, such moments of separation would have +had their compensation in reflective anticipation. But with his +undisciplined desires and hot-blooded eagerness, her half-hearted +acknowledgments and inadequate concessions, closed her about with a +chilling barrier that staggered him with its problematic nature. +Feeling himself her equal in the aristocracy of blood, and her master +in the knowledge and strength of loving, he resented those half +understood reasons which removed him from the possibility of being +anything to her. And more, he was angry with himself for acquiescing +in that self understood agreement. But it was only in her absence that +these thoughts disturbed him. When he was with her, his whole being +rejoiced in her existence and there was no room for doubt or dread. + +He felt himself regenerated through love, and as having no part in +that other Grgoire whom he only thought of to dismiss with +unrecognition. + +The time came when he could ill conceal his passion from others. +Thrse became conscious of it, through an unguarded glance. The +unhappiness of the situation was plain to her; but to what degree she +could not guess. It was certainly so deplorable that it would have +been worth while to have averted it. Yet, she felt great faith in the +power of time and absence to heal such wounds even to the extent of +leaving no tell-tale scar. + +"Grgoire, my boy," she said to him, speaking in French, and laying +her hand on his, when they were alone together. "I hope that your +heart is not too deep in this folly." + +He reddened and asked, "What do you mean, aunt?" + +"I mean, that unfortunately, you are in love with Melicent. I do not +know how much longer she will remain here, but taking any possibility +for granted, let me advise you to leave the place for a while; go back +to your home, or take a little trip to the city." + +"No, I could not." + +"Force yourself to it." + +"And lose days, perhaps weeks, of being near her? No, no, I could not +do that, aunt. There will be plenty time for that in the rest of my +life," he said, trying to speak calmly and forcing his voice to a +harshness which the nearness of tears made needful. + +"Does she know? Have you told her?" + +"Oh yes, she knows how much I love her." + +"And she does not love you," said Thrse, seeming rather to assert +than to question. + +"No, she does not. No matter what she says--she does not. I can feel +that here," he answered, striking his breast. "Oh aunt, it is terrible +to think of her going away; forever, perhaps; of never seeing her. I +could not stand it." And he stood the strain no longer, but sobbed and +wept with his aunt's consoling arms around him. + +Thrse, knowing that Melicent would not tarry much longer with them, +thought it not needful to approach her on the subject. Had it been +otherwise, she would not have hesitated to beg the girl to desist from +this unprofitable amusement of tormenting a human heart. + + + + +III + +A Talk Under the Cedar Tree. + + +Day by day, Fanny threw off somewhat of the homesickness which had +weighted her at coming. Not by any determined effort of the will, nor +by any resolve to make the best of things. Outside influences meeting +half-way the workings of unconscious inward forces, were the agents +that by degrees were gently ridding her of the acute pressure of +dissatisfaction, which up to the present, she had stolidly borne +without any personal effort to cast it off. + +Thrse affected her forcibly. This woman so wholesome, so fair and +strong; so un-American as to be not ashamed to show tenderness and +sympathy with eye and lip, moved Fanny like a new and pleasing +experience. When Thrse touched her caressingly, or gently stroked +her limp hand, she started guiltily, and looked furtively around to +make sure that none had witnessed an exhibition of tenderness that +made her flush, and the first time found her unresponsive. A second +time, she awkwardly returned the hand pressure, and later, these +mildly sensuous exchanges prefaced the outpouring of all Fanny's woes, +great and small. + +"I don't say that I always done what was right, Mrs. Laferm, but I +guess David's told you just what suited him about me. You got to +remember there's always two sides to a story." + +She had been to the poultry yard with Thrse, who had introduced her +to its feathery tenants, making her acquainted with stately Brahmas +and sleek Plymouth-Rocks and hardy little "Creole chickens"--not much +to look at, but very palatable when converted into _fricasse_. + +Returning, they seated themselves on the bench that encircled a +massive cedar--spreading and conical. Hector, who had trotted +attendance upon them during their visit of inspection, cast himself +heavily down at his mistress' feet and after glancing knowingly up +into her face, looked placidly forth at Sampson, gathering garden +greens on the other side of a low dividing fence. + +"You see if David'd always been like he is now, I don't know but +things'd been different. Do you suppose he ever went any wheres with +me, or even so much as talked to me when he came home? There was +always that everlasting newspaper in his pocket, and he'd haul it out +the first thing. Then I used to read the paper too sometimes, and when +I'd go to talk to him about what I read, he'd never even looked at the +same things. Goodness knows what he read in the paper, I never could +find out; but here'd be the edges all covered over with figuring. I +believe it's the only thing he ever thought or dreamt about; that +eternal figuring on every bit of paper he could lay hold of, till I +was tired picking them up all over the house. Belle Worthington used +to say it'd of took an angel to stand him. I mean his throwing papers +around that way. For as far as his never talking went, she couldn't +find any fault with that; Mr. Worthington was just as bad, if he +wasn't worse. But Belle's not like me; I don't believe she'd let poor +Mr. Worthington talk in the house if he wanted to." + +She gradually drifted away from her starting point, and like most +people who have usually little to say, became very voluble, when once +she passed into the humor of talking. Thrse let her talk unchecked. +It seemed to do her good to chatter about Belle and Lou, and Jack +Dawson, and about her home life, of which she unknowingly made such a +pitiable picture to her listener. + +"I guess David never let on to you about himself," she said moodily, +having come back to the sore that rankled: the dread that Thrse had +laid all the blame of the rupture on her shoulders. + +"You're mistaken, Mrs. Hosmer. It was a knowledge of his own +short-comings that prompted your husband to go back and ask your +forgiveness. You must grant, there's nothing in his conduct now that +you could reproach him with. And," she added, laying her hand gently +on Fanny's arm, "I know you'll be strong, and do your share in this +reconciliation--do what you can to please him." + +Fanny flushed uneasily under Thrse's appealing glance. + +"I'm willing to do anything that David wants," she replied, "I made up +my mind to that from the start. He's a mighty good husband now, Mrs. +Laferm. Don't mind what I said about him. I was afraid you thought +that--" + +"Never mind," returned Thrse kindly, "I know all about it. Don't +worry any farther over what I may think. I believe in you and in him, +and I know you'll both be brave and do what's right." + +"There isn't anything so very hard for David to do," she said, +depressed with a sense of her inadequate strength to do the task which +she had set herself. "He's got no faults to give up. David never did +have any faults. He's a true, honest man; and I was a coward to say +those things about him." + +Melicent and Grgoire were coming across the lawn to join the two, and +Fanny, seeing them approach, suddenly chilled and wrapt herself about +in her mantle of reserve. + +"I guess I better go," she said, offering to rise, but Thrse held +out a detaining hand. + +"You don't want to go and sit alone in the cottage; stay here with me +till Mr. Hosmer comes back from the mill." + +Grgoire's face was a study. Melicent, who did what she wanted with +him, had chosen this afternoon, for some inscrutable reason, to make +him happy. He carried her shawl and parasol; she herself bearing a +veritable armful of flowers, leaves, red berried sprigs, a tangle of +richest color. They had been in the woods and she had bedecked him +with garlands and festoons of autumn leaves, till he looked a very +Satyr; a character which his flushed, swarthy cheeks, and glittering +animal eyes did not belie. + +They were laughing immoderately, and their whole bearing still +reflected their exuberant gaiety as they joined Thrse and Fanny. + +"What a 'Mater Dolorosa' Fanny looks!" exclaimed Melicent, throwing +herself into a picturesque attitude on the bench beside Thrse, and +resting her feet on Hector's broad back. + +Fanny offered no reply, but to look helplessly resigned; an expression +which Melicent knew of old, and which had always the effect of +irritating her. Not now, however, for the curve of the bench around +the great cedar tree removed her from the possibility of contemplating +Fanny's doleful visage, unless she made an effort to that end, which +she was certainly not inclined to do. + +"No, Grgoire," she said, flinging a rose into his face when he would +have seated himself beside her, "go sit by Fanny and do something to +make her laugh; only don't tickle her; David mightn't like it. And +here's Mrs. Lafirme looking almost as glum. Now, if David would only +join us with that 'pale cast of thought' that he bears about usually, +what a merry go round we'd have." + +"When Melicent looks at the world laughing, she wants it to laugh back +at her," said Thrse, reflecting something of the girl's gaiety. + +"As in a looking-glass, well isn't that square?" she returned, falling +into slang, in her recklessness of spirit. + +Endeavoring to guard her treasure of flowers from Thrse, who was +without ceremony making a critical selection among them of what +pleased her, Melicent slid around the bench, bringing herself close to +Grgoire and begging his protection against the Vandalism of his aunt. +She looked into his eyes for an instant as though asking him for love +instead of so slight a favor and he grasped her arm, pressing it till +she cried out from the pain: which act, on his side, served to drive +her again around to Thrse. + +"Guess what we are going to do to-morrow: you and I and all of us; +Grgoire and David and Fanny and everybody?" + +"Going to Bedlam along with you?" Thrse asked. + +"Mrs. Lafirme is in need of a rebuke, which I shall proceed to +administer," thrusting a crumpled handful of rose leaves down the neck +of Thrse's dress, and laughing joyously in her scuffle to accomplish +the punishment. + +"No, madam; I don't go to Bedlam; I drive others there. Ask Grgoire +what we're going to do. Tell them, Grgoire." + +"They ain't much to tell. We'a goin' hoss back ridin'." + +"Not me; I can't ride," wailed Fanny. + +"You can get up Torpedo for Mrs. Hosmer, can't you, Grgoire?" asked +Thrse. + +"Certainly. W'y you could ride ole Torpedo, Mrs. Hosma, if you nova +saw a hoss in yo' life. A li'l chile could manage him." + +Fanny turned to Thrse for further assurance and found all that she +looked for. + +"We'll go up on the hill and see that dear old Morico, and I shall +take along a comb, and comb out that exquisite white hair of his and +then I shall focus him, seated in his low chair and making one of +those cute turkey fans." + +"Ole Morico ain't goin' to let you try no monkeyshines on him; I tell +you that befo' han'," said Grgoire, rising and coming to Melicent to +rid him of his sylvan ornamentations, for it was time for him to leave +them. When he turned away, Melicent rose and flung all her flowery +wealth into Thrse's lap, and following took his arm. + +"Where are you going?" asked Thrse. + +"Going to help Grgoire feed the mules," she called back looking over +her shoulder; the sinking sun lighting her handsome mischievous face. + +Thrse proceeded to arrange the flowers with some regard to graceful +symmetry; and Fanny did not regain her talkative spirit that +Melicent's coming had put to flight, but sat looking silent and +listlessly into the distance. + +As Thrse glanced casually up into her face she saw it warmed by a +sudden faint glow--an unusual animation, and following her gaze, she +saw that Hosmer had returned and was entering the cottage. + +"I guess I better be going," said Fanny rising, and this time Thrse +no longer detained her. + + + + +IV + +Thrse Crosses the River. + + +To shirk any serious duties of life would have been entirely foreign +to Thrse's methods or even instincts. But there did come to her +moments of rebellion--or repulsion, against the small demands that +presented themselves with an unfailing recurrence; and from such, she +at times indulged herself with the privilege of running away. When +Fanny left her alone--a pathetic little droop took possession of the +corners of her mouth that might not have come there if she had not +been alone. She laid the flowers, only half arranged, on the bench +beside her, as a child would put aside a toy that no longer interested +it. She looked towards the house and could see the servants going back +and forth. She knew if she entered, she would be met by appeals from +one and the other. The overseer would soon be along, with his crib +keys, and stable keys; his account of the day's doings and +consultations for to-morrow's work, and for the moment, she would have +none of it. + +"Come, Hector--come, old boy," she said rising abruptly; and crossing +the lawn she soon gained the gravel path that led to the outer road. +This road brought her by a mild descent to the river bank. The water, +seldom stationary for any long period, was at present running low and +sluggishly between its red banks. + +Tied to the landing was a huge flat-boat, that was managed by the aid +of a stout cable reaching quite across the river; and beside it +nestled a small light skiff. In this Thrse seated herself, and +proceeded to row across the stream, Hector plunging into the water and +swimming in advance of her. + +The banks on the opposite shore were almost perpendicular; and their +summit to be reached only by the artificial road that had been cut +into them: broad and of easy ascent. This river front was a standing +worry to Thrse, for when the water was high and rapid, the banks +caved constantly, carrying away great sections from the land. Almost +every year, the fences in places had to be moved back, not only for +security, but to allow a margin for the road that on this side +followed the course of the small river. + +High up and perilously near the edge, stood a small cabin. It had once +been far removed from the river, which had now, however, eaten its way +close up to it--leaving no space for the road-way. The house was +somewhat more pretentious than others of its class, being fashioned of +planed painted boards, and having a brick chimney that stood fully +exposed at one end. A great rose tree climbed and spread generously +over one side, and the big red roses grew by hundreds amid the dark +green setting of their leaves. + +At the gate of this cabin Thrse stopped, calling out, "_Grosse +tante!--oh, Grosse tante!_" + +The sound of her voice brought to the door a negress--coal black and +so enormously fat that she moved about with evident difficulty. She +was dressed in a loosely hanging purple calico garment of the mother +Hubbard type--known as a _volante_ amongst Louisiana Creoles; and on +her head was knotted and fantastically twisted a bright _tignon_. Her +glistening good-natured countenance illumined at the sight of Thrse. + +"_Quo faire to pas woulez rentrer, Tite matresse?_" and Thrse +answered in the same Creole dialect: "Not now, _Grosse tante_--I shall +be back in half an hour to drink a cup of coffee with you." No English +words can convey the soft music of that speech, seemingly made for +tenderness and endearment. + +As Thrse turned away from the gate, the black woman re-entered the +house, and as briskly as her cumbersome size would permit, began +preparations for her mistress' visit. Milk and butter were taken from +the safe; eggs, from the India rush basket that hung against the wall; +and flour, from the half barrel that stood in convenient readiness in +the corner: for _Tite matresse_ was to be treated to a dish of +_croquignoles_. Coffee was always an accomplished fact at hand in the +chimney corner. + +_Grosse tante_, or more properly, Marie Louise, was a Creole--Thrse's +nurse and attendant from infancy, and the only one of the family +servants who had come with her mistress from New Orleans to +Place-du-Bois at that lady's marriage with Jrme Lafirme. But her +ever increasing weight had long since removed her from the possibility +of usefulness, otherwise than in supervising her small farm yard. She +had little use for "_ces nges Amricains_," as she called the +plantation hands--a restless lot forever shifting about and changing +quarters. + +It was seldom now that she crossed the river; only two occasions being +considered of sufficient importance to induce her to such effort. One +was in the event of her mistress' illness, when she would install +herself at her bedside as a fixture, not to be dislodged by any less +inducement than Thrse's full recovery. The other was when a dinner +of importance was to be given: then Marie Louise consented to act as +_chef de cuisine_, for there was no more famous cook than she in the +State; her instructor having been no less a personage than old Lucien +Santien--a _gourmet_ famed for his ultra Parisian tastes. + +Seated at the base of a great China-berry on whose gnarled protruding +roots she rested an arm languidly, Thrse looked out over the river +and gave herself up to doubts and misgivings. She first took exception +with herself for that constant interference in the concerns of other +people. Might not this propensity be carried too far at times? Did the +good accruing counterbalance the personal discomfort into which she +was often driven by her own agency? What reason had she to know that a +policy of non-interference in the affairs of others might not after +all be the judicious one? As much as she tried to vaguely generalize, +she found her reasoning applying itself to her relation with Hosmer. + +The look which she had surprised in Fanny's face had been a painful +revelation to her. Yet could she have expected other, and should she +have hoped for less, than that Fanny should love her husband and he in +turn should come to love his wife? + +Had she married Hosmer herself! Here she smiled to think of the storm +of indignation that such a marriage would have roused in the parish. +Yet, even facing the impossibility of such contingency, it pleased her +to indulge in a short dream of what might have been. + +If it were her right instead of another's to watch for his coming and +rejoice at it! Hers to call him husband and lavish on him the love +that awoke so strongly when she permitted herself, as she was doing +now, to invoke it! She felt what capability lay within her of rousing +the man to new interests in life. She pictured the dawn of an +unsuspected happiness coming to him: broadening; illuminating; growing +in him to answer to her own big-heartedness. + +Were Fanny, and her own prejudices, worth the sacrifice which she and +Hosmer had made? This was the doubt that bade fair to unsettle her; +that called for a sharp, strong out-putting of the will before she +could bring herself to face the situation without its accessions of +personalities. Such communing with herself could not be condemned as a +weakness with Thrse, for the effect which it left upon her strong +nature was one of added courage and determination. + +When she reached Marie Louise's cabin again, twilight, which is so +brief in the South, was giving place to the night. + +Within the cabin, the lamp had already been lighted, and Marie Louise +was growing restless at Thrse's long delay. + +"Ah _Grosse tante_, I'm so tired," she said, falling into a chair near +the door; not relishing the warmth of the room after her quick walk, +and wishing to delay as long as possible the necessity of sitting at +table. At another time she might have found the dish of golden brown +_croquignoles_ very tempting with its accessory of fragrant coffee; +but not to-day. + +"Why do you run about so much, _Tite matresse_? You are always going +this way and that way; on horseback, on foot--through the house. Make +those lazy niggers work more. You spoil them. I tell you if it was old +mistress that had to deal with them, they would see something +different." + +She had taken all the pins from Thrse's hair which fell in a +gleaming, heavy mass; and with her big soft hands she was stroking her +head as gently as if those hands had been of the whitest and most +delicate. + +"I know that look in your eyes, it means headache. It's time for me to +make you some more _eau sdative_--I am sure you haven't any more; +you've given it away as you give away every thing." + +"_Grosse tante_," said Thrse seated at table and sipping her coffee; +_Grosse tante_ also drinking her cup--but seated apart, "I am going to +insist on having your cabin moved back; it is silly to be so stubborn +about such a small matter. Some day you will find yourself out in the +middle of the river--and what am I going to do then?--no one to nurse +me when I am sick--no one to scold me--nobody to love me." + +"Don't say that, _Tite matresse_, all the world loves you--it isn't +only Marie Louise. But no. You must remember the last time poor +Monsieur Jrme moved me, and said with a laugh that I can never +forget, 'well, _Grosse tante_, I know we have got you far enough this +time out of danger,' away back in Dumont's field you recollect? I said +then, Marie Louise will move no more; she's too old. If the good God +does not want to take care of me, then it's time for me to go." + +"Ah but, _Grosse tante_, remember--God does not want all the trouble +on his own shoulders," Thrse answered humoring the woman, in her +conception of the Deity. "He wants us to do our share, too." + +"Well, I have done my share. Nothing is going to harm Marie Louise. I +thought about all that, do not fret. So the last time Pre Antoine +passed in the road--going down to see that poor Pierre Pardou at the +Mouth--I called him in, and he blessed the whole house inside and out, +with holy water--notice how the roses have bloomed since then--and +gave me medals of the holy Virgin to hang about. Look over the door, +_Tite matresse_, how it shines, like a silver star." + +"If you will not have your cabin removed, _Grosse tante_, then come +live with me. Old Hatton has wanted work at Place-du-Bois, the longest +time. We will have him build you a room wherever you choose, a pretty +little house like those in the city." + +"_Non--non, Tite matresse, Marie Louise 'pr crver icite av tous +son butin, si faut_" (no, no, _Tite matresse_, Marie Louise will die +here with all her belongings if it must be). + +The servants were instructed that when their mistress was not at home +at a given hour, her absence should cause no delay in the household +arrangements. She did not choose that her humor or her movements be +hampered by a necessity of regularity which she owed to no one. When +she reached home supper had long been over. + +Nearing the house she heard the scraping of Nathan's violin, the noise +of shuffling feet and unconstrained laughter. These festive sounds +came from the back veranda. She entered the dining-room, and from its +obscurity looked out on a curious scene. The veranda was lighted by a +lamp suspended from one of its pillars. In a corner sat Nathan; +serious, dignified, scraping out a monotonous but rhythmic minor +strain to which two young negroes from the lower quarters--famous +dancers--were keeping time in marvelous shuffling and pigeon-wings; +twisting their supple joints into astonishing contortions and the +sweat rolling from their black visages. A crowd of darkies stood at a +respectful distance an appreciative and encouraging audience. And +seated on the broad rail of the veranda were Melicent and Grgoire, +patting Juba and singing a loud accompaniment to the breakdown. + +Was this the Grgoire who had only yesterday wept such bitter tears on +his aunt's bosom? + +Thrse turning away from the scene, the doubt assailed her whether it +were after all worth while to strive against the sorrows of life that +can be so readily put aside. + + + + +V + +One Afternoon. + + +Whatever may have been Torpedo's characteristics in days gone by, at +this advanced period in his history he possessed none so striking as a +stoical inaptitude for being moved. Another of his distinguishing +traits was a propensity for grazing which he was prone to indulge at +inopportune moments. Such points taken in conjunction with a gait +closely resembling that of the camel in the desert, might give much +cause to wonder at Thrse's motive in recommending him as a suitable +mount for the unfortunate Fanny, were it not for his wide-spread +reputation of angelic inoffensiveness. + +The ride which Melicent had arranged and in which she held out such +promises of a "lark" proved after all but a desultory affair. For with +Fanny making but a sorry equestrian debut and Hosmer creeping along at +her side; Thrse unable to hold Beauregard within conventional +limits, and Melicent and Grgoire vanishing utterly from the scene, +sociability was a feature entirely lacking to the excursion. + +"David, I can't go another step: I just can't, so that settles it." + +The look of unhappiness in Fanny's face and attitude, would have moved +the proverbial stone. + +"I think if you change horses with me, Fanny, you'll find it more +comfortable, and we'll turn about and go home." + +"I wouldn't get on that horse's back, David Hosmer, if I had to die +right here in the woods, I wouldn't." + +"Do you think you could manage to walk back that distance then? I can +lead the horses," he suggested as a _pis aller_. + +"I guess I'll haf to; but goodness knows if I'll ever get there +alive." + +They were far up on the hill, which spot they had reached by painfully +slow and labored stages, each refraining from mention of a discomfort +that might interfere with the supposed enjoyment of the other, till +Fanny's note of protest. + +Hosmer cast about him for some expedient that might lighten the +unpleasantness of the situation, when a happy thought occurred to him. + +"If you'll try to bear up, a few yards further, you can dismount at +old Morico's cabin and I'll hurry back and get the buggy. It can be +driven this far anyway: and it's only a short walk from here through +the woods." + +So Hosmer set her down before Morico's door: her long riding skirt, +borrowed for the occasion, twisting awkwardly around her legs, and +every joint in her body aching. + +Partly by pantomimic signs interwoven with a few French words which he +had picked up within the last year, Hosmer succeeded in making himself +understood to the old man, and rode away leaving Fanny in his care. + +Morico fussily preceded her into the house and placed a great clumsy +home-made rocker at her disposal, into which she cast herself with +every appearance of bodily distress. He then busied himself in tidying +up the room out of deference to his guest; gathering up the scissors, +waxen thread and turkey feathers which had fallen from his lap in his +disturbance, and laying them on the table. He knocked the ashes from +his corn-cob pipe which he now rested on a projection of the brick +chimney that extended into the room and that served as mantel-piece. +All the while he cast snatched glances at Fanny, who sat pale and +tired. Her appearance seemed to move him to make an effort towards +relieving it. He took a key from his pocket and unlocking a side of +the _garde manger_, drew forth a small flask of whisky. Fanny had +closed her eyes and was not aware of his action, till she heard him at +her elbow saying in his feeble quavering voice:-- + +"_Tenez madame; goutez un peu: a va vous faire du bien,_" and opening +her eyes she saw that he held a glass half filled with strong "toddy" +for her acceptance. + +She thrust out her hand to ward it away as though it had been a +reptile that menaced her with its sting. + +Morico looked nonplussed and a little abashed: but he had much faith +in the healing qualities of his remedy and urged it on her anew. She +trembled a little, and looked away with rather excited eyes. + +"_Je vous assure madame, a ne peut pas vous faire du mal._" + +Fanny took the glass from his hand, and rising went and placed it on +the table, then walked to the open door and looked eagerly out, as +though hoping for the impossibility of her husband's return. + +She did not seat herself again, but walked restlessly about the room, +intently examining its meager details. The circuit of inspection +bringing her again to the table, she picked up Morico's turkey fan, +looking at it long and critically. When she laid it down, it was to +seize the glass of "toddy" which she unhesitatingly put to her lips +and drained at a draught. All uneasiness and fatigue seemed to leave +her on the instant as though by magic. She went back to her chair and +reseated herself composedly. Her eyes now rested on her old host with +a certain quizzical curiosity strange to them. + +He was plainly demoralized by her presence, and still made pretense of +occupying himself with the arrangement of the room. + +Presently she said to him: "Your remedy did me more good than I'd +expected," but not understanding her, he only smiled and looked at her +blankly. + +She laughed good-humoredly back at him, then went to the table and +poured from the flask which he had left standing there, liquor to the +depth of two fingers, this time drinking it more deliberately. After +that she tried to talk to Morico and thought it very amusing that he +could not understand her. + +Presently Joint came home and accepted her presence there very +indifferently. He went to the _garde manger_ to stay his hunger, much +as he had done on the occasion of Thrse's visit; talked in grum +abrupt utterances to his father, and disappeared into the adjoining +room where Fanny could hear him and occasionally see him polishing and +oiling his cherished rifle. + +Morico, more accustomed to foreign sounds in the woods than she, was +the first to detect the approach of Grgoire, whom he went out +hurriedly to meet, glad of the relief from the supposed necessity of +entertaining his puzzling visitor. When he was fairly out of the room, +she arose quickly, approached the table and reaching for the flask of +liquor, thrust it hastily into her pocket, then went to join him. At +the moment that Grgoire came up, Joint issued from a side door and +stood looking at the group. + +"Well, Mrs. Hosma, yere I am. I reckon you was tired waitin'. The +buggy's yonda in the road." + +He shook hands cordially with Morico saying something to him in French +which made the old man laugh heartily. + +"Why didn't David come? I thought he said he was coming; that's the +way he does," said Fanny complainingly. + +"That's a po' compliment to me, Mrs. Hosrma. Can't you stan' my +company for that li'le distance?" returned Grgoire gallantly. "Mr. +Hosma had a good deal to do w'en he got back, that's w'y he sent me. +An' we betta hurry up if we expec' to git any suppa' to-night. Like as +not you'll fine your kitchen cleaned out." + +Fanny looked her inquiry for his meaning. + +"Why, don't you know this is 'Tous-saint' eve--w'en the dead git out +o' their graves an' walk about? You wouldn't ketch a nigga out o' his +cabin to-night afta dark to save his soul. They all gittin' ready now +to hustle back to the quartas." + +"That's nonsense," said Fanny, drawing on her gloves, "you ought to +have more sense than to repeat such things." + +Grgoire laughed, looking surprised at her unusual energy of speech +and manner. Then he turned to Joint, whose presence he had thus far +ignored, and asked in a peremptory tone: + +"W'at did Woodson say 'bout watchin' at the mill to-night? Did you ask +him like I tole you?" + +"Yaas, me ax um: ee' low ee an' goin'. Say how Sylveste d'wan' watch +lak alluz. Say ee an' goin'. Me don' blem 'im neida, don' ketch me +out de 'ouse night lak dat fu no man." + +"_Sacr imbcile_," muttered Grgoire, between his teeth, and +vouchsafed him no other answer, but nodded to Morico and turned away. +Fanny followed with a freedom of movement quite unlike that of her +coming. + +Morico went into the house and coming back hastily to the door called +to Joint: + +"Bring back that flask of whisky that you took off the table." + +"You're a liar: you know I have no use for whisky. That's one of your +damned tricks to make me buy you more." And he seated himself on an +over-turned tub and with his small black eyes half closed, looked +moodily out into the solemn darkening woods. The old man showed no +resentment at the harshness and disrespect of his son's speech, being +evidently used to such. He passed his hand slowly over his white long +hair and turned bewildered into the house. + +"Is it just this same old thing year in and year out, Grgoire? Don't +any one ever get up a dance, or a card party or anything?" + +"Jus' as you say; the same old thing f'om one yea's en' to the otha. I +used to think it was putty lonesome myse'f w'en I firs' come yere. +Then you see they's no neighbo's right roun' yere. In Natchitoches +now; that's the place to have a right down good time. But see yere; I +didn' know you was fon' o' dancin' an' such things." + +"Why, of course, I just dearly love to dance. But it's as much as my +life's worth to say that before David; he's such a stick; but I guess +you know that by this time," with a laugh, as he had never heard from +her before--so unconstrained; at the same time drawing nearer to him +and looking merrily into his face. + +"The little lady's been having a 'toddy' at Morico's, that makes her +lively," thought Grgoire. But the knowledge did not abash him in the +least. He accommodated himself at once to the situation with that +adaptability common to the American youth, whether of the South, +North, East or West. + +"Where abouts did you leave David when you come away?" she asked with +a studied indifference. + +"Hol' on there, Buckskin--w'ere you takin' us? W'y, I lef' him at the +sto' mailin' lettas." + +"Had the others all got back? Mrs. Laferm? Melicent? did they all stop +at the store, too?" + +"Who? Aunt Thrrse? no, she was up at the house w'en I lef'--I reckon +Miss Melicent was there too. Talkin' 'bout fun,--it's to git into one +o' them big spring wagons on a moonlight night, like they do in +Centaville sometimes; jus' packed down with young folks--and start out +fur a dance up the coast. They ain't nothin' to beat it as fah as fun +goes." + +"It must be just jolly. I guess you're a pretty good dancer, +Grgoire?" + +"Well--'taint fur me to say. But they ain't many can out dance me: not +in Natchitoches pa'ish, anyway. I can say that much." + +If such a thing could have been, Fanny would have startled Grgoire +more than once during the drive home. Before its close she had +obtained a promise from him to take her up to Natchitoches for the +very next entertainment,--averring that she didn't care what David +said. If he wanted to bury himself that was his own look out. And if +Mrs. Laferm took people to be angels that they could live in a place +like that, and give up everything and not have any kind of enjoyment +out of life, why, she was mistaken and that's all there was to it. To +all of which freely expressed views Grgoire emphatically assented. + +Hosmer had very soon disembarrassed himself of Torpedo, knowing that +the animal would unerringly find his way to the corn crib by supper +time. He continued his own way now untrammelled, and at an agreeable +speed which soon brought him to the spring at the road side. Here he +found Thrse, half seated against a projection of rock, in her hand a +bunch of ferns which she had evidently dismounted to gather, and +holding Beauregard's bridle while he munched at the cool wet tufts of +grass that grew everywhere. + +As Hosmer rode up at a rapid pace, he swung himself from his horse +almost before the animal came to a full stop. He removed his hat, +mopped his forehead, stamped about a little to relax his limbs and +turned to answer the enquiry with which Thrse met him. + +"Left her at Morico's. I'll have to send the buggy back for her." + +"I can't forgive myself for such a blunder," said Thrse regretfully, +"indeed I had no idea of that miserable beast's character. I never was +on him you know--only the little darkies, and they never complained: +they'd as well ride cows as not." + +"Oh, it's mainly from her being unaccustomed to riding, I believe." + +This was the first time that Hosmer and Thrse had met alone since +his return from St. Louis. They looked at each other with full +consciousness of what lay in the other's mind. Thrse felt that +however adroitly another woman might have managed the situation, for +herself, it would have been a piece of affectation to completely +ignore it at this moment. + +"Mr. Hosmer, perhaps I ought to have said something before this, to +you--about what you've done." + +"Oh, yes, congratulated me--complimented me," he replied with a +pretense at a laugh. + +"Well, the latter, perhaps. I think we all like to have our good and +right actions recognized for their worth." + +He flushed, looked at her with a smile, then laughed out-right--this +time it was no pretense. + +"So I've been a good boy; have done as my mistress bade me and now I'm +to receive a condescending little pat on the head--and of course must +say thank you. Do you know, Mrs. Lafirme--and I don't see why a woman +like you oughtn't to know it--it's one of those things to drive a man +mad, the sweet complaisance with which women accept situations, or +inflict situations that it takes the utmost of a man's strength to +endure." + +"Well, Mr. Hosmer," said Thrse plainly discomposed, "you must +concede you decided it was the right thing to do." + +"I didn't do it because I thought it was right, but because you +thought it was right. But that makes no difference." + +"Then remember your wife is going to do the right thing herself--she +admitted as much to me." + +"Don't you fool yourself, as Melicent says, about what Mrs. Hosmer +means to do. I take no account of it. But you take it so easily; so as +a matter of course. That's what exasperates me. That you, you, you, +shouldn't have a suspicion of the torture of it; the loathsomeness of +it. But how could you--how could any woman understand it? Oh forgive +me, Thrse--I wouldn't want you to. There's no brute so brutal as a +man," he cried, seeing the pain in her face and knowing he had caused +it. "But you know you promised to help me--oh I'm talking like an +idiot." + +"And I do," returned Thrse, "that is, I want to, I mean to." + +"Then don't tell me again that I have done right. Only look at me +sometimes a little differently than you do at Hiram or the gate post. +Let me once in a while see a look in your face that tells me that you +understand--if it's only a little bit." + +Thrse thought it best to interrupt the situation; so, pale and +silently she prepared to mount her horse. He came to her assistance of +course, and when she was seated she drew off her loose riding glove +and held out her hand to him. He pressed it gratefully, then touched +it with his lips; then turned it and kissed the half open palm. + +She did not leave him this time, but rode at his side in silence with +a frown and little line of thought between her blue eyes. + +As they were nearing the store she said diffidently: "Mr. Hosmer, I +wonder if it wouldn't be best for you to put the mill in some one +else's charge--and go away from Place-du-Bois." + +"I believe you always speak with a purpose, Mrs. Lafirme: you have +somebody's ultimate good in view, when you say that. Is it your own, +or mine or whose is it?" + +"Oh! not mine." + +"I will leave Place-du-Bois, certainly, if you wish it." + +As she looked at him she was forced to admit that she had never seen +him look as he did now. His face, usually serious, had a whole +unwritten tragedy in it. And she felt altogether sore and puzzled and +exasperated over man's problematic nature. + +"I don't think it should be left entirely to me to say. Doesn't your +own reason suggest a proper course in the matter?" + +"My reason is utterly unable to determine anything in which you are +concerned. Mrs. Lafirme," he said checking his horse and laying a +restraining hand on her bridle, "let me speak to you one moment. I +know you are a woman to whom one may speak the truth. Of course, you +remember that you prevailed upon me to go back to my wife. To you it +seemed the right thing--to me it seemed certainly hard--but no more +nor less than taking up the old unhappy routine of life, where I had +left it when I quitted her. I reasoned much like a stupid child who +thinks the colors in his kaleidoscope may fall twice into the same +design. In place of the old, I found an entirely new situation--horrid, +sickening, requiring such a strain upon my energies to live through +it, that I believe it's an absurdity to waste so much moral force for +so poor an aim--there would be more dignity in putting an end to my +life. It doesn't make it any the more bearable to feel that the cause +of this unlooked for change lies within myself--my altered feelings. +But it seems to me that I have the right to ask you not to take +yourself out of my life; your moral support; your bodily atmosphere. I +hope not to give way to the weakness of speaking of these things +again: but before you leave me, tell me, do you understand a little +better why I need you?" + +"Yes, I understand now; and I thank you for talking so openly to me. +Don't go away from Place-du-Bois: it would make me very wretched." + +She said no more and he was glad of it, for her last words held almost +the force of action for him; as though she had let him feel for an +instant her heart beat against his own with an echoing pain. + +Their ways now diverged. She went in the direction of the house and he +to the store where he found Grgoire, whom he sent for his wife. + + + + +VI + +One Night. + + +"Grgoire was right: do you know those nasty creatures have gone and +left every speck of the supper dishes unwashed? I've got half a mind +to give them both warning to-morrow morning." + +Fanny had come in from the kitchen to the sitting-room, and the above +homily was addressed to her husband who stood lighting his cigar. He +had lately taken to smoking. + +"You'd better do nothing of the kind; you wouldn't find it easy to +replace them. Put up a little with their vagaries: this sort of thing +only happens once a year." + +"How do you know it won't be something else just as ridiculous +to-morrow? And that idiot of a Minervy; what do you suppose she told +me when I insisted on her staying to wash up things? She says, last +whatever you call it, her husband wanted to act hard-headed and staid +out after dark, and when he was crossing the bayou, the spirits jerked +him off his horse and dragged him up and down in the water, till he +was nearly drowned. I don't see what you're laughing at; I guess you'd +like to make out that they're in the right." + +Hosmer was perfectly aware that Fanny had had a drink, and he rightly +guessed that Morico had given it to her. But he was at a loss to +account for the increasing symptoms of intoxication that she showed. +He tried to persuade her to go to bed; but his efforts to that end +remained unheeded, till she had eased her mind of an accumulation of +grievances, mostly fancied. He had much difficulty in preventing her +from going over to give Melicent a piece of her mind about her lofty +airs and arrogance in thinking herself better than other people. And +she was very eager to tell Thrse that she meant to do as she liked, +and would stand no poking of noses in her business. It was a good +while before she fell into a heavy sleep, after shedding a few maudlin +tears over the conviction that he intended to leave her again, and +clinging to his neck with beseeching enquiry whether he loved her. + +He went out on the veranda feeling much as if he had been wrestling +with a strong adversary who had mastered him, and whom he was glad to +be freed of, even at the cost of coming inglorious from the conflict. +The night was so dark, so hushed, that if ever the dead had wished to +step from their graves and take a stroll above ground, they could not +have found a more fitting hour. Hosmer walked very long in the +soothing quiet. He would have liked to walk the night through. The +last three hours had been like an acute physical pain, that was over +for the moment, and that being over, left his mind free to return to +the delicious consciousness, that he had needed to be reminded of, +that Thrse loved him after all. When his measured tread upon the +veranda finally ceased to mark the passing hours, a quiet that was +almost pulseless fell upon the plantation. Place-du-Bois slept. +Perhaps the only night in the year that some or other of the negroes +did not lurk in fence corners, or make exchange of nocturnal visits. + +But out in the hills there was no such unearthly stillness reigning. +Those restless wood-dwellers, that never sleep, were sending startling +gruesome calls to each other. Bats were flapping and whirling and +darting hither and thither; the gliding serpent making quick rustle +amid the dry, crisp leaves, and over all sounded the murmur of the +great pine trees, telling their mystic secrets to the night. + +A human creature was there too, feeling a close fellowship with these +spirits of night and darkness; with no more fear in his heart than the +unheeded serpent crossing his path. Every inch of the ground he knew. +He wanted no daylight to guide him. Had his eyes been blinded he would +no doubt have bent his body close to earth and scented his way along +like the human hound that he was. Over his shoulder hung the polished +rifle that sent dull and sudden gleamings into the dark. A large tin +pail swung from his hand. He was very careful of this pail--or its +contents, for he feared to lose a drop. And when he accidentally +struck an intervening tree and spilled some upon the ground, he +muttered a curse against his own awkwardness. + +Twice since leaving his cabin up in the clearing, he had turned to +drive back his yellow skulking dog that followed him. Each time the +brute had fled in abject terror, only to come creeping again into his +master's footsteps, when he thought himself forgotten. Here was a +companion whom neither Joint nor his mission required. Exasperated, +he seated himself on a fallen tree and whistled softly. The dog, who +had been holding back, dashed to his side, trembling with eagerness, +and striving to twist his head around to lick the hand that patted +him. Joint's other hand glided quickly into his pocket, from which he +drew forth a coil of thin rope that he flung deftly over the animal's +head, drawing it close and tight about the homely, shaggy throat. So +quickly was the action done, that no sound was uttered, and Joint +continued his way untroubled by his old and faithful friend, whom he +left hanging to the limb of a tree. + +He was following the same path that he traversed daily to and from the +mill, and which soon brought him out into the level with its soft +tufted grass and clumps of squat thorn trees. There was no longer the +protecting wood to screen him; but of such there was no need, for the +darkness hung about him like the magic mantle of story. Nearing the +mill he grew cautious, creeping along with the tread of a stealthy +beast, and halting at intervals to listen for sounds that he wished +not to hear. He knew there was no one on guard tonight. A movement in +the bushes near by, made him fall quick and sprawling to earth. It was +only Grgoire's horse munching the soft grass. Joint drew near and +laid his hand on the horse's back. It was hot and reeking with sweat. +Here was a fact to make him more wary. Horses were not found in such +condition from quietly grazing of a cool autumn night. He seated +himself upon the ground, with his hands clasped about his knees, all +doubled up in a little heap, and waited there with the patience of the +savage, letting an hour go by, whilst he made no movement. + +The hour past, he stole towards the mill, and began his work of +sprinkling the contents of his pail here and there along the dry +timbers at well calculated distances, with care that no drop should be +lost. Then, he drew together a great heap of crisp shavings and +slathers, plentifully besprinkling it with what remained in the can. +When he had struck a match against his rough trousers and placed it +carefully in the midst of this small pyramid, he found that he had +done his work but too surely. The quick flame sprang into life, +seizing at once all it could reach. Leaping over intervals; effacing +the darkness that had shrouded him; seeming to mock him as a fool and +point him out as a target for heaven and earth to hurl destruction at +if they would. Where should he hide himself? He only thought now of +how he might have done the deed differently, and with safety to +himself. He stood with great beams and loose planks surrounding him; +quaking with a premonition of evil. He wanted to fly in one direction; +then thought it best to follow the opposite; but a force outside of +himself seemed to hold him fast to one spot. When turning suddenly +about, he knew it was too late, he felt that all was lost, for there +was Grgoire, not twenty paces away--covering him with the muzzle of a +pistol and--cursed luck--his own rifle along with the empty pail in +the raging fire. + +Thrse was passing a restless night. She had lain long awake, +dwelling on the insistent thoughts that the day's happenings had given +rise to. The sleep which finally came to her was troubled by +dreams--demoniac--grotesque. Hosmer was in a danger from which she was +striving with physical effort to rescue him, and when she dragged him +painfully from the peril that menaced him, she turned to see that it +was Fanny whom she had saved--laughing at her derisively, and Hosmer +had been left to perish. The dream was agonizing; like an appalling +nightmare. She awoke in a fever of distress, and raised herself in bed +to shake off the unnatural impression which such a dream can leave. +The curtains were drawn aside from the window that faced her bed, and +looking out she saw a long tongue of flame, reaching far up into the +sky--away over the tree tops and the whole Southern horizon a glow. +She knew at once that the mill was burning, and it was the affair of a +moment with her to spring from her bed and don slippers and wrapper. +She knocked on Melicent's door to acquaint her with the startling +news; then hurried out into the back yard and rang the plantation +bell. + +Next she was at the cottage rousing Hosmer. But the alarm of the bell +had already awakened him, and he was dressed and out on the porch +almost as soon as Thrse had called. Melicent joined them, highly +agitated, and prepared to contribute her share towards any scene that +might be going forward. But she found little encouragement for heroics +with Hosmer. In saddling his horse rather hastily he was as unmoved as +though preparing for an uneventful morning canter. He stood at the +foot of the stairs preparing to mount when Grgoire rode up as if +pursued by furies; checking his horse with a quick, violent wrench +that set it quivering in its taut limbs. + +"Well," said Hosmer, "I guess it's done for. How did it happen? who +did it?" + +"Joint's work," answered Grgoire bitingly. + +"The damned scoundrel," muttered Hosmer, "where is he?" + +"Don' botha 'bout Joint; he ain't goin' to set no mo' mill afire," +saying which, he turned his horse and the two rode furiously away. + +Melicent grasped Thrse's arm convulsively. + +"What does he mean?" she asked in a frightened whisper. + +"I--I don't know," Thrse faltered. She had clasped her hands +spasmodically together, at Grgoire's words, trembling with horror of +what must be their meaning. + +"May be he arrested him," suggested the girl. + +"I hope so. Come; let's go to bed: there's no use staying out here in +the cold and dark." + +Hosmer had left the sitting-room door open, and Thrse entered. She +approached Fanny's door and knocked twice: not brusquely, but +sufficiently loud to be heard from within, by any one who was awake. +No answer came, and she went away, knowing that Fanny slept. + +The unusual sound of the bell, ringing two hours past midnight--that +very deadest hour of the night--had roused the whole plantation. On +all sides squads of men and a few venturesome women were hurrying +towards the fire; the dread of supernatural encounters overcome for +the moment by such strong reality and by the confidence lent them in +each other's company. + +There were many already gathered around the mill, when Grgoire and +Hosmer reached it. All effort to save anything had been abandoned as +useless. The books and valuables had been removed from the office. The +few householders--mill-hands--whose homes were close by, had carried +their scant belongings to places of safety, but everything else was +given over to the devouring flames. + +The heat from this big raging fire was intense, and had driven most of +the gaping spectators gradually back--almost into the woods. But +there, to one side, where the fire was rapidly gaining, and making +itself already uncomfortably felt, stood a small awe-stricken group +talking in whispers; their ignorance and superstition making them +irresolute to lay a hand upon the dead Joint. His body lay amongst +the heavy timbers, across a huge beam, with arms outstretched and head +hanging down upon the ground. The glazed eyes were staring up into the +red sky, and on his swarthy visage was yet the horror which had come +there, when he looked in the face of death. + +"In God's name, what are you doing?" cried Hosmer. "Can't some of you +carry that boy's body to a place of safety?" + +Grgoire had followed, and was looking down indifferently at the dead. +"Come, len' a han' there; this is gittin' too durn hot," he said, +stooping to raise the lifeless form. Hosmer was preparing to help him. +But there was some one staggering through the crowd; pushing men to +right and left. With now a hand upon the breast of both Hosmer and +Grgoire, and thrusting them with such force and violence, as to lay +them prone amongst the timbers. It was the father. It was old Morico. +He had awakened in the night and missed his boy. He had seen the fire; +indeed close enough that he could hear its roaring; and he knew +everything. The whole story was plain to him as if it had been told by +a revealing angel. The strength of his youth had come back to speed +him over the ground. + +"Murderers!" he cried looking about him with hate in his face. He did +not know who had done it; no one knew yet, and he saw in every man he +looked upon the possible slayer of his child. + +So here he stood over the prostrate figure; his old gray jeans hanging +loosely about him; wild eyed--with bare head clasped between his +claw-like hands, which the white disheveled hair swept over. Hosmer +approached again, offering gently to help him carry his son away. + +"Stand back," he hurled at him. But he had understood the offer. His +boy must not be left to burn like a log of wood. He bent down and +strove to lift the heavy body, but the effort was beyond his strength. +Seeing this he stooped again and this time grasped it beneath the +arms; then slowly, draggingly, with halting step, began to move +backward. + +The fire claimed no more attention. All eyes were fastened upon this +weird picture; a sight which moved the most callous to offer again and +again assistance, that was each time spurned with an added defiance. + +Hosmer stood looking on, with folded arms; moved by the grandeur and +majesty of the scene. The devouring element, loosed in its awful +recklessness there in the heart of this lonely forest. The motley +group of black and white standing out in the great red light, +powerless to do more than wait and watch. But more was he stirred to +the depths of his being, by the sight of this human tragedy enacted +before his eyes. + +Once, the old man stops in his backward journey. Will he give over? +has his strength deserted him? is the thought that seizes every +on-looker. But no--with renewed effort he begins again his slow +retreat, till at last a sigh of relief comes from the whole watching +multitude. Morico with his burden has reached a spot of safety. What +will he do next? They watch in breathless suspense. But Morico does +nothing. He only stands immovable as a carved image. Suddenly there is +a cry that reaches far above the roar of fire and crash of falling +timbers: "_Mon fils! mon garon!_" and the old man totters and falls +backward to earth, still clinging to the lifeless body of his son. All +hasten towards him. Hosmer reaches him first. And when he gently lifts +the dead Joint, the father this time makes no hinderance, for he too +has gone beyond the knowledge of all earthly happenings. + + + + +VII + +Melicent Leaves Place-du-Bois. + + +There had been no witness to the killing of Joint; but there were few +who did not recognize Grgoire's hand in the affair. When met with the +accusation, he denied it, or acknowledged it, or evaded the charge +with a jest, as he felt for the moment inclined. It was a deed +characteristic of any one of the Santien boys, and if not altogether +laudable--Joint having been at the time of the shooting unarmed--yet +was it thought in a measure justified by the heinousness of his +offense, and beyond dispute, a benefit to the community. + +Hosmer reserved the expression of his opinion. The occurrence once +over, with the emotions which it had awakened, he was inclined to look +at it from one of those philosophic stand-points of his friend +Homeyer. Heredity and pathology had to be considered in relation with +the slayer's character. He saw in it one of those interesting problems +of human existence that are ever turning up for man's contemplation, +but hardly for the exercise of man's individual judgment. He was +conscious of an inward repulsion which this action of Grgoire's +awakened in him,--much the same as a feeling of disgust for an animal +whose instinct drives it to the doing of violent deeds,--yet he made +no difference in his manner towards him. + +Thrse was deeply distressed over this double tragedy: feeling keenly +the unhappy ending of old Morico. But her chief sorrow came from the +callousness of Grgoire, whom she could not move even to an avowal of +regret. He could not understand that he should receive any thing but +praise for having rid the community of so offensive and dangerous a +personage as Joint; and seemed utterly blind to the moral aspect of +his deed. + +An event at once so exciting and dramatic as this conflagration, with +the attendant deaths of Morico and his son, was much discussed amongst +the negroes. They were a good deal of one opinion in regard to Joint +having been only properly served in getting "w'at he done ben lookin' +fu' dis long time." Grgoire was rather looked upon as a clever +instrument in the Lord's service; and the occurrence pointed a moral +which they were not likely to forget. + +The burning of the mill entailed much work upon Hosmer, to which he +turned with a zest--an absorption that for the time excluded +everything else. + +Melicent had shunned Grgoire since the shooting. She had avoided +speaking with him--even looking at him. During the turmoil which +closely followed upon the tragic event, this change in the girl had +escaped his notice. On the next day he suspected it only. But the +third day brought him the terrible conviction. He did not know that +she was making preparations to leave for St. Louis, and quite +accidentally overheard Hosmer giving an order to one of the unemployed +mill hands to call for her baggage on the following morning before +train time. + +As much as he had expected her departure, and looked painfully forward +to it, this certainty--that she was leaving on the morrow and without +a word to him--bewildered him. He abandoned at once the work that was +occupying him. + +"I didn' know Miss Melicent was goin' away to-morrow," he said in a +strange pleading voice to Hosmer. + +"Why, yes," Hosmer answered, "I thought you knew. She's been talking +about it for a couple of days." + +"No, I didn' know nothin' 'tall 'bout it," he said, turning away and +reaching for his hat, but with such nerveless hand that he almost +dropped it before placing it on his head. + +"If you're going to the house," Hosmer called after him, "tell +Melicent that Woodson won't go for her trunks before morning. She +thought she'd need to have them ready to-night." + +"Yes, if I go to the house. I don' know if I'm goin' to the house or +not," he replied, walking listlessly away. + +Hosmer looked after the young man, and thought of him for a moment: of +his soft voice and gentle manner--perplexed that he should be the same +who had expressed in confidence the single regret that he had not been +able to kill Joint more than once. + +Grgoire went directly to the house, and approached that end of the +veranda on which Melicent's room opened. A trunk had already been +packed and fastened and stood outside, just beneath the low-silled +window that was open. Within the room, and also beneath the window, +was another trunk, before which Melicent kneeled, filling it more or +less systematically from an abundance of woman's toggery that lay in a +cumbrous heap on the floor beside her. Grgoire stopped at the window +to tell her, with a sad attempt at indifference: + +"Yo' brotha says don't hurry packin'; Woodson ain't goin' to come fur +your trunks tell mornin'." + +"All right, thank you," glancing towards him for an instant carelessly +and going on with her work. + +"I didn' know you was goin' away." + +"That's absurd: you knew all along I was going away," she returned, +with countenance as expressionless as feminine subtlety could make it. + +"W'y don't you let somebody else do that? Can't you come out yere a +w'ile?" + +"No, I prefer doing it myself; and I don't care to go out." + +What could he do? what could he say? There were no convenient depths +in his mind from which he might draw at will, apt and telling speeches +to taunt her with. His heart was swelling and choking him, at sight of +the eyes that looked anywhere, but in his own; at sight of the lips +that he had one time kissed, pressed into an icy silence. She went on +with her task of packing, unmoved. He stood a while longer, silently +watching her, his hat in his hands that were clasped behind him, and a +stupor of grief holding him vise-like. Then he walked away. He felt +somewhat as he remembered to have felt oftentimes as a boy, when ill +and suffering, his mother would put him to bed and send him a cup of +bouillon perhaps, and a little negro to sit beside him. It seemed very +cruel to him now that some one should not do something for him--that +he should be left to suffer this way. He walked across the lawn over +to the cottage, where he saw Fanny pacing slowly up and down the +porch. + +She saw him approach and stood in a patch of sunlight to wait for him. +He really had nothing to say to her as he stood grasping two of the +balustrades and looking up at her. He wanted somebody to talk to him +about Melicent. + +"Did you know Miss Melicent was goin' away?" + +Had it been Hosmer or Thrse asking her the question she would have +replied simply "yes," but to Grgoire she said "yes; thank Goodness," +as frankly as though she had been speaking to Belle Worthington. "I +don't see what's kept her down here all this time, anyway." + +"You don't like her?" he asked, stupefied at the strange possibility +of any one not loving Melicent to distraction. + +"No. You wouldn't either, if you knew her as well as I do. If she +likes a person she goes on like a lunatic over them as long as it +lasts; then good-bye John! she'll throw them aside as she would an old +dress." + +"Oh, I believe she thinks a heap of Aunt Thrse." + +"All right; you'll see how much she thinks of Aunt Thrse. And the +people she's been engaged to! There ain't a worse flirt in the city of +St. Louis; and always some excuse or other to break it off at the last +minute. I haven't got any use for her, Lord knows. There ain't much +love lost between us." + +"Well, I reckon she knows they ain't anybody born, good enough fur +her?" he said, thinking of those engagements that she had shattered. + +"What was David doing?" Fanny asked abruptly. + +"Writin' lettas at the sto'." + +"Did he say when he was coming?" + +"No." + +"Do you guess he'll come pretty soon?" + +"No, I reckon not fur a good w'ile." + +"Is Melicent with Mrs. Laferm?" + +"No; she's packin' her things." + +"I guess I'll go sit with Mrs. Laferm, d'you think she'll mind?" + +"No, she'll be glad to have you." + +Fanny crossed over to go join Thrse. She liked to be with her when +there was no danger of interruption from Melicent, and Grgoire went +wandering aimlessly about the plantation. + +He staked great hopes on what the night might bring for him. She would +melt, perhaps, to the extent of a smile or one of her old glances. He +was almost cheerful when he seated himself at table; only he and his +aunt and Melicent. He had never seen her look so handsome as now, in a +woolen gown that she had not worn before, of warm rich tint, that +brought out a certain regal splendor that he had not suspected in her. +A something that she seemed to have held in reserve till this final +moment. But she had nothing for him--nothing. All her conversation was +addressed to Thrse; and she hurried away from table at the close of +the meal, under pretext of completing her arrangements for departure. + +"Doesn't she mean to speak to me?" he asked fiercely of Thrse. + +"Oh, Grgoire, I see so much trouble around me; so many sad mistakes, +and I feel so powerless to right them; as if my hands were tied. I +can't help you in this; not now. But let me help you in other ways. +Will you listen to me?" + +"If you want to help me, Aunt," he said stabbing his fork into a piece +of bread before him, "go and ask her if she doesn't mean to talk to +me: if she won't come out on the gallery a minute." + +"Grgoire wants to know if you won't go out and speak to him a moment, +Melicent," said Thrse entering the girl's room. "Do as you wish, of +course. But remember you are going away to-morrow; you'll likely never +see him again. A friendly word from you now, may do more good than you +imagine. I believe he's as unhappy at this moment as a creature can +be!" + +Melicent looked at her horrified. "I don't understand you at all, Mrs. +Lafirme. Think what he's done; murdered a defenseless man! How can you +have him near you--seated at your table? I don't know what nerves you +have in your bodies, you and David. There's David, hobnobbing with +him. Even that Fanny talking to him as if he were blameless. Never! If +he were dying I wouldn't go near him." + +"Haven't you a spark of humanity in you?" asked Thrse, flushing +violently. + +"Oh, this is something physical," she replied, shivering, "let me +alone." + +Thrse went out to Grgoire, who stood waiting on the veranda. She +only took his hand and pressed it telling him good-night, and he knew +that it was a dismissal. + +There may be lovers, who, under the circumstances, would have felt +sufficient pride to refrain from going to the dept on the following +morning, but Grgoire was not one of them. He was there. He who only a +week before had thought that nothing but her constant presence could +reconcile him with life, had narrowed down the conditions for his +life's happiness now to a glance or a kind word. He stood close to the +steps of the Pullman car that she was about to enter, and as she +passed him he held out his hand, saying "Good-bye." But he held his +hand to no purpose. She was much occupied in taking her valise from +the conductor who had hoisted her up, and who was now shouting in +stentorian tones "All aboard," though there was not a soul with the +slightest intention of boarding the train but herself. + +She leaned forward to wave good-bye to Hosmer, and Fanny, and Thrse, +who were on the platform; then she was gone. + +Grgoire stood looking stupidly at the vanishing train. + +"Are you going back with us?" Hosmer asked him. Fanny and Thrse had +walked ahead. + +"No," he replied, looking at Hosmer with ashen face, "I got to go fine +my hoss." + + + + +VIII + +With Loose Rein. + + +"De Lord be praised fu' de blessin's dat he showers down 'pon us," was +Uncle Hiram's graceful conclusion of his supper, after which he pushed +his empty plate aside regretfully, and addressed Aunt Belindy. +"'Pears to me, Belindy, as you reached a pint wid dem bacon an' greens +to-night, dat you never tetched befo'. De pint o' de flavorin' is w'at +I alludes to." + +"All de same, dat ain't gwine to fetch no mo'," was the rather uncivil +reply to this neat compliment to her culinary powers. + +"Dah!" cried the youthful Betsy, who formed one of the trio gathered +together in the kitchen at Place-du-Bois. "Jis listen (to) Unc' Hiurm! +Aunt B'lindy neva tetched a han' to dem bacon an' greens. She tole me +out o' her own mouf to put'em on de fiar; she warn't gwine pesta wid +'em." + +"Warn't gwine pesta wid 'em?" administering a cuff on the ear of the +too communicative Betsy, that sent her sprawling across the table. +"T'inks I'se gwine pesta wid you--does you? Messin' roun' heah in de +kitchin' an' ain't tu'ned down a bed or drawed a bah, or done a lick +o' yo' night wurk yit." + +"I is done my night wurk, too," returned Betsy whimpering but +defiantly, as she retreated beyond reach of further blows from Aunt +Belindy's powerful right hand. + +"Dat harshness o' yourn, Belindy, is wat's a sourin' yo' tempa, an' a +turnin' of it intur gall an' wormwood. Does you know wat de Scripture +tells us of de wrathful woman?" + +"Whar I got time to go a foolin' wid Scripture? W'at I wants to know; +whar dat Pierson boy, he don't come. He ben gone time 'nough to walk +to Natch'toches an' back." + +"Ain't dat him I years yonda tu de crib?" suggestod Betsy, coming to +join Aunt Belindy in the open doorway. + +"You heahs mos' too much fu' yo' own good, you does, gal." + +But Betsy was right. For soon a tall, slim negro, young and coal +black, mounted the stairs and came into the kitchen, where he +deposited a meal bag filled with various necessities that he had +brought from Centerville. He was one of the dancers who had displayed +their skill before Melicent and Grgoire. Uncle Hiram at once accosted +him. + +"Well, Pierson, we jest a ben a wonderin' consarnin' you. W'at was de +'casion o' dat long delay?" + +"De 'casion? W'y man alive, I couldn't git a dog gone soul in de town +to wait on me." + +"Dat boy kin lie, yas," said Aunt Belindy, "God A'mighty knows ever +time I ben to Centaville dem sto' keepas ain't done a blessed t'ing +but settin' down." + +"Settin' down--Lord! dey warn't settin' down to-day; you heah me." + +"W'at dey doin' ef dey ain't settin' down, Unc' Pierson?" asked Betsy +with amiable curiosity. + +"You jis drap dat 'uncle,' you," turning wrathfully upon the girl, +"sence w'en you start dat new trick?" + +"Lef de chile 'lone, Pierson, lef 'er alone. Come heah, Betsy, an' set +by yo' Uncle Hiurm." + +From the encouraging nearness of Uncle Hiram, she ventured to ask +"w'at you 'low dey doin' ef dey ain't settin' down?" this time without +adding the offensive title. + +"Dey flyin' 'roun', Lord! dey hidin' dey sef! dey gittin' out o' de +way, I tell you. Grgor jis ben a raisin' ole Cain in Centaville." + +"I know'd it; could a' tole you dat mese'f. My Lan'! but dats a piece, +dat Grgor," Aunt Belindy enunciated between paroxysms of laughter, +seating herself with her fat arms resting on her knees, and her whole +bearing announcing pleased anticipation. + +"Dat boy neva did have no car' fur de salvation o' his soul," groaned +Uncle Hiram. + +"W'at he ben a doin' yonda?" demanded Aunt Belindy impatiently. + +"Well," said Pierson, assuming a declamatory air and position in the +middle of the large kitchen, "he lef' heah--w'at time he lef heah, +Aunt B'lindy?" + +"He done lef' fo' dinna, 'caze I seed 'im a lopin' to'ads de riva, +time I flung dat Sampson boy out o' de doo', bringin' dem greens in +heah 'dout washin' of 'em." + +"Dat's so; it war good dinna time w'en he come a lopin' in town. Dat +hoss look like he ben swimmin' in Cane Riva, he done ride him so hard. +He fling he se'f down front o' Grammont's sto' an' he come a stompin' +in, look like gwine hu't somebody. Ole Grammont tell him, 'How you +come on, Grgor? Come ova tu de house an' eat dinna wid us: de ladies +be pleas tu see you.'" + +"Humph," muttered Aunt Belindy, "dem Grammont gals be glad to see any +t'ing dat got breeches on; lef 'lone good lookin' piece like dat +Grgor." + +"Grgor, he neva sey, 'Tank you dog,' jis' fling he big dolla down on +de counta an' 'low 'don't want no dinna: gimme some w'iskey.'" + +"Yas, yas, Lord," from Aunt Belindy. + +"Ole Grammont, he push de bottle to'ads 'im, an' I 'clar to Goodness +ef he didn' mos fill dat tumbla to de brim, an' drink it down, neva +blink a eye. Den he tu'n an treat ev'y las' w'ite man stan'in' roun'; +dat ole kiarpenta man; de blacksmif; Marse Verdon. He keep on a +treatin'; Grammont, he keep a handin' out de w'iskey; Grgor he keep +on a drinkin' an a treatin'--Grammont, he keep a handin' out; don't +make no odds tu him s'long uz dat bring de money in de draw. I ben a +stan'in' out on de gallery, me, a peekin' in. An' Grgor, he cuss and +swar an' he kiarry on, an 'low he want play game poka. Den dey all +goes a trompin' in de back room an' sets down roun' de table, an' I +comes a creepin' in, me, whar I kin look frough de doo', an dar dey +sets an' plays an Grgor, he drinks w'iskey an' he wins de money. An' +arta w'ile Marse Verdon, he little eyes blinkin', he 'low', 'y' all +had a shootin' down tu Place-du-Bois, _hein_ Grgor?' Grgor, he neva +say nuttin': he jis' draw he pistol slow out o' he pocket an' lay it +down on de table; an' he look squar in Marse Verdon eyes. Man! ef you +eva seed some pussun tu'n' w'ite!" + +"Reckon dat heifa 'Milky' look black side li'le Verdon dat time," +chuckled Aunt Belindy. + +"Jis' uz w'ite uz Unc' Hiurm's shurt an' a trimblin', an' neva say no +mo' 'bout shootin'. Den ole Grammont, he kine o' hang back an' say, +'You git de jestice de peace, 'hine you, kiarrin' conceal' weepons dat +a-way, Grgor.'" + +"Dat ole Grammont, he got to git he gab in ef he gwine die fu' it," +interrupted Aunt Belindy. + +"Grgor say--'I don't 'lows to kiarr no conceal' weepons,' an he draw +nudda pistol slow out o' he udda pocket an' lay et on de table. By dat +time he gittin' all de money, he crammin' de money in he pocket; an' +dem fellas dey gits up one arta d'udda kine o' shy-like, an' sneaks +out. Den Grgor, he git up an come out o' de room, he coat 'crost he +arm, an' de pistols a stickin' out an him lookin' sassy tell ev'y body +make way, same ef he ben Jay Goul'. Ef he look one o' 'em in de eye +dey outs wid, 'Howdy, Grgor--how you come on, Grgor?' jis' uz pelite +uz a peacock, an' him neva take no trouble to yansa 'em. He jis' holla +out fu' somebody bring dat hoss tu de steps, an' him stan'in' 's big +uz life, waitin'. I gits tu de hoss fus', me, an' leads 'im up, an' he +gits top dat hoss stidy like he ain't tetch a drap, an' he fling me +big dolla." + +"Whar de dolla, Mista Pierson?" enquired Betsy. + +"De dolla in my pocket, an' et gwine stay dah. Didn' ax you fu' no +'Mista Pierson.' Whar yu' all tink he went on dat hoss?" + +"How you reckon we knows whar he wint; we wasn't dah," replied Aunt +Belindy. + +"He jis' went a lopin' twenty yards down to Chartrand's sto'. I goes +on 'hine 'im see w'at he gwine do. Dah he git down f'um de hoss an' go +a stompin' in de sto'--eve'ybody stan'in' back jis' same like fu' Jay +Goul', an' he fling bill down on de counta an' 'low, 'Fill me up a +bottle, Chartrand, I'se gwine travelin'.' Den he 'lows, 'You treats +eve'y las' man roun' heah at my 'spence, black an' w'ite--nuttin' fu' +me,' an' he fole he arms an' lean back on de counta, jis' so. +Chartrand, he look skeerd, he say 'Franois gwine wait on you.' But +Grgor, he 'low he don't wants no rusty skileton a waitin' on him w'en +he treat, 'Wait on de gemmen yo'se'f--step up gemmen.' Chartrand 'low, +'Damn ef nigga gwine drink wid w'ite man in dat sto',' all same he +kine git 'hine box tu say dat." + +"Lord, Lord, de ways o' de transgressor!" groaned Uncle Hiram. + +"You want to see dem niggas sneaking 'way," resumed Pierson, "dey +knows Grgor gwine fo'ce 'em drink; dey knows Chartrand gwine make it +hot fu' 'em art'ards ef dey does. Grgor he spie me jis' I'se tryin' +glide frough de doo' an he call out, 'Yonda a gemmen f'um +Place-du-Bois; Pierson, come heah; you'se good 'nough tu drink wid any +w'ite man, 'cept me; you come heah, take drink wid Mr. Louis +Chartrand.' + +"I 'lows don't wants no drink, much 'bleege, Marse Grgor'. 'Yis, you +wants drink,' an' 'id dat he draws he pistol. 'Mista Chartrand want +drink, too. I done owe Mista Chartrand somethin' dis long time; I'se +gwine pay 'im wid a treat,' he say. Chartrand look like he on fiar, he +so red, he so mad, he swell up same like ole bull frog." + +"Dat make no odd," chuckled Aunt Belindy, "he gwine drink wid nigga ef +Grgor say so." + +"Yes, he drink, Lord, only he cuss me slow, an' 'low he gwine break my +skull." + +"Lordy! I knows you was jis' a trimblin', Mista Pierson." + +"Warn't trimblin' no mo' 'en I'se trimblin' dis minute, an' you drap +dat 'Mista.' Den w'at you reckon? Yonda come Pre Antoine; he come an' +stan' in de doo' an' he hole up he han'; look like he ain't 'feard no +body an' he 'low: 'Grgor Sanchun, how is you dar' come in dis heah +peaceful town frowin' of it into disorda an' confusion? Ef you isn't +'feard o' man; hasn't you got no fear o' God A'mighty wat punishes?'" + +"Grgor, he look at 'im an' he say cool like, 'Howdy, Pre Antoine; +how you come on?' He got he pistol w'at he draw fu' make Chartrand +drink wid dis heah nigga,--he foolin' wid it an' a rubbin' it up and +down he pants, an' he 'low 'Dis a gemmen w'at fit to drink wid a +Sanchun--w'at'll you have?' But Pre Antoine, he go on makin' a su'mon +same like he make in chu'ch, an' Grgor, he lean he two arm back on de +counta--kine o' smilin' like, an' he say, 'Chartrand, whar dat bottle +I orda you put up?' Chartrand bring de bottle; Grgor, he put de +bottle in he coat pocket wat hang on he arm--car'ful. + +"Pre Antoine, he go on preachin', he say, 'I tell you dis young man, +you 'se on de big road w'at leads tu hell.' + +"Den Grgor straight he se'f up an' walk close to Pre Antoine an' he +say, 'Hell an' damnation dar ain't no sich a place. I reckon she know; +w'at you know side o' her. She say dar ain't no hell, an' ef you an' +de Archbishop an' de Angel Gabriel come along an' 'low dey a hell, you +all liars,' an' he say, 'Make way dah, I'se a gittin' out o' heah; dis +ain't no town fittin' to hol' a Sanchun. Make way ef you don' wants to +go to Kingdom come fo' yo' time.' + +"Well, I 'lows dey did make way. Only Pre Antoine, he look mighty +sorry an' down cas'. + +"Grgor go out dat sto' taking plenty room, an' walkin' car'ful like, +an' he swing he se'f on de hoss; den he lean down mos' flat an' stick +he spurs in dat hoss an' he go tar'in' like de win' down street, out +o' de town, a firin' he pistol up in de a'r." + +Uncle Hiram had listened to the foregoing recital with troubled +countenance, and with many a protesting groan. He now shook his old +white head, and heaved a deep sigh. "All dat gwine come hard an' heavy +on de madam. She don't desarve it--God knows, she don't desarve it." + +"How you, ole like you is, kin look fu' somethin' diffunt, Unc' +Hiurm?" observed Aunt Belindy philosophically. "Don't you know Grgor +gwine be Grgor tell he die? Dat's all dar is 'bout it." + +Betsy arose with the sudden recollection that she had let the time +pass for bringing in Miss Thrse's hot water, and Pierson went to the +stove to see what Aunt Belindy had reserved for him in the shape of +supper. + + + + +IX + +The Reason Why. + + +Sampson, the young colored boy who had lighted Fanny's fire on the +first day of her arrival at Place-du-Bois, and who had made such +insinuating advances of friendliness towards her, had continued to +attract her notice and good will. He it was who lighted her fires on +such mornings as they were needed. For there had been no winter. In +mid-January, the grass was fresh and green; trees and plants were +putting forth tender shoots, as if in welcome to spring; roses were +blossoming, and it was a veritable atmosphere of Havana rather than of +central Louisiana that the dwellers at Place-du-Bois were enjoying. +But finally winter made tardy assertion of its rights. One morning +broke raw and black with an icy rain falling, and young Sampson +arriving in the early bleakness to attend to his duties at the +cottage, presented a picture of human distress to move the most +hardened to pity. Though dressed comfortably in the clothing with +which Fanny had apparelled him--he was ashen. Save for the chattering +of his teeth, his body seemed possessed of a paralytic inability to +move. He knelt before the empty fire-place as he had done on that +first day, and with deep sighs and groans went about his work. Then he +remained long before the warmth that he had kindled; even lying full +length upon the soft rug, to bask in the generous heat that permeated +and seemed to thaw his stiffened limbs. + +Next, he went quietly into the bedroom to attend to the fire there. +Hosmer and Fanny were still sleeping. He approached a decorated basket +that hung against the wall; a receptacle for old newspapers and odds +and ends. He drew something from his rather capacious coat pocket, +and, satisfying himself that Hosmer slept, thrust it in the bottom of +the basket, well covered by the nondescript accumulation that was +there. + +The house was very warm and cheerful when they arose, and after +breakfasting Hosmer felt unusually reluctant to quit his fire-side and +face the inclement day; for an unaccustomed fatigue hung upon his +limbs and his body was sore, as from the effect of bruises. But he +went, nevertheless, well encased in protective rubber; and as he +turned away from the house, Fanny hastened to the hanging basket, and +fumbling nervously in its depths, found what the complaisant Sampson +had left for her. + +The cold rain had gradually changed into a fine mist, that in +descending, spread an icy coat upon every object that it touched. When +Hosmer returned at noon, he did not leave the house again. + +During the afternoon Thrse knocked at Fanny's door. She was +enveloped in a long hooded cloak, her face glowing from contact with +the sharp moist air, and myriad crystal drops clinging to her fluffy +blonde hair that looked very golden under the dark hood that covered +it. She wanted to learn how Fanny accepted this unpleasant change of +atmospheric conditions, intending to bear her company for the +remainder of the day if she found her depressed, as was often the +case. + +"Why, I didn't know you were home," she said, a little startled, to +Hosmer who opened the door to her. "I came over to show Mrs. Hosmer +something pretty that I don't suppose she ever saw before." It was a +branch from a rose-tree, bearing two open blossoms and a multitude of +buds, creamy pink, all encased in an icy transparency that gleamed +like diamonds. "Isn't it exquisite?" she said, holding the spray up +for Fanny's admiration. But she saw at a glance that the spirit of +Disorder had descended and settled upon the Hosmer household. + +The usually neat room was in a sad state of confusion. Some of the +pictures had been taken from the walls, and were leaning here and +there against chairs and tables. The mantel ornaments had been removed +and deposited at random and in groups about the room. On the hearth +was a pail of water in which swam a huge sponge; and Fanny sat beside +the center-table that was piled with her husband's wearing apparel, +holding in her lap a coat which she had evidently been passing under +inspection. Her hair had escaped from its fastenings; her collar was +hooked awry; her face was flushed and her whole bearing indicated her +condition. + +Hosmer took the frozen spray from Thrse's hand, and spoke a little +about the beauty of the trees, especially the young cedars that he had +passed out in the hills on his way home. + +"It's all well and good to talk about flowers and things, Mrs. +Laferm--sit down please--but when a person's got the job that I've got +on my hands, she's something else to think about. And David here +smoking one cigar after another. He knows all I've got to do, and goes +and sends those darkies home right after dinner." + +Thrse was so shocked that for a while she could say nothing; till +for Hosmer's sake she made a quick effort to appear at ease. + +"What have you to do, Mrs. Hosmer? Let me help you, I can give you the +whole afternoon," she said with an appearance of being ready for any +thing that was at hand to be done. + +Fanny turned the coat over in her lap, and looked down helplessly at a +stain on the collar, that she had been endeavoring to remove; at the +same time pushing aside with patient repetition the wisp of hair that +kept falling over her cheek. + +"Belle Worthington'll be here before we know it; her and her husband +and that Lucilla of hers. David knows how Belle Worthington is, just +as well as I do; there's no use saying he don't. If she was to see a +speck of dirt in this house or on David's clothes, or anything, why +we'd never hear the last of it. I got a letter from her," she +continued, letting the coat fall to the floor, whilst she endeavored +to find her pocket. + +"Is she coming to visit you?" asked Thrse who had taken up a feather +brush, and was dusting and replacing the various ornaments that were +scattered through the room. + +"She's going down to Muddy Graw (Mardi-Gras) her and her husband and +Lucilla and she's going to stop here a while. I had that letter--I +guess I must of left it in the other room." + +"Never mind," Thrse hastened to say, seeing that her whole energies +were centered on finding the letter. + +"Let me look," said Hosmer, making a movement towards the bedroom +door, but Fanny had arisen and holding out a hand to detain him she +went into the room herself, saying she knew where she'd left it. + +"Is this the reason you've kept yourself shut up here in the house so +often?" Thrse asked of Hosmer, drawing near him. "Never telling me a +word of it," she went on, "it wasn't right; it wasn't kind." + +"Why should I have put any extra burden on you?" he answered, looking +down at her, and feeling a joy in her presence there, that seemed like +a guilty indulgence in face of his domestic shame. + +"Don't stay," Thrse said. "Leave me here. Go to your office or over +to the house--leave me alone with her." + +Fanny returned, having found the letter, and spoke with increased +vehemence of the necessity of having the house in perfect trim against +the arrival of Belle Worthington, from whom they would never hear the +last, and so forth. + +"Well, your husband is going out, and that will give us a chance to +get things righted," said Thrse encouragingly. "You know men are +always in the way at such times." + +"It's what he ought to done before; and left Suze and Minervy here," +she replied with grudging acquiescence. + +After repeated visits to the bedroom, under various pretexts, Fanny +grew utterly incapable to do more than sit and gaze stupidly at +Thrse, who busied herself in bringing the confusion of the +sitting-room into some order. + +She continued to talk disjointedly of Belle Worthington and her well +known tyrannical characteristics in regard to cleanliness; finishing +by weeping mildly at the prospect of her own inability to ever reach +the high standard required by her exacting friend. + +It was far in the afternoon--verging upon night, when Thrse +succeeded in persuading her that she was ill and should go to bed. She +gladly seized upon the suggestion of illness; assuring Thrse that +she alone had guessed her affliction: that whatever was thought +singular in her behavior must be explained by that sickness which was +past being guessed at--then she went to bed. + +It was late when Hosmer left his office; a rough temporary shanty, put +together near the ruined mill. + +He started out slowly on his long cold ride. His physical malaise of +the morning had augmented as the day went on, and he was beginning to +admit to himself that he was "in for it." + +But the cheerless ride was lightened by a picture that had been with +him through the afternoon, and that moved him in his whole being, as +the moment approached when it might be changed to reality. He knew +Fanny's habits; knew that she would be sleeping now. Thrse would not +leave her there alone in the house--of that he was sure. And he +pictured Thrse at this moment seated at his fire-side. He would find +her there when he entered. His heart beat tumultuously at the thought. +It was a very weak moment with him, possibly, one in which his +unnerved condition stood for some account. But he felt that when he +saw her there, waiting for him, he would cast himself at her feet and +kiss them. He would crush her white hands against his bosom. He would +bury his face in her silken hair. She should know how strong his love +was, and he would hold her in his arms till she yield back tenderness +to his own. But--Thrse met him on the steps. As he was mounting +them, she was descending; wrapped in her long cloak, her pretty head +covered by the dark hood. + +"Oh, are you going?" he asked. + +She heard the note of entreaty in his voice. + +"Yes," she answered, "I shouldn't have left her before you came; but I +knew you were here; I heard your horse's tread a moment ago. She's +asleep. Good night. Take courage and have a brave heart," she said, +pressing his hand a moment in both hers, and was gone. + +The room was as he had pictured it; order restored and the fire +blazing brightly. On the table was a pot of hot tea and a tempting +little supper laid. But he pushed it all aside and buried his face +down upon the table into his folded arms, groaning aloud. Physical +suffering; thwarted love, and at the same time a feeling of +self-condemnation, made him wish that life were ended for him. + +Fanny awoke close upon morning, not knowing what had aroused her. She +was for a little while all bewildered and unable to collect herself. +She soon learned the cause of her disturbance. Hosmer was tossing +about and his outstretched arm lay across her face, where it had +evidently been flung with some violence. She took his hand to move it +away, and it burned her like a coal of fire. As she touched him he +started and began to talk incoherently. He evidently fancied himself +dictating a letter to some insurance company, in no pleased terms--of +which Fanny caught but snatches. Then: + +"That's too much, Mrs. Lafirme; too much--too much--Don't let Grgoire +burn--take him from the fire, some one. Thirty day's credit--shipment +made on tenth," he rambled on at intervals in his troubled sleep. + +Fanny trembled with apprehension as she heard him. Surely he has brain +fever she thought, and she laid her hand gently on his burning +forehead. He covered it with his own, muttering "Thrse, Thrse--so +good--let me love you." + + + + +X + +Perplexing Things. + + +"Lucilla!" + +The pale, drooping girl started guiltily at her mother's sharp +exclamation, and made an effort to throw back her shoulders. Then she +bit her nails nervously, but soon desisted, remembering that that +also, as well as yielding to a relaxed tendency of the spinal column, +was a forbidden indulgence. + +"Put on your hat and go on out and get a breath of fresh air; you're +as white as milk-man's cream." + +Lucilla rose and obeyed her mother's order with the precision of a +soldier, following the directions of his commander. + +"How submissive and gentle your daughter is," remarked Thrse. + +"Well, she's got to be, and she knows it. Why, I haven't got to do +more than look at that girl most times for her to understand what I +want. You didn't notice, did you, how she straightened up when I +called 'Lucilla' to her? She knows by the tone of my voice what she's +got to do." + +"Most mothers can't boast of having such power over their daughters." + +"Well, I'm not the woman to stand any shenanigans from a child of +mine. I could name you dead loads of women that are just completely +walked over by their children. It's a blessing that boy of Fanny's +died, between you and I; its what I've always said. Why, Mrs. Laferm, +she couldn't any more look after a youngster than she could after a +baby elephant. By the by, what do you guess is the matter with her, +any way?" + +"How, the matter?" Thrse asked; the too ready blood flushing her +face and neck as she laid down her work and looked up at Mrs. +Worthington. + +"Why, she's acting mighty queer, that's all I can say for her." + +"I haven't been able to see her for some time," Thrse returned, +going back to her sewing, "but I suppose she got a little upset and +nervous over her husband; he had a few days of very serious illness +before you came." + +"Oh, I've seen her in all sorts of states and conditions, and I've +never seen her like that before. Why, she does nothing in the God's +world but whine and sniffle, and wish she was dead; it's enough to +give a person the horrors. She can't make out she's sick; I never saw +her look better in my life. She must of gained ten pounds since she +come down here." + +"Yes," said Thrse, "she was looking so well, and--and I thought +everything was going well with her too, but--" and she hesitated to go +on. + +"Oh, I know what you want to say. You can't help that. No use +bothering your brains about that--now you just take my advice," +exclaimed Mrs. Worthington brusquely. + +Then she laughed so loud and suddenly that Thrse, being already +nervous, pricked her finger with her needle till the blood came; a +mishap which decided her to lay aside her work. + +"If you never saw a fish out of water, Mrs. Laferm, do take a peep at +Mr. Worthington astride that horse; it's enough to make a cat expire!" + +Mrs. Worthington was on the whole rather inclined to take her husband +seriously. As often as he might excite her disapproval, it was seldom +that he aroused her mirth. So it may be gathered that his appearance +in this unfamiliar rle of horseman was of the most mirth-provoking. + +He and Hosmer were dismounting at the cottage, which decided Mrs. +Worthington to go and look after them; Fanny for the time being--in +her opinion--not having "the gumption to look after a sick kitten." + +"This is what I call solid comfort," she said looking around the well +appointed sitting-room, before quitting it. + +"You ought to be a mighty happy woman, Mrs. Laferm; only I'd think +you'd die of lonesomeness, sometimes." + +Thrse laughed, and told her not to forget that she expected them all +over in the evening. + +"You can depend on me; and I'll do my best to drag Fanny over; +so-long." + +When left alone, Thrse at once relapsed into the gloomy train of +reflections that had occupied her since the day she had seen with her +bodily eyes something of the wretched life that she had brought upon +the man she loved. And yet that wretchedness in its refinement of +cruelty and immorality she could not guess and was never to know. +Still, she had seen enough to cause her to ask herself with a shudder +"was I right--was I right?" + +She had always thought this lesson of right and wrong a very plain +one. So easy of interpretation that the simplest minded might solve it +if they would. And here had come for the first time in her life a +staggering doubt as to its nature. She did not suspect that she was +submitting one of those knotty problems to her unpracticed judgment +that philosophers and theologians delight in disagreeing upon, and her +inability to unravel it staggered her. She tried to convince herself +that a very insistent sting of remorse which she felt, came from +selfishness--from the pain that her own heart suffered in the +knowledge of Hosmer's unhappiness. She was not callous enough to quiet +her soul with the balm of having intended the best. She continued to +ask herself only "was I right?" and it was by the answer to that +question that she would abide, whether in the stony content of +accomplished righteousness, or in an enduring remorse that pointed to +a goal in whose labyrinthine possibilities her soul lost itself and +fainted away. + +Lucilla went out to get a breath of fresh air as her mother had +commanded, but she did not go far to seek it. Not further than the end +of the back veranda, where she stood for some time motionless, before +beginning to occupy herself in a way which Aunt Belindy, who was +watching her from the kitchen window, considered highly problematical. +The negress was wiping a dish and giving it a fine polish in her +absence of mind. When her curiosity could no longer contain itself she +called out: + +"W'ats dat you'se doin' dah, you li'le gal? Come heah an' le' me see." +Lucilla turned with the startled look which seemed to be usual with +her when addressed. + +"Le' me see," repeated Aunt Belindy pleasantly. + +Lucilla approached the window and handed the woman a small square of +stiff writing paper which was stuck with myriad tiny pin-holes; some +of which she had been making when interrupted by Aunt Belindy. + +"W'at in God A'Mighty's name you call dat 'ar?" the darkey asked +examining the paper critically, as though expecting the riddle would +solve itself before her eyes. + +"Those are my acts I've been counting," the girl replied a little +gingerly. + +"Yo' ax? I don' see nuttin' 'cep' a piece o' papah plum fill up wid +holes. W'at you call ax?" + +"Acts--acts. Don't you know what acts are?" + +"How you want me know? I neva ben to no school whar you larn all dat." + +"Why, an act is something you do that you don't want to do--or +something you don't want to do, that you do--I mean that you don't do. +Or if you want to eat something and don't. Or an aspiration; that's an +act, too." + +"Go long! W'ats dat--aspiration?" + +"Why, to say any kind of little prayer; or if you invoke our Lord, or +our Blessed Lady, or one of the saints, that's an aspiration. You can +make them just as quick as you can think--you can make hundreds and +hundreds in a day." + +"My Lan'! Dat's w'at you'se studyin' 'bout w'en you'se steppin' 'roun' +heah like a droopy pullet? An' I t'ought you was studyin' 'bout dat +beau you lef' yonda to Sent Lous." + +"You mustn't say such things to me; I'm going to be a religious." + +"How dat gwine henda you have a beau ef you'se religious?" + +"The religious never get married," turning very red, "and don't live +in the world like others." + +"Look heah, chile, you t'inks I'se fool? Religion--no religion, whar +you gwine live ef you don' live in de word? Gwine live up in de moon?" + +"You're a very ignorant person," replied Lucilla, highly offended. "A +religious devotes her life to God, and lives in the convent." + +"Den w'y you neva said 'convent'? I knows all 'bout convent. W'at you +gwine do wid dem ax w'en de papah done all fill up?" handing the +singular tablet back to her. + +"Oh," replied Lucilla, "when I have thousands and thousands I gain +twenty-five years' indulgence." + +"Is dat so?" + +"Yes," said the girl; and divining that Aunt Belindy had not +understood, "twenty-five years that I don't have to go to purgatory. +You see most people have to spend years and years in purgatory, before +they can get to Heaven." + +"How you know dat?" + +If Aunt Belindy had asked Lucilla how she knew that the sun shone, she +could not have answered with more assurance "because I know" as she +turned and walked rather scornfully away. + +"W'at dat kine o' fool talk dey larns gals up yonda tu Sent Lous? An' +huh ma a putty woman; yas, bless me; all dress up fittin' to kill. +Don' 'pear like she studyin' 'bout ax." + + + + +XI + +A Social Evening. + + +Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Duplan with their little daughter Ninette, who had +been invited to Place-du-Bois for supper, as well as for the evening, +were seated with Thrse in the parlor, awaiting the arrival of the +cottage guests. They had left their rather distant plantation, Les +Chnires, early in the afternoon, wishing as usual to make the most +of these visits, which, though infrequent, were always so much +enjoyed. + +The room was somewhat altered since that summer day when Thrse had +sat in its cool shadows, hearing the story of David Hosmer's life. +Only with such difference, however, as the change of season called +for; imparting to it a rich warmth that invited to sociability and +friendly confidences. In the depths of the great chimney glowed with a +steady and dignified heat, the huge back-log, whose disposal Uncle +Hiram had superintended in person; and the leaping flames from the dry +hickories that surrounded it, lent a very genial light to the +grim-visaged Lafirmes who looked down from their elevation on the +interesting group gathered about the hearth. + +Conversation had never once flagged with these good friends; for, +aside from much neighborhood gossip to be told and listened to, there +was the always fertile topic of "crops" to be discussed in all its +bearings, that touched, in its local and restricted sense, the labor +question, cultivation, freight rates, and the city merchant. + +With Mrs. Duplan there was a good deal to be said about the unusual +mortality among "Plymouth-Rocks" owing to an alarming prevalence of +"pip," which malady, however, that lady found to be gradually yielding +to a heroic treatment introduced into her _basse-cour_ by one Coulon, +a piney wood sage of some repute as a mystic healer. + +This was a delicate refined little woman, somewhat old-fashioned and +stranded in her incapability to keep pace with the modern conduct of +life; but giving her views with a pretty self-confidence, that showed +her a ruler in her peculiar realm. + +The young Ninette had extended herself in an easy chair, in an +attitude of graceful abandonment, the earnest brown eyes looking +eagerly out from under a tangle of auburn hair, and resting with +absorbed admiration upon her father, whose words and movements she +followed with unflagging attentiveness. The fastidious little miss was +clad in a dainty gown that reached scarcely below the knees; revealing +the shapely limbs that were crossed and extended to let the well shod +feet rest upon the polished brass fender. + +Thrse had given what information lay within her range, concerning +the company which was expected. But her confidences had plainly been +insufficient to prepare Mrs. Duplan for the startling effect produced +by Mrs. Worthington on that little woman in her black silk of a +by-gone fashion; so splendid was Mrs. Worthington's erect and imposing +figure, so blonde her blonde hair, so bright her striking color and so +comprehensive the sweep of her blue and scintillating gown. Yet was +Mrs. Worthington not at ease, as might be noticed in the unnatural +quaver of her high-pitched voice and the restless motion of her hands, +as she seated herself with an arm studiedly resting upon the table +near by. + +Hosmer had met the Duplans before; on the occasion of a former visit +to Place-du-Bois and again at Les Chnires when he had gone to see +the planter on business connected with the lumber trade. + +Fanny was a stranger to them and promised to remain such; for she +acknowledged her presentation with a silent bow and retreated as far +from the group as a decent concession to sociability would permit. + +Thrse with her pretty Creole tact was not long in bringing these +seemingly incongruent elements into some degree of harmony. Mr. Duplan +in his courteous and rather lordly way was presently imparting to Mrs. +Worthington certain reminiscences of a visit to St. Louis twenty-five +years before, when he and Mrs. Duplan had rather hastily traversed +that interesting town during their wedding journey. Mr. Duplan's +manner had a singular effect upon Mrs. Worthington, who became +dignified, subdued, and altogether unnatural in her endeavor to adjust +herself to it. + +Mr. Worthington seated himself beside Mrs. Duplan and was soon trying +to glean information, in his eager short-sighted way, of psychological +interest concerning the negro race; such effort rather bewildering +that good lady, who could not bring herself to view the negro as an +interesting or suitable theme to be introduced into polite +conversation. + +Hosmer sat and talked good-naturedly to the little girls, endeavoring +to dispel the shyness with which they seemed inclined to view each +other--and Thrse crossed the room to join Fanny. + +"I hope you're feeling better," she ventured, "you should have let me +help you while Mr. Hosmer was ill." + +Fanny looked away, biting her lip, the sudden tears coming to her +eyes. She answered with unsteady voice, "Oh, I was able to look after +my husband myself, Mrs. Laferm." + +Thrse reddened at finding herself so misunderstood. "I meant in your +housekeeping, Mrs. Hosmer; I could have relieved you of some of that +worry, whilst you were occupied with your husband." + +Fanny continued to look unhappy; her features taking on that peculiar +downward droop which Thrse had come to know and mistrust. + +"Are you going to New Orleans with Mrs. Worthington?" she asked, "she +told me she meant to try and persuade you." + +"No; I'm not going. Why?" looking suspiciously in Thrse's face. + +"Well," laughed Thrse, "only for the sake of asking, I suppose. I +thought you'd enjoy Mardi-Gras, never having seen it." + +"I'm not going anywheres unless David goes along," she said, with an +impertinent ring in her voice, and with a conviction that she was +administering a stab and a rebuke. She had come prepared to watch her +husband and Mrs. Lafirme, her heart swelling with jealous suspicion as +she looked constantly from one to the other, endeavoring to detect +signs of an understanding between them. Failing to discover such, and +loth to be robbed of her morbid feast of misery, she set her failure +down to their pre-determined subtlety. Thrse was conscious of a +change in Fanny's attitude, and felt herself unable to account for it +otherwise than by whim, which she knew played a not unimportant rle +in directing the manner of a large majority of women. Moreover, it was +not a moment to lose herself in speculation concerning this woman's +capricious behavior. Her guests held the first claim upon her +attentions. Indeed, here was Mrs. Worthington even now loudly +demanding a pack of cards. "Here's a gentleman never heard of +six-handed euchre. If you've got a pack of cards, Mrs. Laferm, I guess +I can show him quick enough that it can be done." + +"Oh, I don't doubt Mrs. Worthington's ability to make any startling +and pleasing revelations," rejoined the planter good humoredly, and +gallantly following Mrs. Worthington who had risen with the view of +putting into immediate effect her scheme of initiating these slow +people into the unsuspected possibilities of euchre; a game which, +however adaptable in other ways, could certainly not be indulged in by +seven persons. After each one proffering, as is usual on such +occasions, his readiness to assume the character of on-looker, Mr. +Worthington's claim to entire indifference, if not inability--confirmed +by his wife--was accepted as the most sincere, and that gentleman was +excluded and excused. + +He watched them as they seated themselves at table, even lending +assistance, in his own awkward way, to range the chairs in place. Then +he followed the game for a while, standing behind Fanny to note the +outcome of her reckless offer of "five on hearts," with only three +trumps in hand, and every indication of little assistance from her +partners, Mr. Duplan and Belle Worthington. + +At one end of the room was a long, low, well-filled book-case. Here +had been the direction of Mr. Worthington's secret and stolen glances +the entire evening. And now towards this point he finally transported +himself by gradual movements which he believed appeared unstudied and +indifferent. He was confronted by a good deal of French--to him an +unfamiliar language. Here a long row of Balzac; then, the Waverley +Novels in faded red cloth of very old date. Racine, Moliere, Bulwer +following in more modern garb; Shakespeare in a compass that promised +very small type. His quick trained glance sweeping along the shelves, +contracted into a little frown of resentment while he sent his hand +impetuously through his scant locks, standing them quite on end. + +On the very lowest shelf were five imposing volumes in dignified black +and gold, bearing the simple inscription "Lives of the Saints--Rev. A. +Butler." Upon one of them, Mr. Worthington seized, opening it at +hazard. He had fallen upon the history of St. Monica, mother of the +great St. Austin--a woman whose habits it appears had been so closely +guarded in her childhood by a pious nurse, that even the quenching of +her natural thirst was permitted only within certain well defined +bounds. This mentor used to say "you are now for drinking water, but +when you come to be mistress of the cellar, water will be despised, +but the habit of drinking will stick by you." Highly interesting, Mr. +Worthington thought, as he brushed his hair all down again the right +way and seated himself the better to learn the fortunes of the good +St. Monica who, curiously enough, notwithstanding those early +incentives to temperance, "insensibly contracted an inclination to +wine," drinking "whole cups of it with pleasure as it came in her +way." A "dangerous intemperance" which it finally pleased Heaven to +cure through the instrumentality of a maid servant taunting her +mistress with being a "wine bibber." + +Mr. Worthington did not stop with the story of Saint Monica. He lost +himself in those details of asceticism, martyrdom, superhuman +possibilities which man is capable of attaining under peculiar +conditions of life--something he had not yet "gone into." + +The voices at the card table would certainly have disturbed a man with +less power of mind concentration. For Mrs. Worthington in this +familiar employment was herself again--_con fuoco_. Here was Mr. +Duplan in high spirits; his wife putting forth little gushes of +bird-like exaltation as the fascinations of the game revealed +themselves to her. Even Hosmer and Thrse were drawn for the moment +from their usual preoccupation. Fanny alone was the ghost of the +feast. Her features never relaxed from their settled gloom. She played +at hap-hazard, listlessly throwing down the cards or letting them fall +from her hands, vaguely asking what were trumps at inopportune +moments; showing that inattentiveness so exasperating to an eager +player and which oftener than once drew a sharp rebuke from Belle +Worthington. + +"Don't you wish we could play," said Ninette to her companion from her +comfortable perch beside the fire, and looking longingly towards the +card table. + +"Oh, no," replied Lucilla briefly, gazing into the fire, with hands +folded in her lap. Thin hands, showing up very white against the dull +colored "convent uniform" that hung in plain, severe folds about her +and reached to her very ankles. + +"Oh, don't you? I play often at home when company comes. And I play +cribbage and _vingt-et-un_ with papa and win lots of money from him." + +"That's wrong." + +"No, it isn't; papa wouldn't do it if it was wrong," she answered +decidedly. "Do you go to the convent?" she asked, looking critically +at Lucilla and drawing a little nearer, so as to be confidential. +"Tell me about it," she continued, when the other had replied +affirmatively. "Is it very dreadful? you know they're going to send me +soon." + +"Oh, it's the best place in the world," corrected Lucilla as eagerly +as she could. + +"Well, mamma says she was just as happy as could be there, but you see +that's so awfully long ago. It must have changed since then." + +"The convent never changes: it's always the same. You first go to +chapel to mass early in the morning." + +"Ugh!" shuddered Ninette. + +"Then you have studies," continued Lucilla. "Then breakfast, then +recreation, then classes, and there's meditation." + +"Oh, well," interrupted Ninette, "I believe anything most would suit +you, and mamma when she was little; but if I don't like it--see here, +if I tell you something will you promise never, never, to tell?" + +"Is it any thing wrong?" + +"Oh, no, not very; it isn't a real mortal sin. Will you promise?" + +"Yes," agreed Lucilla; curiosity getting something the better of her +pious scruples. + +"Cross your heart?" + +Lucilla crossed her heart carefully, though a little reluctantly. + +"Hope you may die?" + +"Oh!" exclaimed the little convent girl aghast. + +"Oh, pshaw," laughed Ninette, "never mind. But that's what Polly +always says when she wants me to believe her: 'hope I may die, Miss +Ninette.' Well, this is it: I've been saving up money for the longest +time, oh ever so long. I've got eighteen dollars and sixty cents, and +when they send me to the convent, if I don't like it, I'm going to run +away." This last and startling revelation was told in a tragic whisper +in Lucilla's ear, for Betsy was standing before them with a tray of +chocolate and coffee that she was passing around. + +"I yeard you," proclaimed Betsy with mischievous inscrutable +countenance. + +"You didn't," said Ninette defiantly, and taking a cup of coffee. + +"Yas, I did, I yeard you," walking away. + +"See here, Betsy," cried Ninette recalling the girl, "you're not going +to tell, are you?" + +"Dun know ef I isn't gwine tell. Dun know ef I isn't gwine tell Miss +Duplan dis yere ver' minute." + +"Oh Betsy," entreated Ninette, "I'll give you this dress if you don't. +I don't want it any more." + +Betsy's eyes glowed, but she looked down unconcernedly at the pretty +gown. + +"Don't spec it fit me. An' you know Miss T'rse ain't gwine let me go +flyin' roun' wid my laigs stickin' out dat away." + +"I'll let the ruffle down, Betsy," eagerly proposed Ninette. + +"Betsy!" called Thrse a little impatiently. + +"Yas, 'um--I ben waitin' fu' de cups." + +Lucilla had made many an aspiration--many an "act" the while. This +whole evening of revelry, and now this last act of wicked conspiracy +seemed to have tainted her soul with a breath of sin which she would +not feel wholly freed from, till she had cleansed her spirit in the +waters of absolution. + +The party broke up at a late hour, though the Duplans had a long +distance to go, and, moreover, had to cross the high and turbid river +to reach their carriage which had been left on the opposite bank, +owing to the difficulty of the crossing. + +Mr. Duplan took occasion of a moment aside to whisper to Hosmer with +the air of a connoisseur, "fine woman that Mrs. Worthington of yours." + +Hosmer laughed at the jesting implication, whilst disclaiming it, and +Fanny looked moodily at them both, jealously wondering at the cause of +their good humor. + +Mrs. Duplan, under the influence of a charming evening passed in such +agreeable and distinguished company, was full of amiable bustle in +leaving and had many pleasant parting words to say to each, in her +pretty broken English. + +"Oh, yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Worthington to that lady, who had taken +admiring notice of the beautiful silver "Holy Angels" medal that hung +from Lucilla's neck and rested against the dark gown. "Lucilla takes +after Mr. Worthington as far as religion goes--kind of different +though, for I must say it ain't often he darkens the doors of a +church." + +Mrs. Worthington always spoke of her husband present as of a husband +absent. A peculiarity which he patiently endured, having no talent for +repartee, that he had at one time thought of cultivating. But that +time was long past. + +The Duplans were the first to leave. Then Thrse stood for a while on +the veranda in the chill night air watching the others disappear +across the lawn. Mr. and Mrs. Worthington and Lucilla had all shaken +hands with her in saying good night. Fanny followed suit limply and +grudgingly. Hosmer buttoned his coat impatiently and only lifted his +hat to Thrse as he helped his wife down the stairs. + +Poor Fanny! she had already taken exception at that hand pressure +which was to come and for which she watched, and now her whole small +being was in a jealous turmoil--because there had been none. + + + + +XII + +Tidings That Sting. + + +Thrse felt that the room was growing oppressive. She had been +sitting all morning alone before the fire, passing in review a great +heap of household linen that lay piled beside her on the floor, +alternating this occupation with occasional careful and tender offices +bestowed upon a wee lamb that had been brought to her some hours +before, and that now lay wounded and half lifeless upon a pile of +coffee sacks before the blaze. + +A fire was hardly needed, except to dispel the dampness that had even +made its insistent way indoors, covering walls and furniture with a +clammy film. Outside, the moisture was dripping from the glistening +magnolia leaves and from the pointed polished leaves of the live-oaks, +and the sun that had come out with intense suddenness was drawing it +steaming from the shingled roof-tops. + +When Thrse, finally aware of the closeness of the room, opened the +door and went out on the veranda, she saw a man, a stranger, riding +towards the house and she stood to await his approach. He belonged to +what is rather indiscriminately known in that section of the State as +the "piney-woods" genus. A rawboned fellow, lank and long of leg; as +ungroomed with his scraggy yellow hair and beard as the scrubby little +Texas pony which he rode. His big soft felt hat had done unreasonable +service as a head-piece; and the "store clothes" that hung upon his +lean person could never in their remotest freshness have masqueraded +under the character of "all wool." He was in transit, as the bulging +saddle-bags that hung across his horse indicated, as well as the rough +brown blanket strapped behind him to the animal's back. He rode up +close to the rail of the veranda near which Thrse stood, and nodded +to her without offering to raise or touch his hat. She was prepared +for the drawl with which he addressed her, and even guessed at what +his first words would be. + +"You're Mrs. Laferm I 'low?" + +Thrse acknowledged her identity with a bow. + +"My name's Jimson; Rufe Jimson," he went on, settling himself on the +pony and folding his long knotty hands over the hickory switch that he +carried in guise of whip. + +"Do you wish to speak to me? won't you dismount?" Thrse asked. + +"I hed my dinner down to the store," he said taking her proposal as an +invitation to dine, and turning to expectorate a mouth full of tobacco +juice before continuing. "Capital sardines them air," passing his hand +over his mouth and beard in unctuous remembrance of the oily dainties. + +"I'm just from Cornstalk, Texas, on mu way to Grant. An' them roads as +I've traversed isn't what I'd call the best in a fair and square +talk." + +His manner bore not the slightest mark of deference. He spoke to +Thrse as he might have spoken to one of her black servants, or as he +would have addressed a princess of royal blood if fate had ever +brought him into such unlikely contact, so clearly was the sense of +human equality native to him. + +Thrse knew her animal, and waited patiently for his business to +unfold itself. + +"I reckon thar hain't no ford hereabouts?" he asked, looking at her +with a certain challenge. + +"Oh, no; its even difficult crossing in the flat," she answered. + +"Wall, I hed calc'lated continooing on this near side. Reckon I could +make it?" challenging her again to an answer. + +"There's no road on this side," she said, turning away to fasten more +securely the escaped branches of a rose-bush that twined about a +column near which she stood. + +Whether there were a road on this side or on the other side, or no +road at all, appeared to be matter of equal indifference to Mr. +Jimson, so far as his manner showed. He continued imperturbably "I +'lowed to stop here on a little matter o' business. 'Tis some out o' +mu way; more'n I'd calc'lated. You couldn't tell the ixact distance +from here to Colfax, could you?" + +Thrse rather impatiently gave him the desired information, and +begged that he would disclose his business with her. + +"Wall," he said, "onpleasant news 'll keep most times tell you're +ready fur it. Thet's my way o' lookin' at it." + +"Unpleasant news for me?" she inquired, startled from her indifference +and listlessness. + +"Rather onpleasant ez I take it. I hain't a makin' no misstatement to +persume thet Grgor Sanchun was your nephew?" + +"Yes, yes," responded Thrse, now thoroughly alarmed, and approaching +as close to Mr. Rufe Jimson as the dividing rail would permit, "What +of him, please?" + +He turned again to discharge an accumulation of tobacco juice into a +thick border of violets, and resumed. + +"You see a hot-blooded young feller, ez wouldn't take no more 'an give +no odds, stranger or no stranger in the town, he couldn't ixpect civil +treatment; leastways not from Colonel Bill Klayton. Ez I said to +Tozier--" + +"Please tell me as quickly as possible what has happened," demanded +Thrse with trembling eagerness; steadying herself with both hands on +the railing before her. + +"You see it all riz out o' a little altercation 'twixt him and Colonel +Klayton in the colonel's store. Some says he'd ben drinkin'; others +denies it. Howsomever they did hev words risin' out o' the colonel +addressing your nephew under the title o' 'Frenchy'; which most takes +ez a insufficient cause for rilin'." + +"He's dead?" gasped Thrse, looking at the dispassionate Texan with +horrified eyes. + +"Wall, yes," an admission which he seemed not yet willing to leave +unqualified; for he went on "It don't do to alluz speak out open an' +above boards, leastways not thar in Cornstalk. But I'll 'low to you, +it's my opinion the colonel acted hasty. It's true 'nough, the young +feller hed drawed, but ez I said to Tozier, thet's no reason to +persume it was his intention to use his gun." + +So Grgoire was dead. She understood it all now. The manner of his +death was plain to her as if she had seen it, out there in some +disorderly settlement. Killed by the hand of a stranger with whom +perhaps the taking of a man's life counted as little as it had once +counted with his victim. This flood of sudden and painful intelligence +staggered her, and leaning against the column she covered her eyes +with both hands, for a while forgetting the presence of the man who +had brought the sad tidings. + +But he had never ceased his monotonous unwinding. "Thar hain't no +manner o' doubt, marm," he was saying, "thet he did hev the sympathy +o' the intire community--ez far ez they was free to express +it--barrin' a few. Fur he was a likely young chap, that warn't no two +opinions o' that. Free with his money--alluz ready to set up fur a +friend. Here's a bit o' writin' thet'll larn you more o' the +pertic'lars," drawing a letter from his pocket, "writ by the Catholic +priest, by name of O'Dowd. He 'lowed you mought want proyer meetin's +and sich." + +"Masses," corrected Thrse, holding out her hand for the letter. With +the other hand she was wiping away the tears that had gathered thick +in her eyes. + +"Thar's a couple more little tricks thet he sont," continued Rufe +Jimson, apparently dislocating his joints to reach the depths of his +trouser pocket, from which he drew a battered pocket book wrapped +around with an infinity of string. From the grimy folds of this +receptacle he took a small paper parcel which he placed in her hand. +It was partly unfastened, and as she opened it fully, the pent-up +tears came blindingly--for before her lay a few curling rings of soft +brown hair, and a pair of scapulars, one of which was pierced by a +tell-tale bullet hole. + +"Won't you dismount?" she presently asked again, this time a little +more kindly. + +"No, marm," said the Texan, jerking his hitherto patient pony by the +bridle till it performed feats of which an impartial observer could +scarcely have suspected it. + +"Don't reckon I could make Colfax before dark, do you?" + +"Hardly," she said, turning away, "I'm much obliged to you, Mr. +Jimson, for having taken this trouble--if the flat is on the other +side, you need only call for it." + +"Wall, good day, marm--I wish you luck," he added, with a touch of +gallantry which her tears and sweet feminine presence had inspired. +Then turning, he loped his horse rapidly forward, leaning well back in +the saddle and his elbows sawing the air. + + + + +XIII + +Melicent Hears the News. + + +It was talked about and wept about at Place-du-Bois, that Grgoire +should be dead. It seemed to them all so unbelievable. Yet, whatever +hesitancy they had in accepting the fact of his death, was perforce +removed by the convincing proof of Father O'Dowd's letter. + +None could remember but sweetness and kindness of him. Even Nathan, +who had been one day felled to earth by a crowbar in Grgoire's hand, +had come himself to look at that deed as not altogether blamable in +light of the provocation that had called it forth. + +Fanny remembered those bouquets which had been daily offered to her +forlornness at her arrival; and the conversations in which they had +understood each other so well. The conviction that he was gone away +beyond the possibility of knowing him further, moved her to tears. +Hosmer, too, was grieved and shocked, without being able to view the +event in the light of a calamity. + +No one was left unmoved by the tidings which brought a lowering cloud +even upon the brow of Aunt Belindy, to rest there the whole day. Deep +were the mutterings she hurled at a fate that could have been so +short-sighted as to remove from earth so bright an ornament as +Grgoire. Her grief further spent much of itself upon the inoffensive +Betsy, who, for some inscrutable reason was for twenty-four hours +debarred entrance to the kitchen. + +Thrse seated at her desk, devoted a morning to the writing of +letters, acquainting various members of the family with the unhappy +intelligence. She wrote first to Madame Santien, living now her lazy +life in Paris, with eyes closed to the duties that lay before her and +heart choked up with an egoism that withered even the mother +instincts. It was very difficult to withhold the reproach which she +felt inclined to deal her; hard to refrain from upbraiding a +selfishness which for a life-time had appeared to Thrse as criminal. + +It was a matter less nice, less difficult, to write to the +brothers--one up on the Red River plantation living as best he could; +the other idling on the New Orleans streets. But it was after all a +short and simple story to tell. There was no lingering illness to +describe; no moment even of consciousness in which harrowing last +words were to be gathered and recorded. Only a hot senseless quarrel +to be told about; the speeding of a bullet with very sure aim, +and--quick death. + +Of course, masses must be said. Father O'Dowd was properly instructed. +Pre Antoine in Centerville was addressed on the subject. The Bishop +of Natchitoches, respectfully asked to perform this last sad office +for the departed soul. And the good old priest and friend at the New +Orleans Cathedral, was informed of her desires. Not that Thrse held +very strongly to this saying of masses for the dead; but it had been a +custom holding for generations in the family and which she was not +disposed to abandon now, even if she had thought of it. + +The last letter was sent to Melicent. Thrse made it purposely short +and pointed, with a bare statement of facts--a dry, unemotional +telling, that sounded heartless when she read it over; but she let it +go. + + * * * * * + +Melicent was standing in her small, quaint sitting-room, her back to +the fire, and her hands clasped behind her. How handsome was this +Melicent! Pouting now, and with eyes half covered by the dark shaded +lids, as they gazed moodily out at the wild snowflakes that were +hurrying like crazy things against the warm window pane and meeting +their end there. A loose tea-gown clung in long folds about her. A +dull colored thing, save for the two broad bands of sapphire plush +hanging straight before, from throat to toe. Melicent was plainly +dejected; not troubled, nor sad, only dejected, and very much bored; a +condition that had made her yawn several times while she looked at the +falling snow. + +She was philosophizing a little. Wondering if the world this morning +were really the unpleasant place that it appeared, or if these +conditions of unpleasantness lay not rather within her own mental +vision; a train of thought that might be supposed to have furnished +her some degree of entertainment had she continued in its pursuit. But +she chose rather to dwell on her causes of unhappiness, and thus +convince herself that that unhappiness was indeed outside of her and +around her and not by any possibility to be avoided or circumvented. +There lay now a letter in her desk from David, filled with admonitions +if not reproof which she felt to be not entirely unjust, on the +disagreeable subject of Expenses. Looking around the pretty room she +conceded to herself that here had been temptations which she could not +reasonably have been expected to withstand. The temptation to lodge +herself in this charming little flat; furnish it after her own liking; +and install that delightful little old poverty-stricken English woman +as keeper of Proprieties, with her irresistible white starched caps +and her altogether delightful way of inquiring daily after that "poor, +dear, kind Mr. Hosmer." It had all cost a little more than she had +foreseen. But the worst of it, the very worst of it was, that she had +already begun to ask herself if, for instance, it were not very +irritating to see every day, that same branching palm, posing by the +window, in that same yellow jardinire. If those draperies that +confronted her were not becoming positively offensive in the monotony +of their solemn folds. If the cuteness and quaintness of the +poverty-stricken little English woman were not after all a source of +entertainment that she would willingly forego on occasion. The answer +to these questions was a sigh that ended in another yawn. + +Then Melicent threw herself into a low easy chair by the table, took +up her visiting book, and bending lazily with her arms resting on her +knees, began to turn over its pages. The names which she saw there +recalled to her mind an entertainment at which she had assisted on the +previous afternoon. A progressive euchre party; and the remembrance of +what she had there endured now filled her soul with horror. + +She thought of those hundred cackling women--of course women are never +cackling, it was Melicent's exaggerated way of expressing +herself--packed into those small overheated rooms, around those +twenty-five little tables; and how by no chance had she once found +herself with a congenial set. And how that Mrs. Van Wycke had cheated! +It was plain to Melicent that she had taken advantage of having fat +Miss Bloomdale for a partner, who went to euchre parties only to show +her hands and rings. And little Mrs. Brinke playing against her. +Little Mrs. Brinke! A woman who only the other day had read an +original paper entitled: "An Hour with Hegel" before her philosophy +class; who had published that dry mystical affair "Light on the +Inscrutable in Dante." How could such a one by any possibility be +supposed to observe the disgusting action of Mrs. Van Wycke in +throwing off on her partner's trump and swooping down on the last +trick with her right bower? Melicent would have thought it beneath her +to more than look her contempt as Mrs. Van Wycke rose with a +triumphant laugh to take her place at a higher table, dragging the +plastic Bloomdale with her. But she did mutter to herself now, "nasty +thief." + +"Johannah," Melicent called to her maid who sat sewing in the next +room. + +"Yes, Miss." + +"You know Mrs. Van Wycke?" + +"Mrs. Van Wycke, Miss? the lady with the pinted nose that I caught +a-feeling of the curtains?" + +"Yes, when she calls again I'm not at home. Do you understand? not at +home." + +"Yes, Miss." + +It was gratifying enough to have thus summarily disposed of Mrs. Van +Wycke; but it was a source of entertainment which was soon ended. +Melicent continued to turn over the pages of her visiting book during +which employment she came to the conclusion that these people whom she +frequented were all very tiresome. All, all of them, except Miss Drake +who had been absent in Europe for the past six months. Perhaps Mrs. +Manning too, who was so seldom at home when Melicent called. Who when +at home, usually rushed down with her bonnet on, breathless with "I +can only spare you a moment, dear. It's very sweet of you to come." +She was always just going to the "Home" where things had got into such +a muddle whilst she was away for a week. Or it was that "Hospital" +meeting where she thought certain members were secretly conniving at +her removal from the presidency which she had held for so many years. +She was always reading minutes at assemblages which Melicent knew +nothing about; or introducing distinguished guests to Guild room +meetings. Altogether Melicent saw very little of Mrs. Manning. + +"Johannah, don't you hear the bell?" + +"Yes, Miss," said Johannah, coming into the room and depositing a gown +on which she had been working, on the back of a chair. "It's that +postman," she said, as she fastened her needle to the bosom of her +dress. "And such a one as he is, thinking that people must fly when he +so much as touches the bell, and going off a writing of 'no answer to +bell,' and me with my hand on the very door-knob." + +"I notice that always happens when I'm out, Johannah; he's ringing +again." + +It was Thrse's letter, and as Melicent turned it about and looked +critically at the neatly written address, it was not without a hope +that the reading of it might furnish her a moment's diversion. She did +not faint. The letter did not "fall from her nerveless clasp." She +rather held it very steadily. But she grew a shade paler and looked +long into the fire. When she had read it three times she folded it +slowly and carefully and locked it away in her desk. + +"Johannah." + +"Yes, Miss." + +"Put that gown away; I shan't need it." + +"Yes, Miss; and all the beautiful passmantry that you bought?" + +"It makes no difference, I shan't use it. What's become of that black +camel's-hair that Mrs. Gauche spoiled so last winter?" + +"It's laid away, Miss, the same in the cedar chest as the day it came +home from her hands and no more fit, that I'd be a shame meself and no +claims to a dress-maker. And there's many a lady that she never would +have seen a cent, let alone making herself pay for the spiling of it." + +"Well, well, Johannah, never mind. Get it out, we'll see what can be +done with it. I've had some painful news, and I shall wear mourning +for a long, long time." + +"Oh, Miss, it's not Mr. David! nor yet one of those sweet relations in +Utica? leastways not I hope that beautiful Miss Gertrude, with such +hair as I never see for the goldness of it and not dyed, except me +cousin that's a nun, that her mother actually cried when it was cut +off?" + +"No, Johannah; only a very dear friend." + +There were a few social engagements to be cancelled; and regrets to be +sent out, which she attended to immediately. Then she turned again to +look long into the fire. That crime for which she had scorned him, was +wiped out now by expiation. For a long time--how long she could not +yet determine--she would wrap herself in garb of mourning and move +about in sorrowing--giving evasive answer to the curious who +questioned her. Now might she live again through those summer months +with Grgoire--those golden afternoons in the pine woods--whose aroma +even now came back to her. She might look again into his loving brown +eyes; feel beneath her touch the softness of his curls. She recalled a +day when he had said, "Neva to see you--my God!" and how he had +trembled. She recalled--strangely enough and for the first time--that +one kiss, and a little tremor brought the hot color to her cheek. + +Was she in love with Grgoire now that he was dead? Perhaps. At all +events, for the next month, Melicent would not be bored. + + + + +XIV + +A Step Too Far. + + +Who of us has not known the presence of Misery? Perhaps as those +fortunate ones whom he has but touched as he passed them by. It may be +that we see but a promise of him as we look into the prophetic faces +of children; into the eyes of those we love, and the awfulness of +life's possibilities presses into our souls. Do we fly him? hearing +him gain upon us panting close at our heels, till we turn from the +desperation of uncertainty to grapple with him? In close scuffle we +may vanquish him. Fleeing, we may elude him. But what if he creep into +the sanctuary of our lives, with his subtle omnipresence, that we do +not see in all its horror till we are disarmed; thrusting the burden +of his companionship upon us to the end! However we turn he is there. +However we shrink he is there. However we come or go, or sleep or wake +he is before us. Till the keen sense grows dull with apathy at looking +on him, and he becomes like the familiar presence of sin. + +Into such callousness had Hosmer fallen. He had ceased to bruise his +soul in restless endeavor of resistance. When the awful presence bore +too closely upon him, he would close his eyes and brave himself to +endurance. Yet Fate might have dealt him worse things. + +But a man's misery is after all his own, to make of it what he will or +what he can. And shall we be fools, wanting to lighten it with our +platitudes? + +My friend, your trouble I know weighs. That you should be driven by +earthly needs to drag the pinioned spirit of your days through rut and +mire. But think of the millions who are doing the like. Or is it your +boy, that part of your own self and that other dearer self, who is +walking in evil ways? Why, I know a man whose son was hanged the other +day; hanged on the gibbet; think of it. If you be quivering while the +surgeon cuts away that right arm, remember the poor devil in the +hospital yesterday who had both his sawed off. + +Oh, have done, with your mutilated men and your sons on gibbets! What +are they to me? My hurt is greater than all, because it is my own. If +it be only that day after day I must look with warm entreaty into eyes +that are cold. Let it be but that peculiar trick of feature which I +have come to hate, seen each morning across the breakfast table. That +recurrent pin-prick: it hurts. The blow that lays the heart in twain: +it kills. Let be mine which will; it is the one that counts. + +If Misery kill a man, that ends it. But Misery seldom deals so +summarily with his victims. And while they are spared to earth, we +find them usually sustaining life after the accepted fashion. + +Hosmer was seated at table, having finished his breakfast. He had also +finished glancing over the contents of a small memorandum book, which +he replaced in his pocket. He then looked at his wife sitting opposite +him, but turned rather hastily to gaze with a certain entreaty into +the big kind eyes of the great shaggy dog who stood--the shameless +beggar--at his side. + +"I knew there was something wrong," he said abruptly, with his eyes +still fixed on the dog, and his fingers thrust into the animal's +matted wool, "Where's the mail this morning?" + +"I don't know if that stupid boy's gone for it or not. I told him. You +can't depend on any one in a place like this." + +Fanny had scarcely touched the breakfast before her, and now pushed +aside her cup still half filled with coffee. + +"Why, how's that? Sampson seems to do the right thing." + +"Yes, Sampson; but he ain't here. That boy of Minervy's been doing his +work all morning." + +Minervy's boy was even now making his appearance, carrying a good +sized bundle of papers and letters, with which he walked boldly up to +Hosmer, plainly impressed with the importance of this new rle. + +"Well, colonel; so you've taken Sampson's place?" Hosmer observed, +receiving the mail from the boy's little black paws. + +"My name's Major, suh. Maje; dats my name. I ain't tuck Sampson's +place: no, suh." + +"Oh, he's having a day off--" Hosmer went on, smiling quizzingly at +the dapper little darkey, and handing him a red apple from the dish of +fruit standing in the center of the table. Maje received it with a +very unmilitary bob of acknowledgment. + +"He yonda home 'cross de riva, suh. He ben too late fu' kotch de +flat's mornin' An' he holla an' holla. He know dey warn't gwine cross +dat flat 'gin jis' fu' Sampson." + +Hosmer had commenced to open his letters. Fanny with her elbows on the +table, asked the boy--with a certain uneasiness in her voice--"Ain't +he coming at all to-day? Don't he know all the work he's got to do? +His mother ought to make him." + +"Don't reckon. Dat away Sampson: he git mad he stay mad," with which +assurance Maje vanished through the rear door, towards the region of +the kitchen, to seek more substantial condiments than the apple which +he still clutched firmly. + +One of the letters was for Fanny, which her husband handed her. When +he had finished reading his own, he seemed disposed to linger, for he +took from the fruit dish the mate to the red apple he had given Maje, +and commenced to peel it with his clasp knife. + +"What has our friend Belle Worthington to say for herself?" he +inquired good humoredly. "How does she get on with those Creoles down +there?" + +"You know as well as I do, Belle Worthington ain't going to mix with +Creoles. She can't talk French if she wanted to. She says Muddy-Graw +don't begin to compare with the Veiled Prophets. It's just what I +thought--with their 'Muddy-Graw,'" Fanny added, contemptuously. + +"Coming from such high authority, we'll consider that verdict a final +clincher," Hosmer laughed a little provokingly. + +Fanny was looking again through the several sheets of Belle +Worthington's letter. "She says if I'll agree to go back with her, +she'll pass this way again." + +"Well, why don't you? A little change wouldn't hurt." + +"'Tain't because I want to stay here, Lord knows. A God-forsaken +place like this. I guess you'd be glad enough," she added, with voice +shaking a little at her own boldness. + +He closed his knife, placed it in his pocket, and looked at his wife, +completely puzzled. + +The power of speech had come to her, for she went on, in an unnatural +tone, however, and fumbling nervously with the dishes before her. "I'm +fool enough about some things, but I ain't quite such a fool as that." + +"What are you talking about, Fanny?" + +"That woman wouldn't ask anything better than for me to go to St. +Louis." + +Hosmer was utterly amazed. He leaned his arms on the table, clasping +his hands together and looked at his wife. + +"That woman? Belle Worthington? What _do_ you mean, any way?" + +"I don't mean Belle Worthington," she said excitedly, with two deep +red spots in her cheeks. "I'm talking about Mrs. Laferm." + +He thrust his hand into his pockets and leaned back in his chair. No +amazement now, but very pale, and with terrible concentration of +glance. + +"Well, then, don't talk about Mrs. Lafirme," he said very slowly, not +taking his eyes from her face. + +"I will talk about her, too. She ain't worth talking about," she +blurted incoherently. "It's time for somebody to talk about a woman +passing herself off for a saint, and trying to take other women's +husbands--" + +"Shut up!" cried Hosmer maddened with sudden fury, and rising +violently from his chair. + +"I won't shut up," Fanny cried excitedly back at him; rising also. +"And what's more I won't stay here and have you making love under my +very eyes to a woman that's no better than she ought to be." + +She meant to say more, but Hosmer grasped her arm with such a grasp, +that had it been her throat she would never have spoken more. The +other hand went to his pocket, with fingers clutching the clasp knife +there. + +"By heaven--I'll--kill you!" every word weighted with murder, panted +close in her terrified face. What she would have uttered died upon her +pale lips, when her frightened eyes beheld the usually calm face of +her husband distorted by a passion of which she had not dreamed. + +"David," she faltered, "let go my arm." + +Her voice broke the spell that held him, and brought him again to his +senses. His fingers slowly relaxed their tense hold. A sigh that was +something between a moan and a gasp came with his deliverance and +shook him. All the horror now was in his own face as he seized his hat +and hurried speechless away. + +Fanny remained for a little while dazed. Hers was not the fine nature +that would stay cruelly stunned after such a scene. Her immediate +terror being past, the strongest resultant emotion was one of +self-satisfaction at having spoken out her mind. + +But there was a stronger feeling yet, moving and possessing her; +crowding out every other. A pressing want that only Sampson's coming +would relieve, and which bade fair to drive her to any extremity if it +were not appeased. + + + + +XV + +A Fateful Solution. + + +Hosmer passed the day with a great pain at his heart. His hasty and +violent passion of the morning had added another weight for his spirit +to drag about, and which he could not cast off. No feeling of +resentment remained with him; only wonder at his wife's misshapen +knowledge and keen self-rebuke of his own momentary forgetfulness. +Even knowing Fanny as he did, he could not rid himself of the haunting +dread of having wounded her nature cruelly. He felt much as a man who +in a moment of anger inflicts an irreparable hurt upon some small, +weak, irresponsible creature, and must bear regret for his madness. +The only reparation that lay within his power--true, one that seemed +inadequate--was an open and manly apology and confession of wrong. He +would feel better when it was made. He would perhaps find relief in +discovering that the wound he had inflicted was not so deep--so +dangerous as he feared. + +With such end in view he came home early in the afternoon. His wife +was not there. The house was deserted. Even the servants had +disappeared. It took but a moment for him to search the various rooms +and find them one after the other, unoccupied. He went out on the +porch and looked around. The raw air chilled him. The wind was blowing +violently, bringing dashes of rain along with it from massed clouds +that hung leaden between sky and earth. Could she have gone over to +the house? It was unlikely, for he knew her to have avoided Mrs. +Lafirme of late, with a persistence that had puzzled him to seek its +cause, which had only fully revealed itself in the morning Yet, where +else could she be? An undefined terror was laying hold of him. His +sensitive nature, in exaggerating its own heartlessness, was blindly +overestimating the delicacy of hers. To what may he not have driven +her? What hitherto untouched chord may he not have started into +painful quivering? Was it for him to gauge the endurance of a woman's +spirit? Fanny was not now the wife whom he hated; his own act of the +morning had changed her into the human being, the weak creature whom +he had wronged. + +In quitting the house she must have gone unprepared for the inclement +weather, for there hung her heavy wrap in its accustomed place, with +her umbrella beside it. He seized both and buttoning his own great +coat about him, hurried away and over to Mrs. Lafirme's. He found that +lady in the sitting-room. + +"Isn't Fanny here?" he asked abruptly, with no word of greeting. + +"No," she answered looking up at him, and seeing the evident +uneasiness in his face. "Isn't she at home? Is anything wrong?" + +"Oh, everything is wrong," he returned desperately, "But the immediate +wrong is that she has disappeared--I must find her." + +Thrse arose at once and called to Betsy who was occupied on the +front veranda. + +"Yas, um," the girl answered to her mistress' enquiry. "I seed ma'am +Hosma goin' to'ads de riva good hour 'go. She mus' crost w'en Nathan +tuck dat load ova. I yain't seed 'er comin' back yit." + +Hosmer left the house hastily, hardly reassured by Betsy's +information. Thrse's glance--speculating and uneasy--followed his +hurrying figure till it disappeared from sight. + +The crossing was an affair of extreme difficulty, and which Nathan was +reluctant to undertake until he should have gathered a "load" that +would justify him in making it. In his estimation, Hosmer did not meet +such requirement, even taken in company with the solitary individual +who had been sitting on his horse with Egyptian patience for long +unheeded moments, the rain beating down upon his back, while he waited +the ferryman's pleasure. But Nathan's determination was not proof +against the substantial inducements which Hosmer held out to him; and +soon they were launched, all hands assisting in the toilsome passage. + +The water, in rising to an unaccustomed height, had taken on an added +and tremendous swiftness. The red turbid stream was eddying and +bulging and hurrying with terrific swiftness between its shallow +banks, striking with an immensity of power against the projection of +land on which stood Marie Louise's cabin, and rebounding in great +circling waves that spread and lost themselves in the seething +turmoil. The cable used in crossing the unwieldly flat had long been +submerged and the posts which held it wrenched from their fastenings. +The three men, each with his long heavy oar in hand began to pull up +stream, using a force that brought the swelling veins like iron +tracings upon their foreheads where the sweat had gathered as if the +day were midsummer. They made their toilsome way by slow inches, that +finally landed them breathless and exhausted on the opposite side. + +What could have been the inducement to call Fanny out on such a day +and such a venture? The answer came only too readily from Hosmer's +reproaching conscience. And now, where to seek her? There was nothing +to guide him; to indicate the course she might have taken. The rain +was falling heavily and in gusts and through it he looked about at the +small cabins standing dreary in their dismantled fields. Marie +Louise's was the nearest at hand and towards it he directed his steps. + +The big good-natured negress had seen his approach from the window, +for she opened the door to him before he had time to knock, and +entering he saw Fanny seated before the fire holding a pair of very +wet smoking feet to dry. His first sensation was one of relief at +finding her safe and housed. His next, one of uncertainty as to the +kind and degree of resentment which he felt confident must now show +itself. But this last was soon dispelled, for turning, she greeted him +with a laugh. He would have rather a blow. That laugh said so many +things--too many things. True, it removed the dread which had been +haunting him all day, but it shattered what seemed to have been now +his last illusion regarding this woman. That unsounded chord which he +feared he had touched was after all but one in harmony with the rest +of her common nature. He saw too at a glance that her dominant passion +had been leading and now controlled her. And by one of those rapid +trains of thought in which odd and detached fancies, facts, +impressions and observations form themselves into an orderly sequence +leading to a final conviction--all was made plain to him that before +had puzzled him. She need not have told him her reason for crossing +the river, he knew it. He dismissed at once the attitude with which he +had thought to approach her. Here was no forgiveness to be asked of +dulled senses. No bending in expiation of faults committed. He was +here as master. + +"Fanny, what does this mean?" he asked in cold anger; with no heat +now, no passion. + +"Yaas, me tell madame, she goin' fur ketch cole si she don' mine out. +Dat not fur play dat kine wedder, no. Teck chair, M'sieur; dry +you'se'f leet beet. Me mek you one cup coffee." + +Hosmer declined the good Marie Louise's kind proffer of coffee, but he +seated himself and waited for Fanny to speak. + +"You know if you want a thing done in this place, you've got to do it +yourself. I've heard you say it myself, time and time again about +those people at the mill," she said. + +"Could it have been so urgent as to call you out on a day like this, +and with such a perilous crossing? Couldn't you have found some one +else to come for you?" + +"Who? I'd like to know. Just tell me who? It's nothing to you if we're +without servants, but I'm not going to stand it. I ain't going to let +Samp_son_ act like that without knowing what he means," said Fanny +sharply. + +"Dat Samp_son_, he one leet dev'," proffered Marie Louise, with +laudable design of shifting blame upon the easy shoulders of Sampson, +in event of the domestic jar which she anticipated. "No use try do +nuttin' 'id Sampson, M'sieur." + +"I had to know something, one way or the other," Fanny said in a tone +which carried apology, rather by courtesy than by what she considered +due. + +Hosmer walked to the window where he looked out upon the dreary, +desolate scene, little calculated to cheer him. The river was just +below; and from this window he could gaze down upon the rushing +current as it swept around the bend further up and came striking +against this projection with a force all its own. The rain was falling +still; steadily, blindingly, with wild clatter against the shingled +roof so close above their heads. It coursed in little swift rivulets +down the furrows of the almost perpendicular banks. It mingled in a +demon dance with the dull, red water. There was something inviting to +Hosmer in the scene. He wanted to be outside there making a part of +it. He wanted to feel that rain and wind beating upon him. Within, it +was stifling, maddening; with his wife's presence there, charging the +room with an atmosphere of hate that was possessing him and beginning +to course through his veins as it had never done before. + +"Do you want to go home?" he asked bluntly, turning half around. + +"You must be crazy," she replied, with a slow, upward glance out the +window, then down at her feet that were still poised on the low stool +that Marie Louise had placed for her. + +"You'd better come." He could not have said what moved him, unless it +were recklessness and defiance. + +"I guess you're dreaming, or something, David. You go on home if you +want. Nobody asked you to come after me any way. I'm able to take care +of myself, I guess. Ain't you going to take the umbrella?" she added, +seeing him start for the door empty handed. + +"Oh, it doesn't matter about the rain," he answered without a look +back as he went out and slammed the door after him. + +"M'sieur look lak he not please," said Marie Louise, with plain regret +at the turn of affairs. "You see he no lak you go out in dat kine +wedder, me know dat." + +"Oh, bother," was Fanny's careless reply. "This suits me well enough; +I don't care how long it lasts." + +She was in Marie Louise's big rocker, balancing comfortably back and +forth with a swing that had become automatic. She felt "good," as she +would have termed it herself; her visit to Sampson's hut having not +been without results tending to that condition. The warmth of the room +was very agreeable in contrast to the bleakness of out-doors. She felt +free and moved to exercise a looseness of tongue with the amiable old +negress which was not common with her. The occurrences of the morning +were gradually withdrawing themselves into a distant perspective that +left her in the attitude of a spectator rather than that of an actor. +And she laughed and talked with Marie Louise, and rocked, and rocked +herself on into drowsiness. + +Hosmer had no intention of returning home without his wife. He only +wanted to be out under the sky; he wanted to breathe, to use his +muscles again. He would go and help cross the flat if need be; an +occupation that promised him relief in physical effort. He joined +Nathan, whom he found standing under a big live-oak, disputing with an +old colored woman who wanted to cross to get back to her family before +supper time. + +"You didn' have no call to come ova in de fus' place," he was saying +to her, "you womens is alluz runnin' back'ards and for'ards like +skeard rabbit in de co'n fiel'." + +"I don' stan' no sich talk is dat f'om you. Ef you kiant tin' to yo' +business o' totin' folks w'en dey wants, you betta quit. You done +cheat Mose out o' de job, anyways; we all knows dat." + +"Mine out, woman, you gwine git hu't. Jis' le'me see Mose han'le dat +'ar flat onct: Jis' le'me. He lan' you down to de Mouf 'fo' you knows +it." + +"Let me tell you, Nathan," said Hosmer, looking at his watch, "say you +wait a quarter of an hour and if no one else comes, we'll cross Aunt +Agnes anyway." + +"Dat 'nudda t'ing ef you wants to go back, suh." + +Aunt Agnes was grumbling now at Hosmer's proposal that promised to +keep her another quarter of an hour from her expectant family, when a +big lumbering creaking wagon drove up, with its load of baled cotton +all covered with tarpaulins. + +"Dah!" exclaimed Nathan at sight of the wagon, "ef I'd 'a listened to +yo' jawin'--what?" + +"Ef you'd listen to me, you'd 'tin' to yo' business betta 'an you +does," replied Aunt Agnes, raising a very battered umbrella over her +grotesquely apparelled figure, as she stepped from under the shelter +of the tree to take her place in the flat. + +But she still met with obstacles, for the wagon must needs go first. +When it had rolled heavily into place with much loud and needless +swearing on the part of the driver who, being a white man, considered +Hosmer's presence no hindrance, they let go the chain, and once again +pulled out. The crossing was even more difficult now, owing to the +extra weight of the wagon. + +"I guess you earn your money, Nathan," said Hosmer bending and +quivering with the efforts he put forth. + +"Yas, suh, I does; an' dis job's wuf mo' 'an I gits fu' it." + +"All de same you done lef' off wurking crap sence you start it," +mumbled Aunt Agnes. + +"You gwine git hu't, woman; I done tole you dat; don' wan' listen," +returned Nathan with halting breath. + +"Who gwine hu't me?" + +Whether from tardy gallantry or from pre-occupation with his arduous +work, Nathan offered no reply to this challenge, and his silence left +Aunt Agnes in possession of the field. + +They were in full mid-stream. Hosmer and the teamster were in the fore +end of the boat; Nathan in the rear, and Aunt Agnes standing in the +center between the wagon and the protecting railing, against which she +leaned her clasped hands that still upheld the semblance of umbrella. + +The ill-mated horses stood motionless, letting fall their dejected +heads with apathetic droop. The rain was dripping from their +glistening coats, and making a great patter as it fell upon the +tarpaulins covering the cotton bales. + +Suddenly came an exclamation: "Gret God!" from Aunt Agnes, so genuine +in its amazement and dismay, that the three men with one accord looked +quickly up at her, then at the point on which her terrified gaze was +fixed. Almost on the instant of the woman's cry, was heard a shrill, +piercing, feminine scream. + +What they saw was the section of land on which stood Marie Louise's +cabin, undermined--broken away from the main body and gradually +gliding into the water. It must have sunk with a first abrupt wrench, +for the brick chimney was shaken from its foundation, the smoke +issuing in dense clouds from its shattered sides, the house toppling +and the roof caving. For a moment Hosmer lost his senses. He could but +look, as if at some awful apparition that must soon pass from sight +and leave him again in possession of his reason. The leaning house was +half submerged when Fanny appeared at the door, like a figure in a +dream; seeming a natural part of the awfulness of it. He only gazed +on. The two negroes uttered loud lamentations. + +"Pull with the current!" cried the teamster, first to regain his +presence of mind. It had needed but this, to awaken Hosmer to the +situation. + +"Leave off," he cried at Nathan, who was wringing his hands. "Take +hold that oar or I'll throw you overboard." The trembling ashen negro +obeyed on the instant. + +"Hold fast--for God's sake--hold fast!" he shouted to Fanny, who was +clinging with swaying figure to the door post. Of Marie Louise there +was no sign. + +The caved bank now remained fixed; but Hosmer knew that at any instant +it was liable to disappear before his riveted gaze. + +How heavy the flat was! And the horses had caught the contagion of +terror and were plunging madly. + +"Whip those horses and their load into the river," called Hosmer, +"we've got to lighten at any price." + +"Them horses an' cotton's worth money," interposed the alarmed +teamster. + +"Force them into the river, I say; I'll pay you twice their value." + +"You 'low to pay fur the cotton, too?" + +"Into the river with them or I'll brain you!" he cried, maddened at +the weight and delay that were holding them back. + +The frightened animals seemed to ask nothing more than to plunge into +the troubled water; dragging their load with them. + +They were speeding rapidly towards the scene of catastrophe; but to +Hosmer they crawled--the moments were hours. "Hold on! hold fast!" he +called again and again to his wife. But even as he cried out, the +detached section of earth swayed, lurched to one side--plunged to the +other, and the whole mass was submerged--leaving the water above it in +wild agitation. + +A cry of horror went up from the spectators--all but Hosmer. He cast +aside his oar--threw off his coat and hat; worked an instant without +avail at his wet clinging boots, and with a leap was in the water, +swimming towards the spot where the cabin had gone down. The current +bore him on without much effort of his own. The flat was close up with +him; but he could think of it no longer as a means of rescue. Detached +pieces of timber from the ruined house were beginning to rise to the +surface. Then something floating softly on the water: a woman's dress, +but too far for him to reach it. + +When Fanny appeared again, Hosmer was close beside her. His left arm +was quickly thrown about her. She was insensible, and he remembered +that it was best so, for had she been in possession of her reason, she +might have struggled and impeded his movements. He held her +fast--close to him and turned to regain the shore. Another horrified +shriek went up from the occupants of the flat-boat not far away, and +Hosmer knew no more--for a great plunging beam struck him full upon +the forehead. + +When consciousness came back to him, he found that he lay extended in +the flat, which was fastened to the shore. The confused sound of many +voices mingled with a ringing din that filled his ears. A warm stream +was trickling down over his cheek. Another body lay beside him. Now +they were lifting him. Thrse's face was somewhere--very near, he saw +it dimly and that it was white--and he fell again into insensibility. + + + + +XVI + +To Him Who Waits. + + +The air was filled with the spring and all its promises. Full with the +sound of it, the smell of it, the deliciousness of it. Such sweet air; +soft and strong, like the touch of a brave woman's hand. The air of an +early March day in New Orleans. It was folly to shut it out from nook +or cranny. Worse than folly the lady thought who was making futile +endeavors to open the car window near which she sat. Her face had +grown pink with the effort. She had bit firmly into her red nether +lip, making it all the redder; and then sat down from the +unaccomplished feat to look ruefully at the smirched finger tips of +her Parisian gloves. This flavor of Paris was well about her; in the +folds of her graceful wrap that set to her fine shoulders. It was +plainly a part of the little black velvet toque that rested on her +blonde hair. Even the umbrella and one small valise which she had just +laid on the seat opposite her, had Paris written plain upon them. + +These were impressions which the little grey-garbed conventional +figure, some seats removed, had been noting since the striking lady +had entered the car. Points likely to have escaped a man, who--unless +a minutely observant one,--would only have seen that she was handsome +and worthy of an admiration that he might easily fancy rising to +devotion. + +Beside herself and the little grey-garbed figure was an interesting +family group at the far end of the car. A husband, but doubly a +father, surrounded and sat upon by a small band of offspring. A +wife--presumably a mother--absorbed with the view of the outside world +and the elaborate gold chain that hung around her neck. + +The presence of a large valise, an overcoat, a cane and an umbrella +disposed on another seat, bespoke a further occupant, likely to be at +present in the smoking car. + +The train pushed out from the dept. The porter finally made tardy +haste to the assistance of the lady who had been attempting to open +the window, and when the fresh morning air came blowing in upon her +Thrse leaned back in her seat with a sigh of content. + +There was a full day's journey before her. She would not reach +Place-du-Bois before dark, but she did not shrink from those hours +that were to be passed alone. She rather welcomed the quiet of them +after a visit to New Orleans full of pleasant disturbances. She was +eager to be home again. She loved Place-du-Bois with a love that was +real; that had grown deep since it was the one place in the world +which she could connect with the presence of David Hosmer. She had +often wondered--indeed was wondering now--if the memory of those +happenings to which he belonged would ever grow strange and far away +to her. It was a trick of memory with which she indulged herself on +occasion, this one of retrospection. Beginning with that June day when +she had sat in the hall and watched the course of a white sunshade +over the tops of the bending corn. + +Such idle thoughts they were with their mingling of bitter and +sweet--leading nowhere. But she clung to them and held to them as if +to a refuge which she might again and again return to. + +The picture of that one terrible day of Fanny's death, stood out in +sharp prominent lines; a touch of the old agony always coming back as +she remembered how she had believed Hosmer dead too--lying so pale and +bleeding before her. Then the parting which had held not so much of +sorrow as of awe and bewilderment in it: when sick, wounded and broken +he had gone away at once with the dead body of his wife; when the two +had clasped hands without words that dared be uttered. + +But that was a year ago. And Thrse thought many things might come +about in a year. Anyhow, might not such length of time be hoped to rub +the edge off a pain that was not by its nature lasting? + +That time of acute trouble seemed to have thrown Hosmer back upon his +old diffidence. The letter he wrote her after a painful illness which +prostrated him on his arrival in St. Louis, was stiff and formal, as +men's letters are apt to be, though it had breathed an untold story of +loyalty which she had felt at the time, and still cherished. Other +letters--a few--had gone back and forth between them, till Hosmer had +gone away to the sea-shore with Melicent, to recuperate, and June +coming, Thrse had sailed from New Orleans for Paris, whither she had +passed six months. + +Things had not gone well at Place-du-Bois during her absence, the +impecunious old kinsman whom she had left in charge, having a decided +preference for hunting the _Gros-Bec_ and catching trout in the lake +to supervising the methods of a troublesome body of blacks. So Thrse +had had much to engage her thoughts from the morbid channel into which +those of a more idle woman might have drifted. + +She went occasionally enough to the mill. There at least she was +always sure to hear Hosmer's name--and what a charm the sound of it +had for her. And what a delight it was to her eyes when she caught +sight of an envelope lying somewhere on desk or table of the office, +addressed in his handwriting. That was a weakness which she could not +pardon herself; but which staid with her, seeing that the same +trifling cause never failed to awaken the same unmeasured delight. She +had even trumped up an excuse one day for carrying off one of Hosmer's +business letters--indeed of the dryest in substance, and which, when +half-way home, she had torn into the smallest bits and scattered to +the winds, so overcome was she by a sense of her own absurdity. + +Thrse had undergone the ordeal of having her ticket scrutinized, +commented upon and properly punched by the suave conductor. The little +conventional figure had given over the contemplation of Parisian +styles and betaken herself to the absorbing pages of a novel which she +read through smoked glasses. The husband and father had peeled and +distributed his second outlay of bananas amongst his family. It was at +this moment that Thrse, looking towards the door, saw Hosmer enter +the car. + +She must have felt his presence somewhere near; his being there and +coming towards her was so much a part of her thoughts. She held out +her hand to him and made place beside her, as if he had left her but a +half hour before. All the astonishment was his. But he pressed her +hand and took the seat she offered him. + +"You knew I was on the train?" he asked. + +"Oh, no, how should I?" + +Then naturally followed question and answer. + +Yes, he was going to Place-du-Bois. + +No, the mill did not require his presence; it had been very well +managed during his absence. + +Yes, she had been to New Orleans. Had had a very agreeable visit. +Beautiful weather for city dwellers. But such dryness. So disastrous +to the planters. + +Yes--quite likely there would be rain next month: there usually was in +April. But indeed there was need of more than April showers for that +stiff land--that strip along the bayou, if he remembered? Oh, he +remembered quite well, but for all that he did not know what she was +talking about. She did not know herself. Then they grew silent; not +from any feeling of the absurdity of such speech between them, for +each had but listened to the other's voice. They became silently +absorbed by the consciousness of each other's nearness. She was +looking at his hand that rested on his knee, and thinking it fuller +than she remembered it before. She was aware of some change in him +which she had not the opportunity to define; but this firmness and +fullness of the hand was part of it. She looked up into his face then, +to find the same change there, together with a new content. But what +she noted beside was the dull scar on his forehead, coming out like a +red letter when his eyes looked into her own. The sight of it was like +a hurt. She had forgotten it might be there, telling its story of pain +through the rest of his life. + +"Thrse," Hosmer said finally, "won't you look at me?" + +She was looking from the window. She did not turn her head, but her +hand went out and met his that was on the seat close beside her. He +held it firmly; but soon with an impatient movement drew down the +loose wristlet of her glove and clasped his fingers around her warm +wrist. + +"Thrse," he said again; but more unsteadily, "look at me." + +"Not here," she answered him, "not now, I mean." And presently she +drew her hand away from him and held it for a moment pressed firmly +over her eyes. Then she looked at him with brave loving glance. + +"It's been so long," she said, with the suspicion of a sigh. + +"Too long," he returned, "I couldn't have borne it but for you--the +thought of you always present with me; helping me to take myself out +of the past. That was why I waited--till I could come to you free. +Have you an idea, I wonder, how you have been a promise, and can be +the fulfillment of every good that life may give to a man?" + +"No, I don't know," she said a little hopelessly, taking his hand +again, "I have seen myself at fault in following what seemed the only +right. I feel as if there were no way to turn for the truth. Old +supports appear to be giving way beneath me. They were so secure +before. It commenced, you remember--oh, you know when it must have +begun. But do you think, David, that it's right we should find our +happiness out of that past of pain and sin and trouble?" + +"Thrse," said Hosmer firmly, "the truth in its entirety isn't given +to man to know--such knowledge, no doubt, would be beyond human +endurance. But we make a step towards it, when we learn that there is +rottenness and evil in the world, masquerading as right and +morality--when we learn to know the living spirit from the dead +letter. I have not cared to stop in this struggle of life to question. +You, perhaps, wouldn't dare to alone. Together, dear one, we will work +it out. Be sure there is a way--we may not find it in the end, but we +will at least have tried." + + + + +XVII + +Conclusion. + + +One month after their meeting on the train, Hosmer and Thrse had +gone together to Centerville where they had been made one, as the +saying goes, by the good Pre Antoine; and without more ado, had +driven back to Place-du-Bois: Mr. and Mrs. Hosmer. The event had +caused more than the proverbial nine days' talk. Indeed, now, two +months after, it was still the absorbing theme that occupied the +dwellers of the parish: and such it promised to remain till supplanted +by something of sufficient dignity and importance to usurp its place. + +But of the opinions, favorable and other, that were being exchanged +regarding them and their marriage, Hosmer and Thrse heard little and +would have cared less, so absorbed were they in the overmastering +happiness that was holding them in thralldom. They could not yet bring +themselves to look at it calmly--this happiness. Even the intoxication +of it seemed a thing that promised to hold. Through love they had +sought each other, and now the fulfillment of that love had brought +more than tenfold its promise to both. It was a royal love; a generous +love and a rich one in its revelation. It was a magician that had +touched life for them and changed it into a glory. In giving them to +each other, it was moving them to the fullness of their own +capabilities. Much to do in two little months; but what cannot love +do? + +"Could it give a woman more than this?" Thrse was saying softly to +herself. Her hands were clasped as in prayer and pressed together +against her bosom. Her head bowed and her lips touching the +intertwined fingers. She spoke of her own emotion; of a certain sweet +turmoil that was stirring within her, as she stood out in the soft +June twilight waiting for her husband to come. Waiting to hear the new +ring in his voice that was like a song of joy. Waiting to see that new +strength and courage in his face, of whose significance she lost +nothing. To see the new light that had come in his eyes with +happiness. All gifts which love had given her. + +"Well, at last," she said, going to the top of the steps to meet him +when he came. Her welcome was in her eyes. + +"At last," he echoed, with a sigh of relief; pressing her hand which +she held out to him and raising it to his lips. + +He did not let it go, but passed it through his arm, and together they +turned to walk up and down the veranda. + +"You didn't expect me at noon, did you?" he asked, looking down at +her. + +"No; you said you'd be likely not to come; but I hoped for you all the +same. I thought you'd manage it some way." + +"No," he answered her, laughing, "my efforts failed. I used even +strategy. Held out the temptation of your delightful Creole dishes and +all that. Nothing was of any avail. They were all business and I had +to be all business too, the whole day long. It was horribly stupid." + +She pressed his arm significantly. + +"And do you think they will put all that money into the mill, David? +Into the business?" + +"No doubt of it, dear. But they're shrewd fellows: didn't commit +themselves in any way. Yet I could see they were impressed. We rode +for hours through the woods this morning and they didn't leave a stick +of timber unscrutinized. We were out on the lake, too, and they were +like ferrets into every cranny of the mill." + +"But won't that give you more to do?" + +"No, it will give me less: division of labor, don't you see? It will +give me more time to be with you." + +"And to help with the plantation," his wife suggested. + +"No, no, Madame Thrse," he laughed, "I'll not rob you of your +occupation. I'll put no bungling hand into your concerns. I know a +sound piece of timber when I see it; but I should hardly be able to +tell a sample of Sea Island cotton from the veriest low middling." + +"Oh, that's absurd, David. Do you know you're getting to talk such +nonsense since we're married; you remind me sometimes of Melicent." + +"Of Melicent? Heaven forbid! Why, I have a letter from her," he said, +feeling in his breast pocket. "The size and substance of it have +actually weighted my pocket the whole day." + +"Melicent talking weighty things? That's something new," said Thrse +interested. + +"Is Melicent ever anything else than new?" he enquired. + +They went and sat together on the bench at the corner of the veranda, +where the fading Western light came over their shoulders. A quizzical +smile came into his eyes as he unfolded his sister's letter--with +Thrse still holding his arm and sitting very close to him. + +"Well," he said, glancing over the first few pages--his wife +following--"she's given up her charming little flat and her quaint +little English woman: concludes I was right about the expense, etc., +etc. But here comes the gist of the matter," he said, reading from the +letter--"'I know you won't object to the trip, David, I have my heart +so set on it. The expense will be trifling, seeing there are four of +us to divide carriage hire, restaurant and all that: and it counts. + +"'If you only knew Mrs. Griesmann I'd feel confident of your consent. +You'd be perfectly fascinated with her. She's one of those highly +gifted women who knows everything. She's very much interested in me. +Thinks to have found that I have a quick comprehensive intellectualism +(she calls it) that has been misdirected. I think there is something +in that, David; you know yourself I never did care really for society. +She says it's impossible to ever come to a true knowledge of life as +it is--which should be every one's aim--without studying certain +fundamental truths and things.'" + +"Oh," breathed Thrse, overawed. + +"But wait--but listen," said Hosmer, "'Natural History and all +that--and we're going to take that magnificent trip through the +West--the Yosemite and so forth. It appears the flora of California is +especially interesting and we're to carry those delicious little tin +boxes strapped over our shoulders to hold specimens. Her son and +daughter are both, in their way, striking. He isn't handsome; rather +the contrary; but so serene and collected--so intensely bitter--his +mother tells me he's a pessimist. And the daughter really puts me to +shame, child as she is, with the amount of her knowledge. She labels +all her mother's specimens in Latin. Oh, I feel there's so much to be +learned. Mrs. Griesmann thinks I ought to wear glasses during the +trip. Says we often require them without knowing it ourselves--that +they are so restful. She has some theory about it. I'm trying a pair, +and see a great deal better through them than I expected to. Only they +don't hold on very well, especially when I laugh. + +"'Who do you suppose seized on to me in Vandervoort's the other day, +but that impertinent Mrs. Belle Worthington! Positively took me by the +coat and commenced to gush about dear sister Thrse. She said: "I +tell you what, my dear--" called me my dear at the highest pitch, and +that odious Mrs. Van Wycke behind us listening and pretending to +examine a lace handkerchief. "That Mrs. Lafirme's a trump," she +said--"too good for most any man. Hope you won't take offense, but I +must say, your brother David's a perfect stick--it's what I always +said." Can you conceive of such shocking impertinence?' + +"Well; Belle Worthington does possess the virtue of candor," said +Hosmer amused and folding the letter. "That's about all there is, +except a piece of scandal concerning people you don't know; that +wouldn't interest you." + +"But it would interest me," Thrse insisted, with a little wifely +resentment that her husband should have a knowledge of people that +excluded her. + +"Then you shall hear it," he said, turning to the letter again. "Let's +see--'conceive--shocking impertinence--' oh, here it is. + +"'Don't know if you have learned the horrible scandal; too dreadful +to talk about. I shall send you the paper. I always knew that Lou +Dawson was a perfidious creature--and Bert Rodney! You never did like +him, David; but he was always so much the gentleman in his +manners--you must admit that. Who could have dreamed it of him. Poor +Mrs. Rodney is after all the one to be pitied. She is utterly +prostrated. Refuses to see even her most intimate friends. It all came +of those two vile wretches thinking Jack Dawson out of town when he +wasn't; for he was right there following them around in their +perambulations. And the outcome is that Mr. Rodney has his beauty +spoiled they say forever; the shot came very near being fatal. But +poor, poor Mrs. Rodney! + +"'Well, good-bye, you dearest David mine. How I wish you both knew +Mrs. Griesmann. Give that sweet sister Thrse as many kisses as she +will stand for me. + + Melicent.'" + +This time Hosmer put the letter into his pocket, and Thrse asked +with a little puzzled air: "What do you suppose is going to become of +Melicent, anyway, David?" + +"I don't know, love, unless she marries my friend Homeyer." + +"Now, David, you are trying to mystify me. I believe there's a streak +of perversity in you after all." + +"Of course there is; and here comes Mandy to say that 'suppa's gittin' +cole.'" + +"Aunt B'lindy 'low suppa on de table gittin' cole," said Mandy, +retreating at once from the fire of their merriment. + +Thrse arose and held her two hands out to her husband. + +He took them but did not rise; only leaned further back on the seat +and looked up at her. + +"Oh, supper's a bore; don't you think so?" he asked. + +"No, I don't," she replied. "I'm hungry, and so are you. Come, David." + +"But look, Thrse, just when the moon has climbed over the top of +that live-oak? We can't go now. And then Melicent's request; we must +think about that." + +"Oh, surely not, David," she said, drawing back. + +"Then let me tell you something," and he drew her head down and +whispered something in her pink ear that he just brushed with his +lips. It made Thrse laugh and turn very rosy in the moonlight. + +Can that be Hosmer? Is this Thrse? Fie, fie. It is time we were +leaving them. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At Fault, by Kate Chopin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT FAULT *** + +***** This file should be named 23810-8.txt or 23810-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/8/1/23810/ + +Produced by Bernard Koloski + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: At Fault + +Author: Kate Chopin + +Release Date: December 10, 2007 [EBook #23810] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT FAULT *** + + + + +Produced by Bernard Koloski + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="tn">Transcriber’s note: There was no table of contents in the original book; +one has been added in this project to ease the navigation.</p> + + + +<h1>At Fault</h1> + +<h2>by Kate Chopin</h2> + + +<div class="toc"> +<a id="toc" name="toc"></a> +<p class="min1em">Part <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></p> + +<ul> +<li><a href="#I_I">The Mistress of Place-du-Bois.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_II">At the Mill.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_III">In the Pirogue.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_IV">A Small Interruption.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_V">In the Pine Woods.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_VI">Melicent Talks.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_VII">Painful Disclosures.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_VIII">Treats of Melicent.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_IX">Face to Face.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_X">Fanny’s Friends.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_XI">The Self-Assumed Burden.</a></li> +<li><a href="#I_XII">Severing Old Ties.</a></li> +</ul> + +<p class="min1em">Part <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></p> + +<ul> +<li><a href="#II_I">Fanny’s First Night at Place-du-Bois.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_II">“Neva to See You!”</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_III">A Talk Under the Cedar Tree.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_IV">Thrse Crosses the River.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_V">One Afternoon.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_VI">One Night.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_VII">Melicent Leaves Place-du-Bois.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_VIII">With Loose Rein.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_IX">The Reason Why.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_X">Perplexing Things.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_XI">A Social Evening.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_XII">Tidings That Sting.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_XIII">Melicent Hears the News.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_XIV">A Step Too Far.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_XV">A Fateful Solution.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_XVI">To Him Who Waits.</a></li> +<li><a href="#II_XVII">Conclusion.</a></li> +</ul> +</div> + + +<h2>PART <abbr title="1">I</abbr></h2> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_I" name="I_I"></a><abbr title="1">I</abbr><br> + +The Mistress of Place-du-Bois.</h2> + + +<p>When Jrme Lafirme died, his neighbors awaited the results of his +sudden taking off with indolent watchfulness. It was a matter of +unusual interest to them that a plantation of four thousand acres had +been left unincumbered to the disposal of a handsome, inconsolable, +childless Creole widow of thirty. A <span class="italic" lang="fr">btise</span> of some sort might safely +be looked for. But time passing, the anticipated folly failed to +reveal itself; and the only wonder was that Thrse Lafirme so +successfully followed the methods of her departed husband.</p> + +<p>Of course Thrse had wanted to die with her Jrme, feeling that life +without him held nothing that could reconcile her to its further +endurance. For days she lived alone with her grief; shutting out the +appeals that came to her from the demoralized “hands,” and unmindful +of the disorder that gathered about her. Till Uncle Hiram came one day +with a respectful tender of sympathy, offered in the guise of a +reckless misquoting of Scripture—and with a grievance.</p> + +<p>“Mistuss,” he said, “I ’lowed ’twar best to come to de house an’ tell +you; fur Massa he alluz did say ‘Hi’urm, I counts on you to keep a eye +open endurin’ my appersunce;’ you ricollic, marm?” addressing an +expanse of black bordered cambric that veiled the features of his +mistress. “Things is a goin’ wrong; dat dey is. I don’t wants to name +no names ’doubt I’se ’bleeged to; but dey done start a kiarrin’ de +cotton seed off de place, and dats how.”</p> + +<p>If Hiram’s information had confined itself to the bare statement of +things “goin’ wrong,” such intimation, of its nature vague and +susceptible of uncertain interpretation, might have failed to rouse +Thrse from her lethargy of grief. But that wrong doing presented as +a tangible abuse and defiance of authority, served to move her to +action. She felt at once the weight and sacredness of a trust, whose +acceptance brought consolation and awakened unsuspected powers of +doing.</p> + +<p>In spite of Uncle Hiram’s parting prediction “de cotton ’ll be a goin’ +naxt” no more seed was hauled under cover of darkness from +Place-du-Bois.</p> + +<p>The short length of this Louisiana plantation stretched along Cane +River, meeting the water when that stream was at its highest, with a +thick growth of cotton-wood trees; save where a narrow convenient +opening had been cut into their midst, and where further down the pine +hills started in abrupt prominence from the water and the dead level +of land on either side of them. These hills extended in a long line of +gradual descent far back to the wooded borders of Lac du Bois; and +within the circuit which they formed on the one side, and the +irregular half circle of a sluggish bayou on the other, lay the +cultivated open ground of the plantation—rich in its exhaustless +powers of reproduction.</p> + +<p>Among changes which the railroad brought soon after Jrme Lafirme’s +death, and which were viewed by many as of questionable benefit, was +one which drove Thrse to seek another domicile. The old homestead +that nestled to the hill side and close to the water’s edge, had been +abandoned to the inroads of progressive civilization; and Mrs. Lafirme +had rebuilt many rods away from the river and beyond sight of the +mutilated dwelling, converted now into a section house. In building, +she avoided the temptations offered by modern architectural +innovations, and clung to the simplicity of large rooms and broad +verandas: a style whose merits had stood the test of easy-going and +comfort-loving generations.</p> + +<p>The negro quarters were scattered at wide intervals over the land, +breaking with picturesque irregularity into the systematic division of +field from field; and in the early spring-time gleaming in their new +coat of whitewash against the tender green of the sprouting cotton and +corn.</p> + +<p>Thrse loved to walk the length of the wide verandas, armed with her +field-glass, and to view her surrounding possessions with comfortable +satisfaction. Then her gaze swept from cabin to cabin; from patch to +patch; up to the pine-capped hills, and down to the station which +squatted a brown and ugly intruder within her fair domain.</p> + +<p>She had made pouting resistance to this change at first, opposing it +step by step with a conservatism that yielded only to the resistless. +She pictured a visionary troop of evils coming in the wake of the +railroad, which, in her eyes no conceivable benefits could mitigate. +The occasional tramp, she foresaw as an army; and the travelers whom +chance deposited at the store that adjoined the station, she dreaded +as an endless procession of intruders forcing themselves upon her +privacy.</p> + +<p>Grgoire, the young nephew of Mrs. Lafirme, whose duty on the +plantation was comprehended in doing as he was bid, qualified by a +propensity for doing as he liked, rode up from the store one day in +the reckless fashion peculiar to Southern youth, breathless with the +information that a stranger was there wishing audience with her.</p> + +<p>Thrse at once bristled with objections. Here was a confirmation of +her worst dread. But encouraged by Grgoire’s reiteration “he ’pear to +me like a nice sort o’ person,” she yielded a grudging assent to the +interview.</p> + +<p>She sat within the wide hall-way beyond the glare and heat that were +beating mercilessly down upon the world out of doors, engaged in a +light work not so exacting as to keep her thoughts and glance from +wandering. Looking through the wide open back doors, the picture which +she saw was a section of the perfect lawn that encircled the house for +an acre around, and from which Hiram was slowly raking the leaves cast +from a clump of tall magnolias. Beneath the spreading shade of an +umbrella-China tree, lay the burly Hector, but half awake to the +possible nearness of tramps; and Betsy, a piece of youthful ebony in +blue cottonade, was crossing leisurely on her way to the poultry yard; +unheeding the scorching sun-rays that she thought were sufficiently +parried by the pan of chick feed that she balanced adroitly on her +bushy black head.</p> + +<p>At the front, the view at certain seasons would have been clear and +unbroken: to the station, the store, and out-lying hills. But now she +could see beyond the lawn only a quivering curtain of rich green which +the growing corn spread before the level landscape, and above whose +swaying heads appeared occasionally the top of an advancing white +sun-shade.</p> + +<p>Thrse was of a roundness of figure suggesting a future of excessive +fullness if not judiciously guarded; and she was fair, with a warm +whiteness that a passing thought could deepen into color. The waving +blonde hair, gathered in an abundant coil on top of her head, grew +away with a pretty sweep from the temples, the low forehead and nape +of the white neck that showed above a frill of soft lace. Her eyes +were blue, as certain gems are; that deep blue that lights, and glows, +and tells things of the soul. When David Hosmer presented himself, +they were intense only with expectancy and the color was in her cheek +like the blush in a shell.</p> + +<p>He was a tall individual of perhaps forty; thin and sallow. His black +hair was streaked abundantly with grey, and his face marked with +premature lines; left there by care, no doubt, and, by a too close +attention to what men are pleased to call the main chances of life.</p> + +<p>“A serious one,” was Thrse’s first thought in looking at him. “A man +who has never learned to laugh or who has forgotten how.” Though +plainly feeling the effects of the heat, he did not seem to appreciate +the relief offered by the grateful change into this shadowy, sweet +smelling, cool retreat; used as he was to ignore the comforting things +of life when presented to him as irrelevant to that dominant main +chance. He accepted under protest a glass of ice water from the +wide-eyed Betsy, and suffered a fan to be thrust into his hand, +seemingly to save his time or his timidity by its possibly unheeded +rejection.</p> + +<p>“Lor’-zee folks,” exclaimed the observant Betsy on re-entering the +kitchen, “dey’se a man in yonda, look like he gwine eat somebody up. I +was fur gittin’ ’way quick me.”</p> + +<p>It can be readily imagined that Hosmer lost little time in preliminary +small talk. He introduced himself vaguely as from the West; then +perceiving the need of being more specific as from Saint Louis. She +had guessed he was no Southerner. He had come to Mrs. Lafirme on the +part of himself and others with a moneyed offer for the privilege of +cutting timber from her land for a given number of years. The amount +named was alluring, but here was proposed another change and she felt +plainly called on for resistance.</p> + +<p>The company which he represented had in view the erection of a sawmill +some two miles back in the woods, close beside the bayou and at a +convenient distance from the lake. He was not wordy, nor was he eager +in urging his plans; only in a quiet way insistent in showing points +to be considered in her own favor which she would be likely herself to +overlook.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lafirme, a clever enough business woman, was moved by no undue +haste to give her answer. She begged for time to think the matter +over, which Hosmer readily agreed to; expressing a hope that a +favorable answer be sent to him at Natchitoches, where he would await +her convenience. Then resisting rather than declining all further +hospitality, he again took his way through the scorching fields.</p> + +<p>Thrse wanted but time to become familiar with this further change. +Alone she went out to her beloved woods, and at the hush of mid-day, +bade a tearful farewell to the silence.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_II" name="I_II"></a><abbr title="2">II</abbr><br> + +At the Mill.</h2> + + +<p>David Hosmer sat alone in his little office of roughly fashioned pine +board. So small a place, that with his desk and his clerk’s desk, a +narrow bed in one corner, and two chairs, there was scant room for a +man to more than turn himself comfortably about. He had just +dispatched his clerk with the daily bundle of letters to the +post-office, two miles away in the Lafirme store, and he now turned +with the air of a man who had well earned his moment of leisure, to +the questionable relaxation of adding columns and columns of figures.</p> + +<p>The mill’s unceasing buzz made pleasant music to his ears and stirred +reflections of a most agreeable nature. A year had gone by since Mrs. +Lafirme had consented to Hosmer’s proposal; and already the business +more than gave promise of justifying the venture. Orders came in from +the North and West more rapidly than they could be filled. That +“Cypresse Funerall” which stands in grim majesty through the dense +forests of Louisiana had already won its just recognition; and +Hosmer’s appreciation of a successful business venture was showing +itself in a little more pronounced stoop of shoulder, a deepening of +pre-occupation and a few additional lines about mouth and forehead.</p> + +<p>Hardly had the clerk gone with his letters than a light footstep +sounded on the narrow porch; the quick tap of a parasol was heard on +the door-sill; a pleasant voice asking, “Any admission except on +business?” and Thrse crossed the small room and seated herself +beside Hosmer’s desk before giving him time to arise.</p> + +<p>She laid her hand and arm,—bare to the elbow—across his work, and +said, looking at him reproachfully:—</p> + +<p>“Is this the way you keep a promise?”</p> + +<p>“A promise?” he questioned, smiling awkwardly and looking furtively at +the white arm, then very earnestly at the ink-stand beyond.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Didn’t you promise to do no work after five o’clock?”</p> + +<p>“But this is merely pastime,” he said, touching the paper, yet leaving +it undisturbed beneath the fair weight that was pressing it down. “My +work is finished: you must have met Henry with the letters.”</p> + +<p>“No, I suppose he went through the woods; we came on the hand-car. Oh, +dear! It’s an ungrateful task, this one of reform,” and she leaned +back, fanning leisurely, whilst he proceeded to throw the contents of +his desk into hopeless disorder by pretended efforts at arrangement.</p> + +<p>“My husband used sometimes to say, and no doubt with reason,” she +continued, “that in my eagerness for the rest of mankind to do right, +I was often in danger of losing sight of such necessity for myself.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, there could be no fear of that,” said Hosmer with a short laugh. +There was no further pretext for continued occupation with his pens +and pencils and rulers, so he turned towards Thrse, rested an arm on +the desk, pulled absently at his black moustache, and crossing his +knee, gazed with deep concern at the toe of his boot, and set of his +trouser about the ankle.</p> + +<p>“You are not what my friend Homeyer would call an individualist,” he +ventured, “since you don’t grant a man the right to follow the +promptings of his character.”</p> + +<p>“No, I’m no individualist, if to be one is to permit men to fall into +hurtful habits without offering protest against it. I’m losing faith +in that friend Homeyer, who I strongly suspect is a mythical apology +for your own short-comings.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed he’s no myth; but a friend who is fond of going into such +things and allows me the benefit of his deeper perceptions.”</p> + +<p>“You having no time, well understood. But if his influence has had the +merit of drawing your thoughts from business once in a while we won’t +quarrel with it.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Lafirme,” said Hosmer, seeming moved to pursue the subject, and +addressing the spray of white blossoms that adorned Thrse’s black +hat, “you admit, I suppose, that in urging your views upon me, you +have in mind the advancement of my happiness?”</p> + +<p>“Well understood.”</p> + +<p>“Then why wish to substitute some other form of enjoyment for the one +which I find in following my inclinations?”</p> + +<p>“Because there is an unsuspected selfishness in your inclinations that +works harm to yourself and to those around you. I want you to know,” +she continued warmly, “the good things of life that cheer and warm, +that are always at hand.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think the happiness of Melicent or—or others could be +materially lessened by my fondness for money getting?” he asked dryly, +with a faint elevation of eyebrow.</p> + +<p>“Yes, in proportion as it deprives them of a charm which any man’s +society loses, when pursuing one object in life, he grows insensible +to every other. But I’ll not scold any more. I’ve made myself +troublesome enough for one day. You haven’t asked about Melicent. It’s +true,” she laughed, “I haven’t given you much chance. She’s out on the +lake with Grgoire.”</p> + +<p>“Ah?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, in the pirogue. A dangerous little craft, I’m afraid; but she +tells me she can swim. I suppose it’s all right.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Melicent will look after herself.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer had great faith in his sister Melicent’s ability to look after +herself; and it must be granted that the young lady fully justified +his belief in her.</p> + +<p>“She enjoys her visit more than I thought she would,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Melicent’s a dear girl,” replied Thrse cordially, “and a wise one +too in guarding herself against a somber influence that I know,” with +a meaning glance at Hosmer, who was preparing to close his desk.</p> + +<p>She suddenly perceived the picture of a handsome boy, far back in one +of the pigeon-holes, and with the familiarity born of country +intercourse, she looked intently at it, remarking upon the boy’s +beauty.</p> + +<p>“A child whom I loved very much,” said Hosmer. “He’s dead,” and he +closed the desk, turning the key in the lock with a sharp click which +seemed to add—“and buried.”</p> + +<p>Thrse then approached the open door, leaned her back against its +casing, and turned her pretty profile towards Hosmer, who, it need not +be supposed, was averse to looking at it—only to being caught in the +act.</p> + +<p>“I want to look in at the mill before work closes,” she said; and not +waiting for an answer she went on to ask—moved by some association of +ideas:—</p> + +<p>“How is Joint doing?”</p> + +<p>“Always unruly, the foreman tells me. I don’t believe we shall be able +to keep him.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer then spoke a few words through the telephone which connected +with the agent’s desk at the station, put on his great slouch hat, and +thrusting keys and hands into his pocket, joined Thrse in the +door-way.</p> + +<p>Quitting the office and making a sharp turn to the left, they came in +direct sight of the great mill. She quickly made her way past the huge +piles of sawed timber, not waiting for her companion, who loitered at +each step of the way, with observant watchfulness. Then mounting the +steep stairs that led to the upper portions of the mill, she went at +once to her favorite spot, quite on the edge of the open platform that +overhung the dam. Here she watched with fascinated delight the great +logs hauled dripping from the water, following each till it had +changed to the clean symmetry of sawed planks. The unending work made +her giddy. For no one was there a moment of rest, and she could well +understand the open revolt of the surly Joint; for he rode the day +long on that narrow car, back and forth, back and forth, with his +heart in the pine hills and knowing that his little Creole pony was +roaming the woods in vicious idleness and his rifle gathering an +unsightly rust on the cabin wall at home.</p> + +<p>The boy gave but ugly acknowledgment to Thrse’s amiable nod; for he +thought she was one upon whom partly rested the fault of this +intrusive Industry which had come to fire the souls of indolent +fathers with a greedy ambition for gain, at the sore expense of +revolting youth.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_III" name="I_III"></a><abbr title="3">III</abbr><br> + +In the Pirogue.</h2> + + +<p>“You got to set mighty still in this pirogue,” said Grgoire, as with +a long oar-stroke he pulled out into mid stream.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know,” answered Melicent complacently, arranging herself +opposite him in the long narrow boat: all sense of danger which the +situation might arouse being dulled by the attractiveness of a new +experience.</p> + +<p>Her resemblance to Hosmer ended with height and slenderness of figure, +olive tinted skin, and eyes and hair which were of that dark brown +often miscalled black; but unlike his, her face was awake with an +eagerness to know and test the novelty and depth of unaccustomed +sensation. She had thus far lived an unstable existence, free from the +weight of responsibilities, with a notion lying somewhere deep in her +consciousness that the world must one day be taken seriously; but that +contingency was yet too far away to disturb the harmony of her days.</p> + +<p>She had eagerly responded to her brother’s suggestion of spending a +summer with him in Louisiana. Hitherto, having passed her summers +North, West, or East as alternating caprice prompted, she was ready at +a word to fit her humor to the novelty of a season at the South. She +enjoyed in advance the startling effect which her announced intention +produced upon her intimate circle at home; thinking that her whim +deserved the distinction of eccentricity with which they chose to +invest it. But Melicent was chiefly moved by the prospect of an +uninterrupted sojourn with her brother, whom she loved blindly, and to +whom she attributed qualities of mind and heart which she thought the +world had discovered to use against him.</p> + +<p>“You got to set mighty still in this pirogue.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know; you told me so before,” and she laughed.</p> + +<p>“W’at are you laughin’ at?” asked Grgoire with amused but uncertain +expectancy.</p> + +<p>“Laughing at you, Grgoire; how can I help it?” laughing again.</p> + +<p>“Betta wait tell I do somethin’ funny, I reckon. Ain’t this a putty +sight?” he added, referring to the dense canopy of an overarching +tree, beneath which they were gliding, and whose extreme branches +dipped quite into the slow moving water.</p> + +<p>The scene had not attracted Melicent. For she had been engaged in +observing her companion rather closely; his personality holding her +with a certain imaginative interest.</p> + +<p>The young man whom she so closely scrutinized was slightly undersized, +but of close and brawny build. His hands were not so refinedly white +as those of certain office bred young men of her acquaintance, yet +they were not coarsened by undue toil: it being somewhat an axiom with +him to do nothing that an available “nigger” might do for him.</p> + +<p>Close fitting, high-heeled boots of fine quality incased his feet, in +whose shapeliness he felt a pardonable pride; for a young man’s +excellence was often measured in the circle which he had frequented, +by the possession of such a foot. A peculiar grace in the dance and a +talent for bold repartee were further characteristics which had made +Grgoire’s departure keenly felt among certain belles of upper Red +River. His features were handsome, of sharp and refined cut; and his +eyes black and brilliant as eyes of an alert and intelligent animal +sometimes are. Melicent could not reconcile his voice to her liking; +it was too softly low and feminine, and carried a note of pleading or +pathos, unless he argued with his horse, his dog, or a “nigger,” at +which times, though not unduly raised, it acquired a biting quality +that served the purpose of relieving him from further form of +insistence.</p> + +<p>He pulled rapidly and in silence down the bayou, that was now so +entirely sheltered from the open light of the sky by the meeting +branches above, as to seem a dim leafy tunnel fashioned by man’s +ingenuity. There were no perceptible banks, for the water spread out +on either side of them, further than they could follow its flashings +through the rank underbrush. The dull plash of some object falling +into the water, or the wild call of a lonely bird were the only sounds +that broke upon the stillness, beside the monotonous dipping of the +oars and the occasional low undertones of their own voices. When +Grgoire called the girl’s attention to an object near by, she fancied +it was the protruding stump of a decaying tree; but reaching for his +revolver and taking quiet aim, he drove a ball into the black upturned +nozzle that sent it below the surface with an angry splash.</p> + +<p>“Will he follow us?” she asked, mildly agitated.</p> + +<p>“Oh no; he’s glad ’nough to git out o’ the way. You betta put down yo’ +veil,” he added a moment later.</p> + +<p>Before she could ask a reason—for it was not her fashion to obey at +word of command—the air was filled with the doleful hum of a gray +swarm of mosquitoes, which attacked them fiercely.</p> + +<p>“You didn’t tell me the bayou was the refuge of such savage +creatures,” she said, fastening her veil closely about face and neck, +but not before she had felt the sharpness of their angry sting.</p> + +<p>“I reckoned you’d ’a knowed all about it: seems like you know +everything.” After a short interval he added, “you betta take yo’ veil +off.”</p> + +<p>She was amused at Grgoire’s authoritative tone and she said to him +laughing, yet obeying his suggestion, which carried a note of command: +“you shall tell me always, why I should do things.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” he replied; “because they ain’t any mo’ mosquitoes; +because I want you to see somethin’ worth seein’ afta while; and +because I like to look at you,” which he was doing, with the innocent +boldness of a forward child. “Ain’t that ’nough reasons?”</p> + +<p>“More than enough,” she replied shortly.</p> + +<p>The rank and clustering vegetation had become denser as they went on, +forming an impenetrable tangle on either side, and pressing so closely +above that they often needed to lower their heads to avoid the blow of +some drooping branch. Then a sudden and unlooked for turn in the bayou +carried them out upon the far-spreading waters of the lake, with the +broad canopy of the open sky above them.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” cried Melicent, in surprise. Her exclamation was like a sigh of +relief which comes at the removal of some pressure from body or brain.</p> + +<p>The wildness of the scene caught upon her erratic fancy, speeding it +for a quick moment into the realms of romance. She was an Indian +maiden of the far past, fleeing and seeking with her dusky lover some +wild and solitary retreat on the borders of this lake, which offered +them no seeming foot-hold save such as they would hew themselves with +axe or tomahawk. Here and there, a grim cypress lifted its head above +the water, and spread wide its moss covered arms inviting refuge to +the great black-winged buzzards that circled over and about it in +mid-air. Nameless voices—weird sounds that awake in a Southern forest +at twilight’s approach,—were crying a sinister welcome to the +settling gloom.</p> + +<p>“This is a place thet can make a man sad, I tell you,” said Grgoire, +resting his oars, and wiping the moisture from his forehead. “I +wouldn’t want to be yere alone, not fur any money.”</p> + +<p>“It is an awful place,” replied Melicent with a little appreciative +shudder; adding “do you consider me a bodily protection?” and feebly +smiling into his face.</p> + +<p>“Oh; I ain’t ’fraid o’ any thing I can see an on’erstan’. I can han’le +mos’ any thing thet’s got a body. But they do tell some mighty queer +tales ’bout this lake an’ the pine hills yonda.”</p> + +<p>“Queer—how?”</p> + +<p>“W’y, ole McFarlane’s buried up there on the hill; an’ they’s folks +’round yere says he walks about o’ nights; can’t res’ in his grave fur +the niggas he’s killed.”</p> + +<p>“Gracious! and who was old McFarlane?”</p> + +<p>“The meanest w’ite man thet ever lived, seems like. Used to own this +place long befo’ the Lafirmes got it. They say he’s the person that +Mrs. W’at’s her name wrote about in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”</p> + +<p>“Legree? I wonder if it could be true?” Melicent asked with interest.</p> + +<p>“Thet’s w’at they all say: ask any body.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll take me to his grave, won’t you Grgoire,” she entreated.</p> + +<p>“Well, not this evenin’—I reckon not. It’ll have to be broad day, an’ +the sun shinin’ mighty bright w’en I take you to ole McFarlane’s +grave.”</p> + +<p>They had retraced their course and again entered the bayou, from which +the light had now nearly vanished, making it needful that they watch +carefully to escape the hewn logs that floated in numbers upon the +water.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t suppose you were ever sad, Grgoire,” Melicent said gently.</p> + +<p>“Oh my! yes;” with frank acknowledgment. “You ain’t ever seen me w’en +I was real lonesome. ’Tain’t so bad sence you come. But times w’en I +git to thinkin’ ’bout home, I’m boun’ to cry—seems like I can’t he’p +it.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you ever leave home?” she asked sympathetically.</p> + +<p>“You see w’en father died, fo’ year ago, mother she went back to +France, t’her folks there; she never could stan’ this country—an’ +lef’ us boys to manage the place. Hec, he took charge the firs’ year +an’ run it in debt. Placide an’ me did’n’ have no betta luck the naxt +year. Then the creditors come up from New Orleans an’ took holt. +That’s the time I packed my duds an’ lef’.”</p> + +<p>“And you came here?”</p> + +<p>“No, not at firs’. You see the Santien boys had a putty hard name in +the country. Aunt Thrse, she’d fallen out with father years ago +’bout the way, she said, he was bringin’ us up. Father, he wasn’t the +man to take nothin’ from nobody. Never ’lowed any of us to come down +yere. I was in Texas, goin’ to the devil I reckon, w’en she sent for +me, an’ yere I am.”</p> + +<p>“And here you ought to stay, Grgoire.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they ain’t no betta woman in the worl’ then Aunt Thrse, w’en +you do like she wants. See ’em yonda waitin’ fur us? Reckon they +thought we was drowned.”<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_IV" name="I_IV"></a><abbr title="4">IV</abbr><br> + +A Small Interruption.</h2> + +<p>When Melicent came to visit her brother, Mrs. Lafirme persuaded him to +abandon his uncomfortable quarters at the mill and take up his +residence in the cottage, which stood just beyond the lawn of the big +house. This cottage had been furnished <span class="italic" lang="fr">de pied en cap</span> many years +before, in readiness against an excess of visitors, which in days gone +by was not of infrequent occurrence at Place-du-Bois. It was +Melicent’s delighted intention to keep house here. And she foresaw no +obstacle in the way of procuring the needed domestic aid in a place +which was clearly swarming with idle women and children.</p> + +<p>“Got a cook yet, Mel?” was Hosmer’s daily enquiry on returning home, +to which Melicent was as often forced to admit that she had no cook, +but was not without abundant hope of procuring one.</p> + +<p>Betsy’s Aunt Cynthy had promised with a sincerity which admitted not +of doubt, that “de Lord willin’” she would “be on han’ Monday, time +to make de mornin’ coffee.” Which assurance had afforded Melicent a +Sunday free of disturbing doubts concerning the future of her +undertaking. But who may know what the morrow will bring forth? Cynthy +had been “tuck sick in de night.” So ran the statement of the wee +pickaninny who appeared at Melicent’s gate many hours later than +morning coffee time: delivering his message in a high voice of +complaint, and disappearing like a vision without further word.</p> + +<p>Uncle Hiram, then called to the breach, had staked his patriarchal +honor on the appearance of his niece Suze on Tuesday. Melicent and +Thrse meeting Suze some days later in a field path, asked the cause +of her bad faith. The girl showed them all the white teeth which +nature had lavished on her, saying with the best natured laugh in the +world: “I don’ know how come I didn’ git dere Chewsday like I +promise.”</p> + +<p>If the ladies were not disposed to consider that an all-sufficient +reason, so much the worse, for Suze had no other to offer.</p> + +<p>From Mose’s wife, Minervy, better things might have been expected. But +after a solemn engagement to take charge of Melicent’s kitchen on +Wednesday, the dusky matron suddenly awoke to the need of “holpin’ +Mose hoe out dat co’n in the stiff lan.”</p> + +<p>Thrse, seeing that the girl was really eager to play in the brief +role of housekeeper had used her powers, persuasive and authoritative, +to procure servants for her, but without avail. She herself was not +without an abundance of them, from the white-haired Hiram, whose +position on the place had long been a sinecure, down to the little +brown legged tot Mandy, much given to falling asleep in the sun, when +not chasing venturesome poultry off forbidden ground, or stirring +gentle breezes with an enormous palm leaf fan about her mistress +during that lady’s after dinner nap.</p> + +<p>When pressed to give a reason for this apparent disinclination of the +negroes to work for the Hosmers, Nathan, who was at the moment being +interviewed on the front veranda by Thrse and Melicent, spoke out.</p> + +<p>“Dey ’low ’roun’ yere, dat you’s mean to de black folks, ma’am: dat +what dey says—I don’ know me.”</p> + +<p>“Mean,” cried Melicent, amazed, “in what way, pray?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, all sort o’ ways,” he admitted, with a certain shy brazenness; +determined to go through with the ordeal.</p> + +<p>“Dey ’low you wants to cut de little gals’ plaits off, an’ sich—I +don’ know me.”</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose, Nathan,” said Thrse attempting but poorly to hide +her amusement at Melicent’s look of dismay, “that Miss Hosmer would +bother herself with darkies’ plaits?”</p> + +<p>“Dat’s w’at I tink m’sef. Anyways, I’ll sen’ Ar’minty ’roun’ +to-morrow, sho.”</p> + +<p>Melicent was not without the guilty remembrance of having one day +playfully seized one of the small Mandy’s bristling plaits, daintily +between finger and thumb, threatening to cut them all away with the +scissors which she carried. Yet she could not but believe that there +was some deeper motive underlying this systematic reluctance of the +negroes to give their work in exchange for the very good pay which she +offered. Thrse soon enlightened her with the information that the +negroes were very averse to working for Northern people whose speech, +manners, and attitude towards themselves were unfamiliar. She was +given the consoling assurance of not being the only victim of this +boycott, as Thrse recalled many examples of strangers whom she knew +to have met with a like cavalier treatment at the darkies’ hands.</p> + +<p>Needless to say, Araminty never appeared.</p> + +<p>Hosmer and Melicent were induced to accept Mrs. Lafirme’s generous +hospitality; and one of that lady’s many supernumeraries was detailed +each morning to “do up” Miss Melicent’s rooms, but not without the +previous understanding that the work formed part of Miss T’rse’s +system.</p> + +<p>Nothing which had happened during the year of his residence at +Place-du-Bois had furnished Hosmer such amusement as these +misadventures of his sister Melicent, he having had no like experience +with his mill hands.</p> + +<p>It is not unlikely that his good humor was partly due to the +acceptable arrangement which assured him the daily society of Thrse, +whose presence was growing into a need with him.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_V" name="I_V"></a><abbr title="5">V</abbr><br> + +In the Pine Woods.</h2> + + +<p>When Grgoire said to Melicent that there was no better woman in the +world than his Aunt Thrse, “W’en you do like she wants,” the +statement was so incomplete as to leave one in uncomfortable doubt of +the expediency of venturing within the influence of so exacting a +nature. True, Thrse required certain conduct from others, but she +was willing to further its accomplishment by personal efforts, even +sacrifices—that could leave no doubt of the pure unselfishness of her +motive. There was hardly a soul at Place-du-Bois who had not felt the +force of her will and yielded to its gentle influence.</p> + +<p>The picture of Joint as she had last seen him, stayed with her, till +it gave form to a troubled desire moving her to see him again and +speak with him. He had always been an unruly subject, inclined to a +surreptitious defiance of authority. Repeatedly had he been given work +on the plantation and as many times dismissed for various causes. +Thrse would have long since removed him had it not been for his old +father Morico, whose long life spent on the place had established a +claim upon her tolerance.</p> + +<p>In the late afternoon, when the shadows of the magnolias were +stretching in grotesque lengths across the lawn, Thrse stood waiting +for Uncle Hiram to bring her sleek bay Beauregard around to the front. +The dark close fitting habit which she wore lent brilliancy to her +soft blonde coloring; and there was no mark of years about her face or +figure, save the settling of a thoughtful shadow upon the eyes, which +joys and sorrows that were past and gone had left there.</p> + +<p>As she rode by the cottage, Melicent came out on the porch to wave a +laughing good-bye. The girl was engaged in effacing the simplicity of +her rooms with certain bizarre decorations that seemed the promptings +of a disordered imagination. Yards of fantastic calico had been +brought up from the store, which Grgoire with hammer and tacks was +amiably forming into impossible designs at the prompting of the girl. +The little darkies had been enlisted to bring their contributions of +palm branches, pine cones, ferns, and bright hued bird wings—and a +row of those small recruits stood on the porch, gaping in wide-mouthed +admiration at a sight that stirred within their breasts such remnant +of savage instinct as past generations had left there in dormant +survival.</p> + +<p>One of the small audience permitted her attention to be drawn for a +moment from the gorgeous in-door spectacle, to follow the movements of +her mistress.</p> + +<p>“Jis’ look Miss T’rse how she go a lopin’ down de lane. Dere she +go—dere she go—now she gone,” and she again became contemplative.</p> + +<p>Thrse, after crossing the railroad, for a space kept to the brow of +the hill where stretched a well defined road, which by almost +imperceptible degrees led deeper and always higher into the woods. +Presently, leaving this road and turning into a bridle path where an +unpracticed eye would have discovered no sign of travel, she rode on +until reaching a small clearing among the pines, in the center of +which stood a very old and weather beaten cabin.</p> + +<p>Here she dismounted, before Morico knew of her presence, for he sat +with his back partly turned to the open door. As she entered and +greeted him, he arose from his chair, all trembling with excitement at +her visit; the long white locks, straggling and unkept, falling about +his brown visage that had grown old and weather beaten with his cabin. +Sinking down into his seat—the hide covered chair that had been worn +smooth by years of usefulness—he gazed well pleased at Thrse, who +seated herself beside him.</p> + +<p>“Ah, this is quite the handsomest you have made yet, Morico,” she said +addressing him in French, and taking up the fan that he was curiously +fashioning of turkey feathers.</p> + +<p>“I am taking extra pains with it,” he answered, looking complacently +at his handiwork and smoothing down the glossy feathers with the ends +of his withered old fingers. “I thought the American lady down at the +house might want to buy it.”</p> + +<p>Thrse could safely assure him of Melicent’s willingness to seize on +the trophy.</p> + +<p>Then she asked why Joint had not been to the house with news of him. +“I have had chickens and eggs for you, and no way of sending them.”</p> + +<p>At mention of his son’s name, the old man’s face clouded with +displeasure and his hand trembled so that he was at some pains to +place the feather which he was at the moment adding to the widening +fan.</p> + +<p>“Joint is a bad son, madame, when even you have been able to do +nothing with him. The trouble that boy has given me no one knows; but +let him not think I am too old to give him a sound drubbing.”</p> + +<p>Joint meanwhile had returned from the mill and seeing Thrse’s horse +fastened before his door, was at first inclined to skulk back into the +woods; but an impulse of defiance moved him to enter, and gave to his +ugly countenance a look that was far from agreeable as he mumbled a +greeting to Thrse. His father he did not address. The old man looked +from son to visitor with feeble expectancy of some good to come from +her presence there.</p> + +<p>Joint’s straight and coarse black hair hung in a heavy mop over his +low retreating forehead, almost meeting the ill-defined line of +eyebrow that straggled above small dusky black eyes, that with the +rest of his physique was an inheritance from his Indian mother.</p> + +<p>Approaching the safe or <span class="italic" lang="fr">garde manger</span>, which was the most prominent +piece of furniture in the room, he cut a wedge from the round loaf of +heavy soggy corn bread that he found there, added a layer of fat pork, +and proceeded to devour the unpalatable morsel with hungry relish.</p> + +<p>“That is but poor fare for your old father, Joint,” said Thrse, +looking steadily at the youth.</p> + +<p>“Well, I got no chance me, fu’ go fine nuttin in de ’ood” (woods), he +answered purposely in English, to annoy his father who did not +understand the language.</p> + +<p>“But you are earning enough to buy him something better; and you know +there is always plenty at the house that I am willing to spare him.”</p> + +<p>“I got no chance me fu’ go to de ’ouse neider,” he replied +deliberately, after washing down the scant repast with a long draught +from the tin bucket which he had replenished at the cistern before +entering. He swallowed the water regardless of the “wiggles” whose +presence was plainly visible.</p> + +<p>“What does he say?” asked Morico scanning Thrse’s face appealingly.</p> + +<p>“He only says that work at the mill keeps him a good deal occupied,” +she said with attempted carelessness.</p> + +<p>As she finished speaking, Joint put on his battered felt hat, and +strode out the back door; his gun on his shoulder and a yellow cur +following close at his heels.</p> + +<p>Thrse remained a while longer with the old man, hearing +sympathetically the long drawn story of his troubles, and cheering him +as no one else in the world was able to do, then she went away.</p> + +<p>Joint was not the only one who had seen Beauregard fastened at +Morico’s door. Hosmer was making a tour of inspection that afternoon +through the woods, and when he came suddenly upon Thrse some moments +after she had quitted the cabin, the meeting was not so wholly +accidental as that lady fancied it was.</p> + +<p>If there could be a situation in which Hosmer felt more than in +another at ease in Thrse’s company, it was the one in which he found +himself. There was no need to seek occupation for his hands, those +members being sufficiently engaged with the management of his horse. +His eyes found legitimate direction in following the various details +which a rider is presumed to observe; and his manner freed from the +necessity of self direction took upon itself an ease which was +occasional enough to mark it as noteworthy.</p> + +<p>She told him of her visit. At mention of Joint’s name he reddened: +then followed the acknowledgment that the youth in question had caused +him to lose his temper and forget his dignity during the afternoon.</p> + +<p>“In what way?” asked Thrse. “It would be better to dismiss him than +to rail at him. He takes reproof badly and is extremely treacherous.”</p> + +<p>“Mill hands are not plentiful, or I should send him off at once. Oh, +he is an unbearable fellow. The men told me of a habit he has of +letting the logs roll off the carriage, causing a good deal of +annoyance and delay in replacing them. I was willing enough to believe +it might be accidental, until I caught him today in the very act. I am +thankful not to have knocked him down.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer felt exhilarated. The excitement of his encounter with Joint +had not yet died away; this softly delicious atmosphere; the subtle +aroma of the pines; his unlooked for meeting with Thrse—all +combined to stir him with unusual emotions.</p> + +<p>“What a splendid creature Beauregard is,” he said, smoothing the +animal’s glossy mane with the end of his riding whip. The horses were +walking slowly in step, and close together.</p> + +<p>“Of course he is,” said Thrse proudly, patting the arched neck of +her favorite. “Beauregard is a blooded animal, remember. He quite +throws poor Nelson in the shade,” looking pityingly at Hosmer’s +heavily built iron-grey.</p> + +<p>“Don’t cast any slurs on Nelson, Mrs. Lafirme. He’s done me service +that’s worthy of praise—worthy of better treatment than he gets.”</p> + +<p>“I know. He deserves the best, poor fellow. When you go away you +should turn him out to pasture, and forbid any one to use him.”</p> + +<p>“It would be a good idea; but—I’m not so certain about going away.”</p> + +<p>“Oh I beg your pardon. I fancied your movements were directed by some +unchangeable laws.”</p> + +<p>“Like the planets in their orbits? No, there is no absolute need of my +going; the business which would have called me away can be done as +readily by letter. If I heed my inclination it certainly holds me +here.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand that. It’s natural enough that I should be fond of +the country; but you—I don’t believe you’ve been away for three +months, have you? and city life certainly has its attractions.”</p> + +<p>“It’s beastly,” he answered decidedly. “I greatly prefer the +country—this country; though I can imagine a condition under which it +would be less agreeable; insupportable, in fact.”</p> + +<p>He was looking fixedly at Thrse, who let her eyes rest for an +instant in the unaccustomed light of his, while she asked “and the +condition?”</p> + +<p>“If you were to go away. Oh! it would take the soul out of my life.”</p> + +<p>It was now her turn to look in all directions save the one in which +his glance invited her. At a slight and imperceptible motion of the +bridle, well understood by Beauregard, the horse sprang forward into a +quick canter, leaving Nelson and his rider to follow as they could.</p> + +<p>Hosmer overtook her when she stopped to let her horse drink at the +side of the hill where the sparkling spring water came trickling from +the moist rocks, and emptied into the long out-scooped trunk of a +cypress, that served as trough. The two horses plunged their heads +deep in the clear water; the proud Beauregard quivering with +satisfaction, as arching his neck and shaking off the clinging +moisture, he waited for his more deliberate companion.</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t it give one a sympathetic pleasure,” said Thrse, “to see +the relish with which they drink?”</p> + +<p>“I never thought of it,” replied Hosmer, cynically. His face was +unusually flushed, and diffidence was plainly seizing him again.</p> + +<p>Thrse was now completely mistress of herself, and during the +remainder of the ride she talked incessantly, giving him no chance for +more than the briefest answers.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_VI" name="I_VI"></a><abbr title="6">VI</abbr><br> + +Melicent Talks.</h2> + + +<p>“David Hosmer, you are the most supremely unsatisfactory man +existing.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer had come in from his ride, and seating himself in the large +wicker chair that stood in the center of the room, became at once +absorbed in reflections. Being addressed, he looked up at his sister, +who sat sidewards on the edge of a table slightly removed, swaying a +dainty slippered foot to and fro in evident impatience.</p> + +<p>“What crime have I committed now, Melicent, against your code?” he +asked, not fully aroused from his reverie.</p> + +<p>“You’ve committed nothing; your sin is one of omission. I absolutely +believe you go through the world with your eyes, to all practical +purposes, closed. Don’t you notice anything; any change?”</p> + +<p>“To be sure I do,” said Hosmer, relying on a knowledge lent him by +previous similar experiences, and taking in the clinging artistic +drapery that enfolded her tall spare figure, “you’ve a new gown on. I +didn’t think to mention it, but I noticed it all the same.”</p> + +<p>This admission of a discernment that he had failed to make evident, +aroused Melicent’s uncontrolled mirth.</p> + +<p>“A new gown!” and she laughed heartily. “A threadbare remnant! A thing +that holds by shreds and tatters.”</p> + +<p>She went behind her brother’s chair, taking his face between her +hands, and turning it upward, kissed him on the forehead. With his +head in such position, he could not fail to observe the brilliant +folds of muslin that were arranged across the ceiling to simulate the +canopy of a tent. Still holding his face, she moved it sidewards, so +that his eyes, knowing now what office was expected of them, followed +the line of decorations about the room.</p> + +<p>“It’s immense, Mel; perfectly immense. When did you do it all?”</p> + +<p>“This afternoon, with Grgoire’s help,” she answered, looking proudly +at her work. “And my poor hands are in such condition! But really, +Dave,” she continued, seating herself on the side of his chair, with +an arm about his neck, and he leaning his head back on the improvised +cushion, “I wonder that you ever got on in business, observing things +as little as you do.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s different.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t believe you see half that you ought to,” adding +naively, “How did you and Mrs. Lafirme happen to come home together +this evening?”</p> + +<p>The bright lamp-light made the flush quite evident that arose to his +face under her near gaze.</p> + +<p>“We met in the woods; she was coming from Morico’s.”</p> + +<p>“David, do you know that woman is an angel. She’s simply the most +perfect creature I ever knew.”</p> + +<p>Melicent’s emphasis of speech was a thing so recurrent, so singularly +her own, as to startle an unaccustomed hearer.</p> + +<p>“That opinion might carry some weight, Mel, if I hadn’t heard it +scores of times from you, and of as many different women.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed you have not. Mrs. Lafirme is exceptional. Really, when she +stands at the end of the veranda, giving orders to those darkies, her +face a little flushed, she’s positively a queen.”</p> + +<p>“As far as queenliness may be compatible with the angelic state,” +replied Hosmer, but not ill pleased with Melicent’s exaggerated praise +of Thrse.</p> + +<p>Neither had heard a noiseless step approaching, and they only became +aware of an added human presence, when Mandy’s small voice was heard +to issue from Mandy’s small body which stood in the mingled light and +shadow of the door-way.</p> + +<p>“Aunt B’lindy ’low supper on de table gittin’ cole.”</p> + +<p>“Come here, Mandy,” cried Melicent, springing after the child. But +Mandy was flying back through the darkness. She was afraid of +Melicent.</p> + +<p>Laughing heartily, the girl disappeared into her bedroom, to make some +needed additions to her toilet; and Hosmer, waiting for her, returned +to his interrupted reflections. The words which he had spoken during a +moment of emotion to Thrse, out in the piny woods, had served a +double purpose with him. They had shown him more plainly than he had +quite been certain of, the depth of his feeling for her; and also had +they settled his determination. He was not versed in the reading of a +woman’s nature, and he found himself at a loss to interpret Thrse’s +actions. He recalled how she had looked away from him when he had +spoken the few tender words that were yet whirling in his memory; how +she had impetuously ridden ahead,—leaving him to follow alone; and +her incessant speech that had forced him into silence. All of which +might or might not be symptoms in his favor. He remembered her kind +solicitude for his comfort and happiness during the past year; but he +as readily recalled that he had not been the only recipient of such +favors. His reflections led to no certainty, except that he loved her +and meant to tell her so.</p> + +<p>Thrse’s door being closed, and moreover locked, Aunt Belindy, the +stout negress who had superintended the laying of supper, felt free to +give low speech to her wrath as she went back and forth between +dining-room and kitchen.</p> + +<p>“Suppa gittin’ dat cole ’tain’ gwine be fittin’ fu’ de dogs te’ tech. +Believe half de time w’ite folks ain’t got no feelin’s, no how. If dey +speck I’se gwine stan’ up heah on my two feet all night, dey’s foolin’ +dey sef. I ain’t gwine do it. Git out dat doo’ you Mandy! you want me +dash dis heah coffee pot at you—blockin’ up de doo’s dat away? W’ar +dat good fu’ nuttin Betsy? Look yonda, how she done flung dem dere +knife an forks on de table. Jis let Miss T’rse kotch’er. Good God +A’mighty, Miss T’rse mus’ done gone asleep. G’long dar an’ see.”</p> + +<p>There was no one on the plantation who would have felt at liberty to +enter Thrse’s bedroom without permission, the door being closed; yet +she had taken the needless precaution of bringing lock and bolt to the +double security of her moment of solitude. The first announcement of +supper had found her still in her riding habit, with head thrown back +upon the cushion of her lounging chair, and her mind steeped in a +semi-stupor that it would be injustice to her brighter moments to call +reflection.</p> + +<p>Thrse was a warm-hearted woman, and a woman of clear mental vision; +a combination not found so often together as to make it ordinary. +Being a woman of warm heart, she had loved her husband with the +devotion which good husbands deserve; but being a clear-headed woman, +she was not disposed to rebel against the changes which Time brings, +when so disposed, to the human sensibilities. She was not steeped in +that agony of remorse which many might consider becoming in a widow of +five years’ standing at the discovery that her heart which had fitted +well the holding of a treasure, was not narrowed to the holding of a +memory,—the treasure being gone.</p> + +<p>Mandy’s feeble knock at the door was answered by her mistress in +person who had now banished all traces of her ride and its resultant +cogitations.</p> + +<p>The two women, with Hosmer and Grgoire, sat out on the veranda after +supper as their custom was during these warm summer evenings. There +was no attempt at sustained conversation; they talked by snatches to +and at one another, of the day’s small events; Melicent and Grgoire +having by far the most to say. The girl was half reclining in the +hammock which she kept in a slow, unceasing motion by the impetus of +her slender foot; he sitting some distance removed on the steps. +Hosmer was noticeably silent; even Joint as a theme failing to rouse +him to more than a few words of dismissal. His will and tenacity were +controlling him to one bent. He had made up his mind that he had +something to say to Mrs. Lafirme, and he was impatient at any enforced +delay in the telling.</p> + +<p>Grgoire slept now in the office of the mill, as a measure of +precaution. To-night, Hosmer had received certain late telegrams that +necessitated a return to the mill, and his iron-grey was standing +outside in the lane with Grgoire’s horse, awaiting the pleasure of +his rider. When Grgoire quitted the group to go and throw the saddles +across the patient animals, Melicent, who contemplated an additional +hour’s chat with Thrse, crossed over to the cottage to procure a +light wrap for her sensitive shoulders against the chill night air. +Hosmer, who had started to the assistance of Grgoire, seeing that +Thrse had remained alone, standing at the top of the stairs, +approached her. Remaining a few steps below her, and looking up into +her face, he held out his hand to say good-night, which was an unusual +proceeding, for they had not shaken hands since his return to +Place-du-Bois three months before. She gave him her soft hand to hold +and as the warm, moist palm met his, it acted like a charged electric +battery turning its subtle force upon his sensitive nerves.</p> + +<p>“Will you let me talk to you to-morrow?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, perhaps; if I have time.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you will make the time. I can’t let the day go by without telling +you many things that you ought to have known long ago.” The battery +was still doing its work. “And I can’t let the night go by without +telling you that I love you.”</p> + +<p>Grgoire called out that the horses were ready. Melicent was +approaching in her diaphanous envelope, and Hosmer reluctantly let +drop Thrse’s hand and left her.</p> + +<p>As the men rode away, the two women stood silently following their +diminishing outlines into the darkness and listening to the creaking +of the saddles and the dull regular thud of the horses’ feet upon the +soft earth, until the sounds grew inaudible, when they turned to the +inner shelter of the veranda. Melicent once more possessed herself of +the hammock in which she now reclined fully, and Thrse sat near +enough beside her to intertwine her fingers between the tense cords.</p> + +<p>“What a great difference in age there must be between you and your +brother,” she said, breaking the silence.</p> + +<p>“Yes—though he is younger and I older than you perhaps think. He was +fifteen and the only child when I was born. I am twenty-four, so he of +course is thirty-nine.”</p> + +<p>“I certainly thought him older.”</p> + +<p>“Just imagine, Mrs. Lafirme, I was only ten when both my parents died. +We had no kindred living in the West, and I positively rebelled +against being separated from David; so you see he’s had the care of me +for a good many years.”</p> + +<p>“He appears very fond of you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, not only that, but you’ve no idea how splendidly he’s done for me +in every way. Looked after my interest and all that, so that I’m +perfectly independent. Poor Dave,” she continued, heaving a profound +sigh, “he’s had more than his share of trouble, if ever a man had. I +wonder when his day of compensation will come.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think,” ventured Thrse, “that we make too much of our +individual trials. We are all so prone to believe our own burden +heavier than our neighbor’s.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps—but there can be no question about the weight of David’s. +I’m not a bit selfish about him though; poor fellow, I only wish he’d +marry again.”</p> + +<p>Melicent’s last words stung Thrse like an insult. Her native pride +rebelled against the reticence of this man who had shared her +confidence while keeping her in ignorance of so important a feature of +his own life. But her dignity would not permit a show of disturbance; +she only asked:—</p> + +<p>“How long has his wife been dead?”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” cried Melicent, in dismay. “I thought you knew of course; +why—she isn’t dead at all—they were divorced two years ago.”</p> + +<p>The girl felt intuitively that she had yielded to an indiscretion of +speech. She could not know David’s will in the matter, but since he +had all along left Mrs. Lafirme in ignorance of his domestic trials, +she concluded it was not for her to enlighten that lady further. Her +next remark was to call Thrse’s attention to the unusual number of +glow-worms that were flashing through the darkness, and to ask the +sign of it, adding “every thing seems to be the sign of something down +here.”</p> + +<p>“Aunt Belindy might tell you,” replied Thrse, “I only know that I +feel the signs of being very sleepy after that ride through the woods +to-day. Don’t mind if I say good night?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not. Good night, dear Mrs. Lafirme. Let me stay here till +David comes back; I should die of fright, to go to the cottage alone.”<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_VII" name="I_VII"></a><abbr title="7">VII</abbr><br> + +Painful Disclosures.</h2> + + +<p>Thrse possessed an independence of thought exceptional enough when +considered in relation to her life and its surrounding conditions. But +as a woman who lived in close contact with her fellow-beings she was +little given to the consideration of abstract ideas, except in so far +as they touched the individual man. If ever asked to give her opinion +of divorce, she might have replied that the question being one which +did not immediately concern her, its remoteness had removed it from +the range of her inquiry. She felt vaguely that in many cases it might +be a blessing; conceding that it must not infrequently be a necessity, +to be appealed to however only in an extremity beyond which endurance +could scarcely hold. With the prejudices of her Catholic education +coloring her sentiment, she instinctively shrank when the theme +confronted her as one having even a remote reference to her own clean +existence. There was no question with her of dwelling upon the matter; +it was simply a thing to be summarily dismissed and as far as possible +effaced from her remembrance.</p> + +<p>Thrse had not reached the age of thirty-five without learning that +life presents many insurmountable obstacles which must be accepted, +whether with the callousness of philosophy, the revolt of weakness or +the dignity of self-respect. The following morning, the only sign +which she gave of her mental disturbance, was an appearance that might +have succeeded a night of unrefreshing sleep.</p> + +<p>Hosmer had decided that his interview with Mrs. Lafirme should not be +left further to the caprice of accident. An hour or more before noon +he rode up from the mill knowing it to be a time when he would likely +find her alone. Not seeing her he proceeded to make inquiry of the +servants; first appealing to Betsy.</p> + +<p>“I don’ know whar Miss T’rse,” with a rising inflection on the +“whar.” “I yain’t seed her sence mornin’, time she sont Unc’ Hi’um +yonda to old Morico wid de light bread an’ truck,” replied the verbose +Betsy. “Aunt B’lindy, you know whar Miss T’rse?”</p> + +<p>“How you want me know? standin’ up everlastin’ in de kitchen a bakin’ +light-bread fu’ lazy trash det betta be in de fiel’ wurkin’ a crap +like people, stid o’ ’pendin’ on yeda folks.”</p> + +<p>Mandy, who had been a silent listener, divining that she had perhaps +better make known certain information that was exclusively her own +piped out:—</p> + +<p>“Miss T’rse shet up in de parla; ’low she want we all lef ’er +’lone.”</p> + +<p>Having as it were forced an entrance into the stronghold where Thrse +had supposed herself secure from intrusion, Hosmer at once seated +himself beside her.</p> + +<p>This was a room kept for the most part closed during the summer days +when the family lived chiefly on the verandas or in the wide open hall +There lingered about it the foreign scent of cool clean matting, +mingled with a faint odor of rose which came from a curious Japanese +jar that stood on the ample hearth. Through the green half-closed +shutters the air came in gentle ripples, sweeping the filmy curtains +back and forth in irregular undulations. A few tasteful pictures hung +upon the walls, alternating with family portraits, for the most part +stiff and unhandsome, except in the case of such as were of so remote +date that age gave them a claim upon the interest and admiration of a +far removed generation.</p> + +<p>It was not entirely clear to the darkies whether this room were not a +sort of holy sanctuary, where one should scarce be permitted to +breathe, except under compulsion of a driving necessity.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Lafirme,” began Hosmer, “Melicent tells me that she made you +acquainted last night with the matter which I wished to talk to you +about to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Thrse replied, closing the book which she had made a pretense +of reading, and laying it down upon the window-sill near which she +sat; adding very simply, “Why did you not tell me long ago, Mr. +Hosmer?”</p> + +<p>“God knows,” he replied; the sharp conviction breaking upon him, that +this disclosure had some how changed the aspect of life for him. +“Natural reluctance to speak of a thing so painful—native +reticence—I don’t know what. I hope you forgive me; that you will let +it make no difference in whatever regard you may have for me.”</p> + +<p>“I had better tell you at once that there must be no repetition of—of +what you told me last night.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer had feared it. He made no protest in words; his revolt was +inward and showed itself only in an added pallor and increased +rigidity of face lines. He arose and went to a near window, peering +for a while aimlessly out between the partly open slats.</p> + +<p>“I hadn’t thought of your being a Catholic,” he said, finally turning +towards her with folded arms.</p> + +<p>“Because you have never seen any outward signs of it. But I can’t +leave you under a false impression: religion doesn’t influence my +reason in this.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think then that a man who has had such misfortune, should be +debarred the happiness which a second marriage could give him?”</p> + +<p>“No, nor a woman either, if it suit her moral principle, which I hold +to be something peculiarly one’s own.”</p> + +<p>“That seems to me to be a prejudice,” he replied. “Prejudices may be +set aside by an effort of the will,” catching at a glimmer of hope.</p> + +<p>“There are some prejudices which a woman can’t afford to part with, +Mr. Hosmer,” she said a little haughtily, “even at the price of +happiness. Please say no more about it, think no more of it.”</p> + +<p>He seated himself again, facing her; and looking at him all her +sympathetic nature was moved at sight of his evident trouble.</p> + +<p>“Tell me about it. I would like to know every thing in your life,” she +said, feelingly.</p> + +<p>“It’s very good of you,” he said, holding a hand for a moment over his +closed eyes. Then looking up abruptly, “It was a painful enough +experience, but I never dreamed that it could have had this last blow +in reserve for me.”</p> + +<p>“When did you marry?” she asked, wishing to start him with the story +which she fancied he would feel better for the telling.</p> + +<p>“Ten years ago. I am a poor hand to analyze character: my own or +another’s. My reasons for doing certain things have never been quite +clear to me; or I have never schooled myself to inquiry into my own +motives for action. I have been always thoroughly the business man. I +don’t make a boast of it, but I have no reason to be ashamed of the +admission. Socially, I have mingled little with my fellow-beings, +especially with women, whose society has had little attraction for me; +perhaps, because I have never been thrown much into it, and I was +nearly thirty when I first met my wife.”</p> + +<p>“Was it in St. Louis?” Thrse asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes. I had been inveigled into going on a river excursion,” he said, +plunging into the story, “Heaven knows how. Perhaps I was feeling +unwell—I really can’t remember. But at all events I met a friend who +introduced me early in the day to a young girl—Fanny Larimore. She +was a pretty little thing, not more than twenty, all pink and white +and merry blue eyes and stylish clothes. Whatever it was, there was +something about her that kept me at her side all day. Every word and +movement of hers had an exaggerated importance for me. I fancied such +things had never been said or done quite in the same way before.”</p> + +<p>“You were in love,” sighed Thrse. Why the sigh she could not have +told.</p> + +<p>“I presume so. Well, after that, I found myself thinking of her at the +most inopportune moments. I went to see her again and again—my first +impression deepened, and in two weeks I had asked her to marry me. I +can safely say, we knew nothing of each other’s character. After +marriage, matters went well enough for a while.” Hosmer here arose, +and walked the length of the room.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Lafirme,” he said, “can’t you understand that it must be a +painful thing for a man to disparage one woman to another: the woman +who has been his wife to the woman he loves? Spare me the rest.”</p> + +<p>“Please have no reservations with me; I shall not misjudge you in any +case,” an inexplicable something was moving her to know what remained +to be told.</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t long before she attempted to draw me into what she called +society,” Hosmer continued. “I am little versed in defining shades of +distinction between classes, but I had seen from the beginning that +Fanny’s associates were not of the best social rank by any means. I +had vaguely expected her to turn from them, I suppose, when she +married. Naturally, I resisted anything so distasteful as being +dragged through rounds of amusement that had no sort of attraction +whatever for me. Besides, my business connections were extending, and +they claimed the greater part of my time and thoughts.</p> + +<p>“A year after our marriage our boy was born.” Here Hosmer ceased +speaking for a while, seemingly under pressure of a crowding of +painful memories.</p> + +<p>“The child whose picture you have at the office?” asked Thrse.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” and he resumed with plain effort: “It seemed for a while that +the baby would give its mother what distraction she sought so +persistently away from home; but its influence did not last and she +soon grew as restless as before. Finally there was nothing that united +us except the child. I can’t really say that we were united through +him, but our love for the boy was the one feeling that we had in +common. When he was three years old, he died. Melicent had come to +live with us after leaving school. She was a high-spirited girl full +of conceits as she is now, and in her exaggerated way became filled +with horror of what she called the msalliance I had made. After a +month she went away to live with friends. I didn’t oppose her. I saw +little of my wife, being often away from home; but as feebly observant +as I was, I had now and again marked a peculiarity of manner about her +that vaguely troubled me. She seemed to avoid me and we grew more and +more divided.</p> + +<p>“One day I returned home rather early. Melicent was with me. We found +Fanny in the dining-room lying on the sofa. As we entered, she looked +at us wildly and in striving to get up grasped aimlessly at the back +of a chair. I felt on a sudden as if there were some awful calamity +threatening my existence. I suppose, I looked helplessly at Melicent, +managing to ask her what was the matter with my wife. Melicent’s black +eyes were flashing indignation. ‘Can’t you see she’s been drinking. +God help you,’ she said. Mrs. Lafirme, you know now the reason which +drove me away from home and kept me away. I never permitted my wife to +want for the comforts of life during my absence; but she sued for +divorce some years ago and it was granted, with alimony which I +doubled. You know the miserable story now. Pardon me for dragging it +to such a length. I don’t see why I should have told it after all.”</p> + +<p>Thrse had remained perfectly silent; rigid at times, listening to +Hosmer often with closed eyes.</p> + +<p>He waited for her to speak, but she said nothing for a while till +finally: “Your—your wife is still quite young—do her parents live +with her?”</p> + +<p>“Oh no, she has none. I suppose she lives alone.”</p> + +<p>“And those habits; you don’t know if she continues them?”</p> + +<p>“I dare say she does. I know nothing of her, except that she receipts +for the amount paid her each month.”</p> + +<p>The look of painful thought deepened on Thrse’s face but her +questions having been answered, she again became silent.</p> + +<p>Hosmer’s eyes were imploring her for a look, but she would not answer +them.</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you a word to say to me?” he entreated.</p> + +<p>“No, I have nothing to say, except what would give you pain.”</p> + +<p>“I can bear anything from you,” he replied, at a loss to guess her +meaning.</p> + +<p>“The kindest thing I can say, Mr. Hosmer, is, that I hope you have +acted blindly. I hate to believe that the man I care for, would +deliberately act the part of a cruel egotist.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand you.”</p> + +<p>“I have learned one thing through your story, which appears very plain +to me,” she replied. “You married a woman of weak character. You +furnished her with every means to increase that weakness, and shut her +out absolutely from your life and yourself from hers. You left her +then as practically without moral support as you have certainly done +now, in deserting her. It was the act of a coward.” Thrse spoke the +last words with intensity.</p> + +<p>“Do you think that a man owes nothing to himself?” Hosmer asked, in +resistance to her accusation.</p> + +<p>“Yes. A man owes to his manhood, to face the consequences of his own +actions.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer had remained seated. He did not even with glance follow Thrse +who had arisen and was moving restlessly about the room. He had so +long seen himself as a martyr; his mind had become so habituated to +the picture, that he could not of a sudden look at a different one, +believing that it could be the true one. Nor was he eager to accept a +view of the situation that would place him in his own eyes in a +contemptible light. He tried to think that Thrse must be wrong; but +even admitting a doubt of her being right, her words carried an +element of truth that he was not able to shut out from his conscience. +He felt her to be a woman with moral perceptions keener than his own +and his love, which in the past twenty-four hours had grown to +overwhelm him, moved him now to a blind submission.</p> + +<p>“What would you have me do, Mrs. Lafirme?”</p> + +<p>“I would have you do what is right,” she said eagerly, approaching +him.</p> + +<p>“O, don’t present me any questions of right and wrong; can’t you see +that I’m blind?” he said, self accusingly. “What ever I do, must be +because you want it; because I love you.”</p> + +<p>She was standing beside him and he took her hand.</p> + +<p>“To do a thing out of love for you, would be the only comfort and +strength left me.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t say that,” she entreated. “Love isn’t everything in life; there +is something higher.”</p> + +<p>“God in heaven, there shouldn’t be!” he exclaimed, passionately +pressing her hand to his forehead, his cheek, his lips.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t make it harder for me,” Thrse said softly, attempting to +withdraw her hand.</p> + +<p>It was her first sign of weakness, and he seized on it for his +advantage. He arose quickly—unhesitatingly—and took her in his arms.</p> + +<p>For a moment that was very brief, there was danger that the task of +renunciation would not only be made harder, but impossible, for both; +for it was in utter blindness to everything but love for each other, +that their lips met.</p> + +<p>The great plantation bell was clanging out the hour of noon; the hour +for sweet and restful enjoyment; but to Hosmer, the sound was like the +voice of a derisive demon, mocking his anguish of spirit, as he +mounted his horse, and rode back to the mill.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_VIII" name="I_VIII"></a><abbr title="8">VIII</abbr><br> + +Treats of Melicent.</h2> + + +<p>Melicent knew that there were exchanges of confidence going on between +her brother and Mrs. Lafirme, from which she was excluded. She had +noted certain lengthy conferences held in remote corners of the +verandas. The two had deliberately withdrawn one moonlight evening to +pace to and fro the length of gravel walk that stretched from door +front to lane; and Melicent had fancied that they rather lingered when +under the deep shadow of the two great live-oaks that overarched the +gate. But that of course was fancy; a young girl’s weakness to think +the world must go as she would want it to.</p> + +<p>She was quite sure of having heard Mrs. Lafirme say “I will help you.” +Could it be that David had fallen into financial straights and wanted +assistance from Thrse? No, that was improbable and furthermore, +distasteful, so Melicent would not burden herself with the suspicion. +It was far more agreeable to believe that affairs were shaping +themselves according to her wishes regarding her brother and her +friend. Yet her mystification was in no wise made clearer, when David +left them to go to St. Louis.</p> + +<p>Melicent was not ready or willing to leave with him. She had not had +her “visit out” as she informed him, when he proposed it to her. To +remain in the cottage during his absence was out of the question, so +she removed herself and all her pretty belongings over to the house, +taking possession of one of the many spare rooms. The act of removal +furnished her much entertainment of a mild sort, into which, however, +she successfully infused something of her own intensity by making the +occasion one to bring a large detachment of the plantation force into +her capricious service.</p> + +<p>Melicent was going out, and she stood before her mirror to make sure +that she looked properly. She was black from head to foot. From the +great ostrich plume that nodded over her wide-brimmed hat, to the +pointed toe of the patent leather boot that peeped from under her +gown—a filmy gauzy thing setting loosely to her slender shapely +figure. She laughed at the somberness of her reflection, which she at +once set about relieving with a great bunch of geraniums—big and +scarlet and long-stemmed, that she thrust slantwise through her belt.</p> + +<p>Melicent, always charming, was very pretty when she laughed. She +thought so herself and laughed a second time into the depths of her +dark handsome eyes. One corner of the large mouth turned saucily +upward, and the lips holding their own crimson and all that the cheeks +were lacking, parted only a little over the gleaming whiteness of her +teeth. As she looked at herself critically, she thought that a few +more pounds of flesh would have well become her. It had been only the +other day that her slimness was altogether to her liking; but at +present she was in love with plumpness as typified in Mrs. Lafirme. +However, on the whole, she was not ill pleased with her appearance, +and gathering up her gloves and parasol, she quitted the room.</p> + +<p>It was “broad day,” one of the requirements which Grgoire had named +as essential for taking Melicent to visit old McFarlane’s grave. But +the sun was not “shining mighty bright,” the second condition, and +whose absence they were willing enough to overlook, seeing that the +month was September.</p> + +<p>They had climbed quite to the top of the hill, and stood on the very +brink of the deep toilsome railroad cut all fringed with matted grass +and young pines, that had but lately sprung there. Up and down the +track, as far as they could see on either side the steel rails +glittered on into gradual dimness. There were patches of the field +before them, white with bursting cotton which scores of negroes, men, +women and children were dexterously picking and thrusting into great +bags that hung from their shoulders and dragged beside them on the +ground; no machine having yet been found to surpass the sufficiency of +five human fingers for wrenching the cotton from its tenacious hold. +Elsewhere, there were squads “pulling fodder” from the dry corn +stalks; hot and distasteful work enough. In the nearest field, where +the cotton was young and green, with no show of ripening, the overseer +rode slowly between the rows, sprinkling plentifully the dry powder of +paris green from two muslin bags attached to the ends of a short pole +that lay before him across the saddle.</p> + +<p>Grgoire’s presence would be needed later in the day, when the cotton +was hauled to gin to be weighed; when the mules were brought to +stable, to see them properly fed and cared for, and the gearing all +put in place. In the meanwhile he was deliciously idle with Melicent.</p> + +<p>They retreated into the woods, soon losing sight of everything but the +trees that surrounded them and the underbrush, that was scant and +scattered over the turf which the height of the trees permitted to +grow green and luxuriant.</p> + +<p>There, on the far slope of the hill they found McFarlane’s grave, +which they knew to be such only by the battered and weather-worn cross +of wood, that lurched disreputably to one side—there being no hand in +all the world that cared enough to make it straight—and from which +all lettering had long since been washed away. This cross was all that +marked the abiding place of that mist-like form, so often seen at dark +to stalk down the hill with threatening stride, or of moonlight nights +to cross the lake in a pirogue, whose substance though visible was +nought; with sound of dipping oars that made no ripple on the lake’s +smooth surface. On stormy nights, some more gifted with spiritual +insight than their neighbors, and with hearing better sharpened to +delicate intonations of the supernatural, had not only seen the mist +figure mounted and flying across the hills, but had heard the panting +of the blood-hounds, as the invisible pack swept by in hot pursuit of +the slave so long ago at rest.</p> + +<p>But it was “broad day,” and here was nothing sinister to cause +Melicent the least little thrill of awe. No owl, no bat, no ill-omened +creature hovering near; only a mocking bird high up in the branches of +a tall pine tree, gushing forth his shrill staccatoes as blithely as +though he sang paeans to a translated soul in paradise.</p> + +<p>“Poor old McFarlane,” said Melicent, “I’ll pay a little tribute to his +memory; I dare say his spirit has listened to nothing but abuse of +himself there in the other world, since it left his body here on the +hill;” and she took one of the long-stemmed blood-red flowers and laid +it beside the toppling cross.</p> + +<p>“I reckon he’s in a place w’ere flowers don’t git much waterin’, if +they got any there.”</p> + +<p>“Shame to talk so cruelly; I don’t believe in such places.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t believe in hell?” he asked in blank surprise.</p> + +<p>“Certainly not. I’m a Unitarian.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s new to me,” was his only comment.</p> + +<p>“Do you believe in spirits, Grgoire? I don’t—in day time.”</p> + +<p>“Neva mine ’bout spirits,” he answered, taking her arm and leading her +off, “let’s git away f’om yere.”</p> + +<p>They soon found a smooth and gentle slope where Melicent sat herself +comfortably down, her back against the broad support of a tree trunk, +and Grgoire lay prone upon the ground with—his head in Melicent’s +lap.</p> + +<p>When Melicent first met Grgoire, his peculiarities of speech, so +unfamiliar to her, seemed to remove him at once from the possibility +of her consideration. She was not then awake to certain fine +psychological differences distinguishing man from man; precluding the +possibility of naming and classifying him in the moral as one might in +the animal kingdom. But short-comings of language, which finally +seemed not to detract from a definite inheritance of good breeding, +touched his personality as a physical deformation might, adding to it +certainly no charm, yet from its pathological aspect not without a +species of fascination, for a certain order of misregulated mind.</p> + +<p>She bore with him, and then she liked him. Finally, whilst indulging +in a little introspection; making a diagnosis of various symptoms, +indicative by no means of a deep-seated malady, she decided that she +was in love with Grgoire. But the admission embraced the +understanding with herself, that nothing could come of it. She +accepted it as a phase of that relentless fate which in pessimistic +moments she was inclined to believe pursued her.</p> + +<p>It could not be thought of, that she should marry a man whose +eccentricity of speech would certainly not adapt itself to the +requirements of polite society.</p> + +<p>He had kissed her one day. Whatever there was about the kiss—possibly +an over exuberance—it was not to her liking, and she forbade that he +ever repeat it, under pain of losing her affection. Indeed, on the few +occasions when Melicent had been engaged, kissing had been excluded as +superfluous to the relationship, except in the case of the young +lieutenant out at Fort Leavenworth who read Tennyson to her, as an +angel might be supposed to read, and who in moments of rapturous +self-forgetfulness, was permitted to kiss her under the ear: a +proceeding not positively distasteful to Melicent, except in so much +as it tickled her.</p> + +<p>Grgoire’s hair was soft, not so dark as her own, and possessed an +inclination to curl about her slender fingers.</p> + +<p>“Grgoire,” she said, “you told me once that the Santien boys were a +hard lot; what did you mean by that?”</p> + +<p>“Oh no,” he answered, laughing good-humoredly up into her eyes, “you +did’n year me right. W’at I said was that we had a hard name in the +country. I don’ see w’y eitha, excep’ we all’ays done putty much like +we wanted. But my! a man can live like a saint yere at Place-du-Bois, +they ain’t no temptations o’ no kine.”</p> + +<p>“There’s little merit in your right doing, if you have no temptations +to withstand,” delivering the time worn aphorism with the air and tone +of a pretty sage, giving utterance to an inspired truth.</p> + +<p>Melicent felt that she did not fully know Grgoire; that he had always +been more or less under restraint with her, and she was troubled by +something other than curiosity to get at the truth concerning him. One +day when she was arranging a vase of flowers at a table on the back +porch, Aunt Belindy, who was scouring knives at the same table, had +followed Grgoire with her glance, when he walked away after +exchanging a few words with Melicent.</p> + +<p>“God! but dats a diffunt man sence you come heah.”</p> + +<p>“Different?” questioned the girl eagerly, and casting a quick sideward +look at Aunt Belindy.</p> + +<p>“Lord yas honey, ’f you warn’t heah dat same Mista Grgor ’d be in +Centaville ev’y Sunday, a raisin’ Cain. Humph—I knows ’im.”</p> + +<p>Melicent would not permit herself to ask more, but picked up her vase +of flowers and walked with it into the house; her comprehension of +Grgoire in no wise advanced by the newly acquired knowledge that he +was liable to “raise Cain” during her absence—a proceeding which she +could not too hastily condemn, considering her imperfect apprehension +of what it might imply.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile she would not allow her doubts to interfere with the +kindness which she lavished on him, seeing that he loved her to +desperation. Was he not at this very moment looking up into her eyes, +and talking of his misery and her cruelty? turning his face downward +in her lap—as she knew to cry—for had she not already seen him lie +on the ground in an agony of tears, when she had told him he should +never kiss her again?</p> + +<p>And so they lingered in the woods, these two curious lovers, till the +shadows grew so deep about old McFarlane’s grave that they passed it +by with hurried step and averted glance.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_IX" name="I_IX"></a><abbr title="9">IX</abbr><br> + +Face to Face.</h2> + + +<p>After a day of close and intense September heat, it had rained during +the night. And now the morning had followed chill and crisp, yet with +possibilities of a genial sunshine breaking through the mist that had +risen at dawn from the great sluggish river and spread itself through +the mazes of the city.</p> + +<p>The change was one to send invigorating thrills through the blood, and +to quicken the step; to make one like the push and jostle of the +multitude that thronged the streets; to make one in love with +intoxicating life, and impatient with the grudging dispensation that +had given to mankind no wings wherewith to fly.</p> + +<p>But with no reacting warmth in his heart, the change had only made +Hosmer shiver and draw his coat closer about his chest, as he pushed +his way through the hurrying crowd.</p> + +<p>The St. Louis Exposition was in progress with all its many allurements +that had been heralded for months through the journals of the State.</p> + +<p>Hence, the unusual press of people on the streets this bright +September morning. Home people, whose air of ownership to the +surroundings classified them at once, moving unobservantly about their +affairs. Women and children from the near and rich country towns, in +for the Exposition and their fall shopping; wearing gowns of ultra +fashionable tendencies; leaving in their toilets nothing to +expediency; taking no chances of so much as a ribbon or a loop set in +disaccordance with the book.</p> + +<p>There were whole families from across the bridge, hurrying towards the +Exposition. Fathers and mothers, babies and grandmothers, with baskets +of lunch and bundles of provisional necessities, in for the day.</p> + +<p>Nothing would escape their observation nor elude their criticism, from +the creations in color lining the walls of the art gallery, to the +most intricate mechanism of inventive genius in the basement. All +would pass inspection, with drawing of comparison between the present, +the past year and the “year before,” likely in a nasal drawl with the +R’s brought sharply out, leaving no doubt as to their utterance.</p> + +<p>The newly married couple walking serenely through the crowd, young, +smiling, up-country, hand-in-hand; well pleased with themselves, with +their new attire and newer jewelry, would likely have answered +Hosmer’s “beg pardon” with amiability if he had knocked them down. But +he had only thrust them rather violently to one side in his eagerness +to board the cable car that was dashing by, with no seeming +willingness to stay its mad flight. He still possessed the agility in +his unpracticed limbs to swing himself on the grip, where he took a +front seat, well buttoned up as to top-coat, and glad of the bodily +rest that his half hour’s ride would bring him.</p> + +<p>The locality in which he descended presented some noticeable changes +since he had last been there. Formerly, it had been rather a quiet +street, with a leisurely horse car depositing its passengers two +blocks away to the north from it; awaking somewhat of afternoons when +hordes of children held possession. But now the cable had come to +disturb its long repose, adding in the office, nothing to its +attractiveness.</p> + +<p>There was the drug store still at the corner, with the same +proprietor, tilted back in his chair as of old, and as of old reading +his newspaper with only the change which a newly acquired pair of +spectacles gave to his appearance. The “drug store boy” had unfolded +into manhood, plainly indicated by the mustache that in adding +adornment and dignity to his person, had lifted him above the menial +office of window washing. A task relegated to a mustacheless urchin +with a leaning towards the surreptitious abstraction of caramels and +chewing gum in the intervals of such manual engagements as did not +require the co-operation of a strategic mind.</p> + +<p>Where formerly had been the vacant lot “across the street,” the Sunday +afternoon elysium of the youthful base ball fiend from Biddle Street, +now stood a row of brand new pressed-brick “flats.” Marvelous must +have been the architectural ingenuity which had contrived to unite so +many dwellings into so small a space. Before each spread a length of +closely clipped grass plot, and every miniature front door wore its +fantastic window furnishing; each set of decorations having seemingly +fired the next with efforts of surpassing elaboration.</p> + +<p>The house at which Hosmer rang—a plain two-storied red brick, +standing close to the street—was very old-fashioned in face of its +modern opposite neighbors, and the recently metamorphosed dwelling +next door, that with added porches and appendages to tax man’s faculty +of conjecture, was no longer recognizable for what it had been. Even +the bell which he pulled was old-fashioned and its tingle might be +heard throughout the house long after the servant had opened the door, +if she were only reasonably alert to the summons. Its reverberations +were but dying away when Hosmer asked if Mrs. Larimore were in. Mrs. +Larimore was in; an admission which seemed to hold in reserve a +defiant “And what if she is, sir.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer was relieved to find the little parlor into which he was +ushered, with its adjoining dining-room, much changed. The carpets +which he and Fanny had gone out together to buy during the early days +of their housekeeping, were replaced by rugs that lay upon the bare, +well polished floors. The wall paper was different; so were the +hangings. The furniture had been newly re-covered. Only the small +household gods were as of old: things—trifles—that had never much +occupied or impressed him, and that now, amid their altered +surroundings stirred no sentiment in him of either pleased or sad +remembrance.</p> + +<p>It had not been his wish to take his wife unawares, and he had +previously written her of his intended coming, yet without giving her +a clue for the reason of it.</p> + +<p>There was an element of the bull-dog in Hosmer. Having made up his +mind, he indulged in no regrets, in no nursing of if’s and and’s, but +stood like a brave soldier to his post, not a post of danger, +true—but one well supplied with discomfiting possibilities.</p> + +<p>And what had Homeyer said of it? He had railed of course as usual, at +the submission of a human destiny to the exacting and ignorant rule of +what he termed moral conventionalities. He had startled and angered +Hosmer with his denunciation of Thrse’s sophistical guidance. +Rather—he proposed—let Hosmer and Thrse marry, and if Fanny were +to be redeemed—though he pooh-poohed the notion as untenable with +certain views of what he called the rights to existence: the existence +of wrongs—sorrows—diseases—death—let them all go to make up the +conglomerate whole—and let the individual man hold on to his +personality. But if she must be redeemed—granting this point to their +littleness, let the redemption come by different ways than those of +sacrifice: let it be an outcome from the capability of their united +happiness.</p> + +<p>Hosmer did not listen to his friend Homeyer. Love was his god now, and +Thrse was Love’s prophet.</p> + +<p>So he was sitting in this little parlor waiting for Fanny to come.</p> + +<p>She came after an interval that had been given over to the indulgence +of a little feminine nervousness. Through the open doors Hosmer could +hear her coming down the back stairs; could hear that she halted +mid-way. Then she passed through the dining-room, and he arose and +went to meet her, holding out his hand, which she was not at once +ready to accept, being flustered and unprepared for his manner in +whichever way it might direct itself.</p> + +<p>They sat opposite each other and remained for a while silent; he with +astonishment at sight of the “merry blue eyes” faded and sunken into +deep, dark round sockets; at the net-work of little lines all traced +about the mouth and eyes, and spreading over the once rounded cheeks +that were now hollow and evidently pale or sallow, beneath a layer of +rouge that had been laid on with an unsparing hand. Yet was she still +pretty, or pleasing, especially to a strong nature that would find an +appeal in the pathetic weakness of her face. There was no guessing at +what her figure might be, it was disguised under a very fashionable +dress, and a worsted shawl covered her shoulders, which occasionally +quivered as with an inward chill. She spoke first, twisting the end of +this shawl.</p> + +<p>“What did you come for, David? why did you come now?” with peevish +resistance to the disturbance of his coming.</p> + +<p>“I know I have come without warrant,” he said, answering her +implication. “I have been led to see—no matter how—that I made +mistakes in the past, and what I want to do now is to right them, if +you will let me.”</p> + +<p>This was very unexpected to her, and it startled her, but neither with +pleasure nor pain; only with an uneasiness which showed itself in her +face.</p> + +<p>“Have you been ill?” he asked suddenly as the details of change in her +appearance commenced to unfold themselves to him.</p> + +<p>“Oh no, not since last winter, when I had pneumonia so bad. They +thought I was going to die. Dr. Franklin said I would ’a died if Belle +Worthington hadn’t ’a took such good care of me. But I don’t see what +you mean coming now. It’ll be the same thing over again: I don’t see +what’s the use, David.”</p> + +<p>“We won’t talk about the use, Fanny. I want to take care of you for +the rest of your life—or mine—as I promised to do ten years ago; and +I want you to let me do it.”</p> + +<p>“It would be the same thing over again,” she reiterated, helplessly.</p> + +<p>“It will not be the same,” he answered positively. “I will not be the +same, and that will make all the difference needful.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see what you want to do it for, David. Why we’d haf to get +married over again and all that, wouldn’t we?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” he answered with a faint smile. “I’m living in the South +now, in Louisiana, managing a sawmill down there.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t like the South. I went down to Memphis, let’s see, it was +last spring, with Belle and Lou Dawson, after I’d been sick; and I +don’t see how a person can live down there.”</p> + +<p>“You would like the place where I’m living. It’s a fine large +plantation, and the lady who owns it would be the best of friends to +you. She knew why I was coming, and told me to say she would help to +make your life a happy one if she could.”</p> + +<p>“It’s her told you to come,” she replied in quick resentment. “I don’t +see what business it is of hers.”</p> + +<p>Fanny Larimore’s strength of determination was not one to hold against +Hosmer’s will set to a purpose, during the hour or more that they +talked, he proposing, she finally acquiescing. And when he left her, +it was with a gathering peace in her heart to feel that his nearness +was something that would belong to her again; but differently as he +assured her. And she believed him, knowing that he would stand to his +promise.</p> + +<p>Her life was sometimes very blank in the intervals of street +perambulations and matines and reading of morbid literature. That +elation which she had felt over her marriage with Hosmer ten years +before, had soon died away, together with her weak love for him, when +she began to dread him and defy him. But now that he said he was ready +to take care of her and be good to her, she felt great comfort in her +knowledge of his honesty.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_X" name="I_X"></a><abbr title="10">X</abbr><br> + +Fanny’s Friends.</h2> + + +<p>It was on the day following Hosmer’s visit, that Mrs. Lorenzo +Worthington, familiarly known to her friends as Belle Worthington, was +occupied in constructing a careful and extremely elaborate street +toilet before her dressing bureau which stood near the front window of +one of the “flats” opposite Mrs. Larimore’s. The Nottingham curtain +screened her effectually from the view of passers-by without hindering +her frequent observance of what transpired in the street.</p> + +<p>The lower portion of this lady’s figure was draped, or better, +seemingly supported, by an abundance of stiffly starched white +petticoats that rustled audibly at her slightest movement. Her neck +was bare, as were the well shaped arms that for the past five minutes +had been poised in mid-air, in the arrangement of a front of +exquisitely soft blonde curls, which she had taken from her “top +drawer” and was adjusting, with the aid of a multitude of tiny +invisible hair-pins, to her own very smoothly brushed hair. Yellow +hair it was, with a suspicious darkness about the roots, and a +streakiness about the back, that to an observant eye would have more +than hinted that art had assisted nature in coloring Mrs. +Worthington’s locks.</p> + +<p>Dressed, and evidently waiting with forced patience for the +termination of these overhead maneuvers of her friend, sat Lou,—Mrs. +Jack Dawson,—a woman whom most people called handsome. If she were +handsome, no one could have told why, for her beauty was a thing which +could not be defined. She was tall and thin, with hair, eyes, and +complexion of a brownish neutral tint, and bore in face and figure, a +stamp of defiance which probably accounted for a certain eccentricity +in eschewing hair dyes and cosmetics. Her face was full of little +irregularities; a hardly perceptible cast in one eye; the nose drawn a +bit to one side, and the mouth twitched decidedly to the other when +she talked or laughed. It was this misproportion which gave a piquancy +to her expression and which in charming people, no doubt made them +believe her handsome.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Worthington’s coiffure being completed, she regaled herself with +a deliberate and comprehensive glance into the street, and the outcome +of her observation was the sudden exclamation.</p> + +<p>“Well I’ll be switched! come here quick Lou. If there ain’t Fanny +Larimore getting on the car with Dave Hosmer!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dawson approached the window, but without haste; and in no wise +sharing her friend’s excitement, gave utterance to her calm opinion.</p> + +<p>“They’ve made it up, I’ll bet you what you want.”</p> + +<p>Surprise seemed for the moment to have deprived Mrs. Worthington of +further ability to proceed with her toilet, for she had fallen into a +chair as limply as her starched condition would permit, her face full +of speculation.</p> + +<p>“See here, Belle Worthington, if we’ve got to be at the ’Lympic at two +o’clock, you’d better be getting a move on yourself.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know; but I declare, you might knock me down with a feather.”</p> + +<p>A highly overwrought figure of speech on the part of Mrs. Worthington, +seeing that the feather which would have prostrated her must have met +a resistance of some one hundred and seventy-five pounds of solid +avoirdupois.</p> + +<p>“After all she said about him, too!” seeking to draw her friend into +some participation in her own dumbfoundedness.</p> + +<p>“Well, you ought to know Fanny Larimore’s a fool, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Well, but I just can’t get over it; that’s all there is about it.” +And Mrs. Worthington went about completing the adornment of her person +in a state of voiceless stupefaction.</p> + +<p>In full garb, she presented the figure of a splendid woman; trim and +tight in a black silk gown of expensive quality, heavy with jets which +hung and shone, and jangled from every available point of her person. +Not a thread of her yellow hair was misplaced. She shone with +cleanliness, and her broad expressionless face and meaningless blue +eyes were set to a good-humored readiness for laughter, which would be +wholesome if not musical. She exhaled a fragrance of patchouly or +jockey-club, or something odorous and “strong” that clung to every +article of her apparel, even to the yellow kid gloves which she would +now be forced to put on during her ride in the car. Mrs. Dawson, +attired with equal richness and style, showed more of individuality in +her toilet.</p> + +<p>As they quitted the house she observed to her friend:</p> + +<p>“I wish you’d let up on that smell; it’s enough to sicken a body.”</p> + +<p>“I know you don’t like it, Lou,” was Mrs. Worthington’s apologetic and +half disconcerted reply, “and I was careful as could be. Give you my +word, I didn’t think you could notice it.”</p> + +<p>“Notice it? Gee!” responded Mrs. Dawson.</p> + +<p>These were two ladies of elegant leisure, the conditions of whose +lives, and the amiability of whose husbands, had enabled them to +develop into finished and professional time-killers.</p> + +<p>Their intimacy with each other, as also their close acquaintance with +Fanny Larimore, dated from a couple of years after that lady’s +marriage, when they had met as occupants of the same big up-town +boarding house. The intercourse had never since been permitted to die +out. Once, when the two former ladies were on a visit to Mrs. +Larimore, seeing the flats in course of construction, they were at +once assailed with the desire to abandon their hitherto nomadic life, +and settle to the responsibilities of housekeeping; a scheme which +they carried into effect as soon as the houses became habitable.</p> + +<p>There was a Mr. Lorenzo Worthington; a gentleman employed for many +years past in the custom house. Whether he had been overlooked, which +his small unobtrusive, narrow-chested person made possible—or whether +his many-sided usefulness had rendered him in a manner indispensable +to his employers, does not appear; but he had remained at his post +during the various changes of administration that had gone by since +his first appointment.</p> + +<p>During intervals of his work—intervals often occurring of afternoon +hours, when he had been given night work—he was fond of sitting at +the sunny kitchen window, with his long thin nose, and shortsighted +eyes plunged between the pages of one of his precious books: a small +hoard of which he had collected at some cost and more self-denial.</p> + +<p>One of the grievances of his life was the necessity under which he +found himself of protecting his treasure from the Philistine abuse and +contempt of his wife. When they moved into the flat, Mrs. Worthington, +during her husband’s absence, had ranged them all, systematically +enough, on the top shelf of the kitchen closet to “get them out of the +way.” But at this he had protested, and taken a positive stand, to +which his wife had so far yielded as to permit that they be placed on +the top shelf of the bedroom closet; averring that to have them laying +around was a thing that she would not do, for they spoilt the looks of +any room.</p> + +<p>He had not foreseen the possibility of their usefulness being a +temptation to his wife in so handy a receptacle.</p> + +<p>Seeking once a volume of Ruskin’s Miscellanies, he discovered that it +had been employed to support the dismantled leg of a dressing bureau. +On another occasion, a volume of Schopenhauer, which he had been at +much difficulty and expense to procure, Emerson’s Essays, and two +other volumes much prized, he found had served that lady as weights to +hold down a piece of dry goods which she had sponged and spread to dry +on an available section of roof top.</p> + +<p>He was glad enough to transport them all back to the safer refuge of +the kitchen closet, and pay the hired girl a secret stipend to guard +them.</p> + +<p>Mr. Worthington regarded women as being of peculiar and unsuitable +conformation to the various conditions of life amid which they are +placed; with strong moral proclivities, for the most part subservient +to a weak and inadequate mentality.</p> + +<p>It was not his office to remodel them; his rle was simply to endure +with patience the vagaries of an order of human beings, who after all, +offered an interesting study to a man of speculative habit, apart from +their usefulness as propagators of the species.</p> + +<p>As regards this last qualification, Mrs. Worthington had done less +than her fair share, having but one child, a daughter of twelve, whose +training and education had been assumed by an aunt of her father’s, a +nun of some standing in the Sacred Heart Convent.</p> + +<p>Quite a different type of man was Jack Dawson, Lou’s husband. Short, +round, young, blonde, good looking and bald—as what St. Louis man +past thirty is not? he rejoiced in the agreeable calling of a +traveling salesman.</p> + +<p>On the occasions when he was at home; once in two weeks—sometimes +seldomer—never oftener—the small flat was turned inside out and +upside down. He filled it with noise and merriment. If a theater party +were not on hand, it was a spin out to Forest park behind a fast team, +closing with a wine supper at a road-side restaurant. Or a card party +would be hastily gathered to which such neighbors as were congenial +were bid in hot haste; deficiencies being supplied from his large +circle of acquaintances who happened not to be on the road, and who at +the eleventh hour were rung up by telephone. On such occasions Jack’s +voice would be heard loud in anecdote, introduced in some such wise as +“When I was in Houston, Texas, the other day,” or “Tell you what it +is, sir, those fellers over in Albuquerque are up to a thing or two.”</p> + +<p>One of his standing witticisms was to inquire in a stage whisper of +Belle or Lou—whether the little gal over the way had taken the pledge +yet.</p> + +<p>This gentleman and his wife were on the most amiable of terms +together, barring the small grievance that he sometimes lost money at +poker. But as losing was exceptional with him, and as he did not make +it a matter of conscience to keep her at all times posted as to the +fluctuations of his luck, this grievance had small occasion to show +itself.</p> + +<p>What he thought of his wife, might best be told in his own language: +that Lou was up to the mark and game every time; feminine +characteristics which he apparently held in high esteem.</p> + +<p>The two ladies in question had almost reached the terminus of their +ride, when Mrs. Worthington remarked incidentally to her friend, “It +was nothing in the God’s world but pure sass brought those two fellers +to see you last night, Lou.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dawson bit her lip and the cast in her eye became more +accentuated, as it was apt to do when she was ruffled.</p> + +<p>“I notice you didn’t treat ’em any too cool yourself,” she retorted.</p> + +<p>“Oh, they weren’t my company, or I’d a give ’em a piece of my mind +pretty quick. You know they’re married, and they know you’re married, +and they hadn’t a bit o’ business there.”</p> + +<p>“They’re perfect gentlemen, and I don’t see what business ’tis of +yours, anyway.”</p> + +<p>“Oh that’s a horse of another color,” replied Mrs. Worthington, +bridling and relapsing into injured silence for the period of ten +seconds, when she resumed, “I hope they ain’t going to poke themselves +at the matine.”</p> + +<p>“Likely they will ’s long as they gave us the tickets.”</p> + +<p>One of the gentlemen was at the matine: Mr. Bert Rodney, but he +certainly had not “poked” himself there. He never did any thing vulgar +or in bad taste. He had only “dropped in!” Exquisite in dress and +manner, a swell of the upper circles, versed as was no one better in +the code of gentlemanly etiquette—he was for the moment awaiting +disconsolately the return of his wife and daughter from Narragansett.</p> + +<p>He took a vacant seat behind the two ladies, and bending forward began +to talk to them in his low and fascinating drawl.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Worthington, who often failed to accomplish her fierce designs, +was as gracious towards him as if she had harbored no desire to give +him a piece of her mind; but she was resolute in her refusal to make +one of a proposed supper party.</p> + +<p>A quiet sideward look from Mrs. Dawson, told Mr. Rodney as plainly as +words, that in the event of his <span class="italic" lang="fr">partie-carre</span> failing him, he might +count upon her for a <span class="italic" lang="fr">tte--tte</span>.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_XI" name="I_XI"></a><abbr title="11">XI</abbr><br> + +The Self-Assumed Burden.</h2> + + +<p>The wedding was over. Hosmer and Fanny had been married in the small +library of their Unitarian minister whom they had found intent upon +the shaping of his Sunday sermon.</p> + +<p>Out of deference, he had been briefly told the outward circumstances +of the case, which he knew already; for these two had been formerly +members of his congregation, and gossip had not been reluctant in +telling their story. Hosmer, of course, had drifted away from his +knowledge, and in late years, he had seen little of Fanny, who when +moved to attend church at all usually went to the Redemptorist’s Rock +Church with her friend Belle Worthington. This lady was a good +Catholic to the necessary extent of hearing a mass on Sundays, +abstaining from meat on Fridays and Ember days, and making her +“Easters.” Which concessions were not without their attendant +discomforts, counterbalanced, however, by the soothing assurance which +they gave her of keeping on the safe side.</p> + +<p>The minister had been much impressed with the significance of this +re-marriage which he was called upon to perform, and had offered some +few and well chosen expressions of salutary advice as to its future +guidance. The sexton and housekeeper had been called in as witnesses. +Then Hosmer had taken Fanny back home in a cab as she requested, +because of her eyes that were red and swollen.</p> + +<p>Inside the little hall-way he took her in his arms and kissed her, +calling her “my child.” He could not have told why, except that it +expressed the responsibility he accepted of bearing all things that a +father must bear from the child to whom he has given life.</p> + +<p>“I should like to go out for an hour, Fanny; but if you would rather +not, I shall stay.”</p> + +<p>“No, David, I want to be alone,” she said, turning into the little +parlor, with eyes big and heavy from weariness and inward clashing +emotions.</p> + +<p>Along the length of Lindell avenue from Grand avenue west to Forest +park, reaches for two miles on either side of the wide and well kept +gravel drive a smooth stone walk, bordered its full extent with a +double row of trees which were young and still uncertain, when Hosmer +walked between them.</p> + +<p>Had it been Sunday, he would have found himself making one of a +fashionable throng of promenaders; it being at that time a fad with +society people to walk to Forest park and back of a Sunday afternoon. +Driving was then considered a respectable diversion only on the six +work days of the week.</p> + +<p>But it was not Sunday and this inviting promenade was almost deserted. +An occasional laborer would walk clumsily by; apathetic; swinging his +tin bucket and bearing some implement of toil with the yellow clay yet +clinging to it. Or it might be a brace of strong-minded girls walking +with long and springing stride, which was then fashionable; looking +not to the right nor left; indulging in no exchange of friendly and +girlish chatter, but grimly intent upon the purpose of their walk.</p> + +<p>A steady line of vehicles was pushing on towards the park at the +moderate speed which the law required. On both sides the wide +boulevard tasteful dwellings, many completed, but most of them in +course of construction, were in constant view. Hosmer noted every +thing, but absently; and yet he was not pre-occupied with thought. He +felt himself to be hurrying away from something that was fast +overtaking him, and his faculties for the moment were centered in the +mere act of motion. It is said that motion is pleasurable to man. No +doubt, in connection with a healthy body and free mind, movement +brings to the normal human being a certain degree of enjoyment. But +where the healthful conditions are only physical, rapid motion changes +from a source of pleasure to one of mere expediency.</p> + +<p>So long as Hosmer could walk he kept a certain pressing consciousness +at bay. He would have liked to run if he had dared. Since he had +entered the park there were constant trains of cars speeding somewhere +overhead; he could hear them at near intervals clashing over the stone +bridge. And there was not a train which passed that he did not long to +be at the front of it to measure and let out its speed. What a mad +flight he would have given it, to make men hold their breath with +terror! How he would have driven it till its end was death and +chaos!—so much the better.</p> + +<p>There suddenly formed in Hosmer’s mind a sentence—sharp and distinct. +We are all conscious of such quick mental visions whether of words or +pictures, coming sometimes from a hidden and untraceable source, +making us quiver with awe at this mysterious power of mind manifesting +itself with the vividness of visible matter.</p> + +<p>“It was the act of a coward.”</p> + +<p>Those were the words which checked him, and forbade him to go farther: +which compelled him to turn about and face the reality of his +convictions.</p> + +<p>It is no unusual sight, that of a man lying full length in the soft +tender grass of some retired spot of Forest park—with his face hidden +in his folded arms. To the few who may see him, if they speculate at +all about him he sleeps or he rests his body after a day’s fatigue. +“Am I never to be the brave man?” thought Hosmer, “always the coward, +flying even from my own thoughts?”</p> + +<p>How hard to him was this unaccustomed task of dealing with moral +difficulties, which all through his life before, however lightly they +had come, he had shirked and avoided! He realized now, that there was +to be no more of that. If he did not wish his life to end in +disgraceful shipwreck, he must take command and direction of it upon +himself.</p> + +<p>He had felt himself capable of stolid endurance since love had +declared itself his guide and helper. But now—only to-day—something +beside had crept into his heart. Not something to be endured, but a +thing to be strangled and thrust away. It was the demon of hate; so +new, so awful, so loathsome, he doubted that he could look it in the +face and live.</p> + +<p>Here was the problem of his new existence.</p> + +<p>The woman who had formerly made his life colorless and empty he had +quietly turned his back upon, carrying with him a pity that was not +untender. But the woman who had unwittingly robbed him of all +possibility of earthly happiness—he hated her. The woman who for the +remainder of a life-time was to be in all the world the nearest thing +to him, he hated her. He hated this woman of whom he must be careful, +to whom he must be tender, and loyal and generous. And to give no sign +or word but of kindness; to do no action that was not considerate, was +the task which destiny had thrust upon his honor.</p> + +<p>He did not ask himself if it were possible of accomplishment. He had +flung hesitancy away, to make room for the all-powerful “Must be.”</p> + +<p>He walked slowly back to his home. There was no need to run now; +nothing pursued him. Should he quicken his pace or drag himself ever +so slowly, it could henceforth make no difference. The burden from +which he had fled was now banded upon him and not to be loosed, unless +he fling himself with it into forgetfulness.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="I_XII" name="I_XII"></a><abbr title="12">XII</abbr><br> + +Severing Old Ties.</h2> + + +<p>Returning from the matine, Belle and her friend Lou Dawson, before +entering their house, crossed over to Fanny’s. Mrs. Worthington tried +the door and finding it fastened, rang the bell, then commenced to +beat a tattoo upon the pane with her knuckles; an ingenuous manner +which she had of announcing her identity. Fanny opened to them +herself, and the three walked into the parlor.</p> + +<p>“I haven’t seen you for a coon’s age, Fanny,” commenced Belle, “where +on earth have you been keeping yourself?”</p> + +<p>“You saw me yesterday breakfast time, when you came to borrow the +wrapper pattern,” returned Fanny, in serious resentment to her +friend’s exaggeration.</p> + +<p>“And much good the old wrapper pattern did me: a mile too small every +way, no matter how much I let out the seams. But see here—”</p> + +<p>“Belle’s the biggest idiot about her size: there’s no convincing her +she’s not a sylph.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Thank</em> you, Mrs. Dawson.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s a fact. Didn’t you think Furgeson’s scales were all wrong +the other day because you weighed a hundred and eighty pounds?”</p> + +<p>“O that’s the day I had that heavy rep on.”</p> + +<p>“Heavy nothing. We were coming over last night, Fanny, but we had +company,” continued Mrs. Dawson.</p> + +<p>“Who d’you have?” asked Fanny mechanically and glad of the respite.</p> + +<p>“Bert Rodney and Mr. Grant. They’re so anxious to meet you. I’d ’a +sent over for you, but Belle—”</p> + +<p>“See here, Fanny, what the mischief was Dave Hosmer doing here to-day, +and going down town with you and all that sort o’ thing?”</p> + +<p>Fanny flushed uneasily. “Have you seen the evening paper?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“How d’you want us to see the paper? we just come from the matine.”</p> + +<p>“David came yesterday,” Fanny said working nervously at the window +shade. “He’d wrote me a note the postman brought right after you left +with the pattern. When you saw us getting on the car, we were going +down to Dr. Martin’s, and we’ve got married again.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dawson uttered a long, low whistle by way of comment. Mrs. +Worthington gave vent to her usual “Well I’ll be switched,” which she +was capable of making expressive of every shade of astonishment, from +the lightest to the most pronounced; at the same time unfastening the +bridle of her bonnet which plainly hindered her free respiration after +such a shock.</p> + +<p>“Say that Fanny isn’t sly, after that, Belle.”</p> + +<p>“Sly? My God, she’s a fool! If ever a woman had a snap! and to go to +work and let a man get around her like that.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Worthington seemed powerless to express herself in anything but +disconnected exclamations.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do, Fanny?” asked Lou, who having aired all the +astonishment which she cared to show, in her whistle, was collected +enough to want her natural curiosity satisfied.</p> + +<p>“David’s living down South. I guess we’ll go down there pretty soon. +Soon’s he can get things fixed up here.”</p> + +<p>“Where—down South?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know. Somewheres in Louisiana.”</p> + +<p>“It’s to be hoped in New Orleans,” spoke Belle didactically, “that’s +the only decent place in Louisiana where a person could live.”</p> + +<p>“No, ’tain’t in New Orleans. He’s got a saw mill somewheres down +there.”</p> + +<p>“Heavens and earth! a saw mill?” shrieked Belle. Lou was looking +calmly resigned to the startling news.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I ain’t going to live in a saw mill. I wisht you’d all let me +alone, any way,” she returned pettishly. “There’s a lady keeps a +plantation, and that’s where he lives.”</p> + +<p>“Well of all the rigmaroles! a lady, and a saw mill and a plantation. +It’s my opinion that man could make you believe black’s white, Fanny +Larimore.”</p> + +<p>As Hosmer approached his house, he felt mechanically in his pocket for +his latch key; so small a trick having come back to him with the old +habit of misery. Of course he found no key. His ring startled Fanny, +who at once sprang from her seat to open the door for him; but having +taken a few steps, she hesitated and irresolutely re-seated herself. +It was only his second ring that the servant unamiably condescended to +answer.</p> + +<p>“So you’re going to take Fanny away from us, Mr. Hosmer,” said Belle, +when he had greeted them and seated himself beside Mrs. Dawson on the +small sofa that stood between the door and window. Fanny sat at the +adjoining window, and Mrs. Worthington in the center of the room; +which was indeed so small a room that any one of them might have +reached out and almost touched the hand of the others.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Fanny has agreed to go South with me,” he answered briefly. +“You’re looking well, Mrs. Worthington.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Law yes, I’m never sick. As I tell Mr. Worthington, he’ll never +get rid of me, unless he hires somebody to murder me. But I tell you +what, you came pretty near not having any Fanny to take away with you. +She was the sickest woman! Did you tell him about it, Fanny? Come to +think of it, I guess the climate down there’ll be the very thing to +bring her round.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dawson without offering apology interrupted her friend to inquire +of Hosmer if his life in the South were not of the most interesting, +and begging that he detail them something of it; with a look to +indicate that she felt the deepest concern in anything that touched +him.</p> + +<p>A masculine presence had always the effect of rousing Mrs. Dawson into +an animation which was like the glow of a slumbering ember, when a +strong pressure of air is brought to bear upon it.</p> + +<p>Hosmer had always considered her an amiable woman, with rather +delicate perceptions; frivolous, but without the vulgarisms of Mrs. +Worthington, and consequently a less objectionable friend for Fanny. +He answered, looking down into her eyes, which were full of +attentiveness.</p> + +<p>“My life in the South is not one that you would think interesting. I +live in the country where there are no distractions such as you ladies +call amusements—and I work pretty hard. But it’s the sort of life +that one grows attached to and finds himself longing for again if he +have occasion to change it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it must be very satisfying,” she answered; for the moment +perfectly sincere.</p> + +<p>“Oh very!” exclaimed Mrs. Worthington, with a loud and aggressive +laugh. “It would just suit you to a T, Lou, but how it’s going to +satisfy Fanny! Well, I’ve got nothing to say about it, thanks be; it +don’t concern me.”</p> + +<p>“If Fanny finds that she doesn’t like it after a fair trial, she has +the privilege of saying so, and we shall come back again,” he said +looking at his wife whose elevation of eyebrow, and droop of mouth +gave her the expression of martyred resignation, which St. Lawrence +might have worn, when invited to make himself comfortable on the +gridiron—so had Mrs. Worthington’s words impressed her with the force +of their prophetic meaning.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dawson politely hoped that Hosmer would not leave before Jack +came home; it would distress Jack beyond everything to return and find +that he had missed an old friend whom he thought so much of.</p> + +<p>Hosmer could not say precisely when they would leave. He was in +present negotiation with a person who wanted to rent the house, +furnished; and just as soon as he could arrange a few business +details, and Fanny could gather such belongings as she wished to take +with her they would go.</p> + +<p>“You seem mighty struck on Dave Hosmer, all of a sudden,” remarked +Mrs. Worthington to her friend, as the two crossed over the street. “A +feller without any more feelings than a stick; it’s what I always said +about him.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I always did like Hosmer,” replied Mrs. Dawson. “But I thought he +had more sense than to tie himself to that little gump again, after +he’d had the luck to get rid of her.”</p> + +<p>A few days later Jack came home. His return was made palpable to the +entire neighborhood; for no cab ever announced itself with quite the +dash and clatter and bang of door that Jack’s cabs did.</p> + +<p>The driver had staggered behind him under the weight of the huge +yellow valise, and had been liberally paid for the service.</p> + +<p>Immediately the windows were thrown wide open, and the lace curtains +drawn aside until no smallest vestige of them remained visible from +the street. A condition of things which Mrs. Worthington upstairs +bitterly resented, and naturally, spoiling as it necessarily did, the +general <span class="italic" lang="fr">coup d’œil</span> of the flat to passers-by. But Mrs. Dawson +had won her husband’s esteem by just such acts as this one of amiable +permission to ventilate the house according to methods of his own and +essentially masculine; regardless of dust that might be flying, or sun +that might be shining with disastrous results to the parlor carpet.</p> + +<p>Clouds of tobacco smoke were seen to issue from the open windows. +Those neighbors whose openings commanded a view of the Dawson’s +alley-gate might have noted the hired girl starting for the grocery +with unusual animation of step, and returning with her basket well +stocked with beer and soda bottles—a provision made against a need +for “dutch-cocktails,” likely to assail Jack during his hours of +domesticity.</p> + +<p>In the evening the same hired girl, breathless from the multiplicity +of errands which she had accomplished during the day, appeared at the +Hosmers with a message that Mrs. Dawson wanted them to “come over.”</p> + +<p>They were preparing to leave on the morrow, but concluded that they +could spare a few moments in which to bid adieu to their friends.</p> + +<p>Jack met them at the very threshold, with warm and hearty +hand-shaking, and loud protest when he learned that they had not come +to spend the evening and that they were going away next day.</p> + +<p>“Great Scott! you’re not leaving to-morrow? And I ain’t going to have +a chance to get even with Mrs. Hosmer on that last deal? By Jove, she +knows how to do it,” he said, addressing Hosmer and holding Fanny +familiarly by the elbow. “Drew to the middle, sir, and hang me, if she +didn’t fill. Takes a woman to do that sort o’ thing; and me a laying +for her with three aces. Hello there, girls! here’s Hosmer and Fanny,” +in response to which summons his wife and Mrs. Worthington issued from +the depths of the dining-room, where they had been engaged in +preparing certain refreshments for the expected guests.</p> + +<p>“See here, Lou, we’ll have to fix it up some way to go and see them +off to-morrow. If you’d manage to lay over till Thursday I could join +you as far as Little Rock. But no, that’s a fact,” he added +reflectively, “I’ve got to be in Cincinnati on Thursday.”</p> + +<p>They had all entered the parlor, and Mrs. Worthington suggested that +Hosmer go up and make a visit to her husband, whom he would find up +there “poring over those everlasting books.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what’s got into Mr. Worthington lately,” she said, “he’s +getting that religious. If it ain’t the Bible he’s poring over, well +it’s something or other just as bad.”</p> + +<p>The brightly burning light guided Hosmer to the kitchen, where he +found Lorenzo Worthington seated beside his student lamp at the table, +which was covered with a neat red cloth. On the gas-stove was spread a +similar cloth and the floor was covered with a shining oil-cloth.</p> + +<p>Mr. Worthington was startled, having already forgotten that his wife +had told him of Hosmer’s return to St. Louis.</p> + +<p>“Why, Mr. Hosmer, is this you? come, come into the parlor, this is no +place,” shaking Hosmer’s hand and motioning towards the parlor.</p> + +<p>“No, it’s very nice and cozy here, and I have only a moment to stay,” +said Hosmer, seating himself beside the table on which the other had +laid his book, with his spectacles between the pages to mark his +place. Mr. Worthington then did a little hemming and hawing +preparatory to saying something fitting the occasion; not wishing to +be hasty in offering the old established form of congratulation, in a +case whose peculiarity afforded him no precedential guide. Hosmer came +to his relief by observing quite naturally that he and his wife had +come over to say good-bye, before leaving for the South, adding “no +doubt Mrs. Worthington has told you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, and I’m sure we’re very sorry to lose you; that is, Mrs. +Larimore—I should say Mrs. Hosmer. Isabella will certainly regret her +departure, I see them always together, you know.”</p> + +<p>“You cling to your old habit, I see, Mr. Worthington,” said Hosmer, +indicating his meaning by a motion of the hand towards the book on the +table.</p> + +<p>“Yes, to a certain extent. Always within the forced limits, you +understand. At this moment I am much interested in tracing the history +of various religions which are known to us; those which have died out, +as well as existing religions. It is curious, indeed, to note the +circumstances of their birth, their progress and inevitable death; +seeming to follow the course of nations in such respect. And the +similitude which stamps them all, is also a feature worthy of study. +You would perhaps be surprised, sir, to discover the points of +resemblance which indicate in them a common origin. To observe the +slight differences, indeed technical differences, distinguishing the +Islam from the Hebrew, or both from the Christian religion. The creeds +are obviously ramifications from the one deep-rooted trunk which we +call religion. Have you ever thought of this, Mr. Hosmer?”</p> + +<p>“No, I admit that I’ve not gone into it. Homeyer would have me think +that all religions are but mythological creations invented to satisfy +a species of sentimentality—a morbid craving in man for the unknown +and undemonstrable.”</p> + +<p>“That is where he is wrong; where I must be permitted to differ from +him. As you would find, my dear sir, by following carefully the +history of mankind, that the religious sentiment is implanted, a true +and legitimate attribute of the human soul—with peremptory right to +its existence. Whatever may be faulty in the creeds—that makes no +difference, the foundation is there and not to be dislodged. Homeyer, +as I understand him from your former not infrequent references, is an +Iconoclast, who would tear down and leave devastation behind him; +building up nothing. He would deprive a clinging humanity of the +supports about which she twines herself, and leave her helpless and +sprawling upon the earth.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, he believes in a natural adjustment,” interrupted Hosmer. “In +an innate reserve force of accommodation. What we commonly call laws +in nature, he styles accidents—in society, only arbitrary methods of +expediency, which, when they outlive their usefulness to an advancing +and exacting civilization, should be set aside. He is a little +impatient to always wait for the inevitable natural adjustment.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, my dear Mr. Hosmer, the world is certainly to-day not prepared to +stand the lopping off and wrenching away of old traditions. She must +take her stand against such enemies of the conventional. Take religion +away from the life of man—”</p> + +<p>“Well, I knew it—I was just as sure as preaching,” burst out Mrs. +Worthington, as she threw open the door and confronted the two +men—resplendent in “baby blue” and much steel ornamentation. “As I +tell Mr. Worthington, he ought to turn Christian Brother or something +and be done with it.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, my dear; Mr. Hosmer and I have merely been interchanging a +few disjointed ideas.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be bound they were disjointed. I guess Fanny wants you, Mr. +Hosmer. If you listen to Mr. Worthington he’ll keep you here till +daylight with his ideas.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer followed Mrs. Worthington down-stairs and into Mrs. Dawson’s. +As he entered the parlor he heard Fanny laughing gaily, and saw that +she stood near the sideboard in the dining-room, just clicking her +glass of punch to Jack Dawson’s, who was making a gay speech on the +occasion of her new marriage.</p> + +<p>They did not leave when they had intended. Need the misery of that one +day be told?</p> + +<p>But on the evening of the following day, Fanny peered with pale, +haggard face from the closed window of the Pullman car as it moved +slowly out of Union dept, to see Lou and Jack Dawson smiling and +waving good-bye, Belle wiping her eyes and Mr. Worthington looking +blankly along the line of windows, unable to see them without his +spectacles, which he had left between the pages of his Schopenhauer on +the kitchen table at home.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2>PART <abbr title="2">II</abbr></h2> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_I" name="II_I"></a><abbr title="1">I</abbr><br> + +Fanny’s First Night at Place-du-Bois.</h2> + + +<p>The journey South had not been without attractions for Fanny. She had +that consciousness so pleasing to the feminine mind of being well +dressed; for her husband had been exceedingly liberal in furnishing +her the means to satisfy her fancy in that regard. Moreover the change +holding out a promise of novelty, irritated her to a feeble +expectancy. The air, that came to her in puffs through the car window, +was deliciously soft and mild; steeped with the rich languor of the +Indian summer, that had already touched the tree tops, the sloping +hill-side, and the very air, with russet and gold.</p> + +<p>Hosmer sat beside her, curiously inattentive to his newspaper; +observant of her small needs, and anticipating her timid half +expressed wishes. Was there some mysterious power that had so soon +taught the man such methods to a woman’s heart, or was he not rather +on guard and schooling himself for the rle which was to be acted out +to the end? But as the day was approaching its close, Fanny became +tired and languid; a certain mistrust was creeping into her heart with +the nearing darkness. It had grown sultry and close, and the view from +the car window was no longer cheerful, as they whirled through +forests, gloomy with trailing moss, or sped over an unfamiliar country +whose features were strange and held no promise of a welcome for her.</p> + +<p>They were nearing Place-du-Bois, and Hosmer’s spirits had risen almost +to the point of gaiety as he began to recognize the faces of those who +loitered about the stations at which they stopped. At the Centerville +station, five miles before reaching their own, he had even gone out on +the platform to shake hands with the rather mystified agent who had +not known of his absence. And he had waved a salute to the little +French priest of Centerville who stood out in the open beside his +horse, booted, spurred and all equipped for bad weather, waiting for +certain consignments which were to come with the train, and who +answered Hosmer’s greeting with a sober and uncompromising sweep of +the hand. When the whistle sounded for Place-du-Bois, it was nearly +dark. Hosmer hurried Fanny on to the platform, where stood Henry, his +clerk. There were a great many negroes loitering about, some of whom +offered him a cordial “how’dy Mr. Hosma,” and pushing through was +Grgoire, meeting them with the ease of a courtier, and acknowledging +Hosmer’s introduction of his wife, with a friendly hand shake.</p> + +<p>“Aunt Thrse sent the buggy down fur you,” he said, “we had rain this +mornin’ and the road’s putty heavy. Come this way. Mine out fur that +ba’el, Mrs. Hosma, it’s got molasses in. Hiurm bring that buggy ova +yere.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the news, Grgoire?” asked Hosmer, as they waited for Hiram to +turn the horses about.</p> + +<p>“Jus’ about the same’s ev’a. Miss Melicent wasn’t ver’ well a few days +back; but she’s some betta. I reckon you’re all plum wore out,” he +added, taking in Fanny’s listless attitude, and thinking her very +pretty as far as he could discover in the dim light.</p> + +<p>They drove directly to the cottage, and on the porch Thrse was +waiting for them. She took Fanny’s two hands and pressed them warmly +between her own; then led her into the house with an arm passed about +her waist. She shook hands with Hosmer, and stood for a while in +cheerful conversation, before leaving them.</p> + +<p>The cottage was fully equipped for their reception, with Minervy in +possession of the kitchen and the formerly reluctant Suze as +housemaid: though Thrse had been silent as to the methods which she +had employed to prevail with these unwilling damsels.</p> + +<p>Hosmer then went out to look after their baggage, and when he +returned, Fanny sat with her head pillowed on the sofa, sobbing +bitterly. He knelt beside her, putting his arm around her, and asked +the cause of her distress.</p> + +<p>“Oh it’s so lonesome, and dreadful, I don’t believe I can stand it,” +she answered haltingly through her tears.</p> + +<p>And here was he thinking it was so home-like and comforting, and +tasting the first joy that he had known since he had gone away.</p> + +<p>“It’s all strange and new to you, Fanny; try to bear up for a day or +two. Come now, don’t be a baby—take courage. It will all seem quite +different by and by, when the sun shines.”</p> + +<p>A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a young colored +boy carrying an armful of wood.</p> + +<p>“Miss T’rse sont me kin’le fiar fu’ Miss Hosma; ’low he tu’nin’ +cole,” he said depositing his load on the hearth; and Fanny, drying +her eyes, turned to watch him at his work.</p> + +<p>He went very deliberately about it, tearing off thin slathers from the +fat pine, and arranging them into a light frame-work, beneath a +topping of kindling and logs that he placed on the massive brass +andirons. He crawled about on hands and knees, picking up the stray +bits of chips and moss that had fallen from his arms when he came in. +Then sitting back on his heels he looked meditatively into the blaze +which he had kindled and scratched his nose with a splinter of pine +wood. When Hosmer presently left the room, he rolled his big black +eyes towards Fanny, without turning his head, and remarked in a tone +plainly inviting conversation “yo’ all come f’om way yonda?”</p> + +<p>He was intensely black, and if Fanny had been a woman with the +slightest sense of humor, she could not but have been amused at the +picture which he presented in the revealing fire-light with his elfish +and ape like body much too small to fill out the tattered and +ill-fitting garments that hung about it. But she only wondered at him +and his rags, and at his motive for addressing her.</p> + +<p>“We’re come from St. Louis,” she replied, taking him with a +seriousness which in no wise daunted him.</p> + +<p>“Yo’ all brung de rain,” he went on sociably, leaving off the +scratching of his nose, to pass his black yellow-palmed hand slowly +through the now raging fire, a feat which filled her with +consternation. After prevailing upon him to desist from this +salamander like exhibition, she was moved to ask if he were not very +poor to be thus shabbily clad.</p> + +<p>“No ’um,” he laughed, “I got some sto’ close yonda home. Dis yere coat +w’at Mista Grgor gi’me,” looking critically down at its length, which +swept the floor as he remained on his knees. “He done all to’e tu +pieces time he gi’ him tu me, whar he scuffle wid Joint yonda tu de +mill. Mammy ’low she gwine mek him de same like new w’en she kin kotch +de time.”</p> + +<p>The entrance of Minervy bearing a tray temptingly arranged with a +dainty supper, served to silence the boy, who at seeing her, threw +himself upon all fours and appeared to be busy with the fire. The +woman, a big raw-boned field hand, set her burden awkwardly down on a +table, and after staring comprehensively around, addressed the boy in +a low rich voice, “Dar ain’t no mo’ call to bodda wid dat fiar, you +Sampson; how come Miss T’rse sont you lazy piece in yere tu buil’ +fiar?”</p> + +<p>“Don’ know how come,” he replied, vanishing with an air of the utmost +self-depreciation.</p> + +<p>Hosmer and Fanny took tea together before the cheerful fire and he +told her something of methods on the plantation, and made her further +acquainted with the various people whom she had thus far encountered. +She listened apathetically; taking little interest in what he said, +and asking few questions. She did express a little bewilderment at the +servant problem. Mrs. Lafirme, during their short conversation, had +deplored her inability to procure more than two servants for her; and +Fanny could not understand why it should require so many to do the +work which at home was accomplished by one. But she was tired—very +tired, and early sought her bed, and Hosmer went in quest of his +sister whom he had not yet seen.</p> + +<p>Melicent had been told of his marriage some days previously, and had +been thrown into such a state of nerves by the intelligence, as to +seriously alarm those who surrounded her and whose experience with +hysterical girls had been inadequate.</p> + +<p>Poor Grgoire had betaken himself with the speed of the wind to the +store to procure bromide, valerian, and whatever else should be +thought available in prevailing with a malady of this distressing +nature. But she was “some betta,” as he told Hosmer, who found her +walking in the darkness of one of the long verandas, all enveloped in +filmy white wool. He was a little prepared for a cool reception from +her, and ten minutes before she might have received him with a studied +indifference. But her mood had veered about and touched the point +which moved her to fall upon his neck, and in a manner, condole with +him; seasoning her sympathy with a few tears.</p> + +<p>“Whatever possessed you, David? I have been thinking, and thinking, +and I can see no reason which should have driven you to do this thing. +Of course I can’t meet her; you surely don’t expect it?”</p> + +<p>He took her arm and joined her in her slow walk.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do expect it, Melicent, and if you have the least regard for +me, I expect more. I want you to be good to her, and patient, and show +yourself her friend. No one can do such things more amiably than you, +when you try.”</p> + +<p>“But David, I had hoped for something so different.”</p> + +<p>“You couldn’t have expected me to marry Mrs. Lafirme, a Catholic,” he +said, making no pretense of misunderstanding her.</p> + +<p>“I think that woman would have given up religion—anything for you.”</p> + +<p>“Then you don’t know her, little sister.”</p> + +<p>It must have been far in the night when Fanny awoke suddenly. She +could not have told whether she had been awakened by the long, wailing +cry of a traveler across the narrow river, vainly trying to rouse the +ferryman; or the creaking of a heavy wagon that labored slowly by in +the road and moved Hector to noisy enquiry. Was it not rather the +pattering rain that the wind was driving against the window panes? The +lamp burned dimly upon the high old-fashioned mantel-piece and her +husband had thoughtfully placed an improvised screen before it, to +protect her against its disturbance. He himself was not beside her, +nor was he in the room. She slid from her bed and moved softly on her +bare feet over to the open sitting-room door.</p> + +<p>The fire had all burned away. Only the embers lay in a glowing heap, +and while she looked, the last stick that lay across the andirons, +broke through its tapering center and fell amongst them, stirring a +fitful light by which she discovered her husband seated and bowed like +a man who has been stricken. Uncomprehending, she stood a moment +speechless, then crept back noiselessly to bed.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_II" name="II_II"></a><abbr title="2">II</abbr><br> + +“Neva to See You!”</h2> + + +<p>Thrse judged it best to leave Fanny a good deal to herself during +her first days on the plantation, without relinquishing a certain +watchful supervision of her comfort, and looking in on her for a few +moments each day. The rain which had come with them continued fitfully +and Fanny remained in doors, clad in a warm handsome gown, her small +slippered feet cushioned before the fire, and reading the latest novel +of one of those prolific female writers who turn out their unwholesome +intellectual sweets so tirelessly, to be devoured by the girls and +women of the age.</p> + +<p>Melicent, who always did the unexpected, crossed over early on the +morning after Fanny’s arrival; penetrated to her sleeping room and +embraced her effusively, even as she lay in bed, calling her “poor +dear Fanny” and cautioning her against getting up on such a morning.</p> + +<p>The tears which had come to Fanny on arriving, and which had dried on +her cheek when she turned to gaze into the cheer of the great wood +fire, did not return. Everybody seemed to be making much of her, which +was a new experience in her life; she having always felt herself as of +little consequence, and in a manner, overlooked. The negroes were +overawed at the splendor of her toilettes and showed a respect for her +in proportion to the money value which these toilettes reflected. Each +morning Grgoire left at her door his compliments with a huge bouquet +of brilliant and many colored crysanthemums, and enquiry if he could +serve her in any way. And Hosmer’s time, that was not given to work, +was passed at her side; not in brooding or pre-occupied silence, but +in talk that invited her to friendly response.</p> + +<p>With Thrse, she was at first shy and diffident, and over watchful of +herself. She did not forget that Hosmer had told her “The lady knows +why I have come” and she resented that knowledge which Thrse +possessed of her past intimate married life.</p> + +<p>Melicent’s attentions did not last in their ultra-effusiveness, but +she found Fanny less objectionable since removed from her St. Louis +surroundings; and the evident consideration with which she had been +accepted at Place-du-Bois seemed to throw about her a halo of +sufficient distinction to impel the girl to view her from a new and +different stand-point.</p> + +<p>But the charm of plantation life was letting go its hold upon +Melicent. Grgoire’s adoration alone, and her feeble response to it +were all that kept her.</p> + +<p>“I neva felt anything like this befo’,” he said, as they stood +together and their hands touched in reaching for a splendid rose that +hung invitingly from its tall latticed support out in mid lawn. The +sun had come again and dried the last drop of lingering moisture on +grass and shrubbery.</p> + +<p>“W’en I’m away f’om you, even fur five minutes, ’t seems like I mus’ +hurry quick, quick, to git back again; an’ w’en I’m with you, +everything ’pears all right, even if you don’t talk to me or look at +me. Th’ otha day, down at the gin,” he continued, “I was figurin’ on +some weights an’ wasn’t thinkin’ about you at all, an’ all at once I +remember’d the one time I’d kissed you. Goodness! I couldn’t see the +figures any mo’, my head swum and the pencil mos’ fell out o’ my han’. +I neva felt anything like it: hones’, Miss Melicent, I thought I was +goin’ to faint fur a minute.”</p> + +<p>“That’s very unwise, Grgoire,” she said, taking the roses that he +handed her to add to the already large bunch. “You must learn to think +of me calmly: our love must be something like a sacred memory—a sweet +recollection to help us through life when we are apart.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know how I’m goin’ to stan’ it. Neva to see you! neva—my +God!” he gasped, paling and crushing between his nervous fingers the +flower she would have taken from him.</p> + +<p>“There is nothing in this world that one cannot grow accustomed to, +dear,” spoke the pretty philosopher, picking up her skirts daintily +with one hand and passing the other through his arm—the hand which +held the flowers, whose peculiar perfume ever afterwards made Grgoire +shiver through a moment of pain that touched very close upon rapture.</p> + +<p>He was more occupied than he liked during those busy days of +harvesting and ginning, that left him only brief and snatched +intervals of Melicent’s society. If he could have rested in the +comfort of being sure of her, such moments of separation would have +had their compensation in reflective anticipation. But with his +undisciplined desires and hot-blooded eagerness, her half-hearted +acknowledgments and inadequate concessions, closed her about with a +chilling barrier that staggered him with its problematic nature. +Feeling himself her equal in the aristocracy of blood, and her master +in the knowledge and strength of loving, he resented those half +understood reasons which removed him from the possibility of being +anything to her. And more, he was angry with himself for acquiescing +in that self understood agreement. But it was only in her absence that +these thoughts disturbed him. When he was with her, his whole being +rejoiced in her existence and there was no room for doubt or dread.</p> + +<p>He felt himself regenerated through love, and as having no part in +that other Grgoire whom he only thought of to dismiss with +unrecognition.</p> + +<p>The time came when he could ill conceal his passion from others. +Thrse became conscious of it, through an unguarded glance. The +unhappiness of the situation was plain to her; but to what degree she +could not guess. It was certainly so deplorable that it would have +been worth while to have averted it. Yet, she felt great faith in the +power of time and absence to heal such wounds even to the extent of +leaving no tell-tale scar.</p> + +<p>“Grgoire, my boy,” she said to him, speaking in French, and laying +her hand on his, when they were alone together. “I hope that your +heart is not too deep in this folly.”</p> + +<p>He reddened and asked, “What do you mean, aunt?”</p> + +<p>“I mean, that unfortunately, you are in love with Melicent. I do not +know how much longer she will remain here, but taking any possibility +for granted, let me advise you to leave the place for a while; go back +to your home, or take a little trip to the city.”</p> + +<p>“No, I could not.”</p> + +<p>“Force yourself to it.”</p> + +<p>“And lose days, perhaps weeks, of being near her? No, no, I could not +do that, aunt. There will be plenty time for that in the rest of my +life,” he said, trying to speak calmly and forcing his voice to a +harshness which the nearness of tears made needful.</p> + +<p>“Does she know? Have you told her?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, she knows how much I love her.”</p> + +<p>“And she does not love you,” said Thrse, seeming rather to assert +than to question.</p> + +<p>“No, she does not. No matter what she says—she does not. I can feel +that here,” he answered, striking his breast. “Oh aunt, it is terrible +to think of her going away; forever, perhaps; of never seeing her. I +could not stand it.” And he stood the strain no longer, but sobbed and +wept with his aunt’s consoling arms around him.</p> + +<p>Thrse, knowing that Melicent would not tarry much longer with them, +thought it not needful to approach her on the subject. Had it been +otherwise, she would not have hesitated to beg the girl to desist from +this unprofitable amusement of tormenting a human heart.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_III" name="II_III"></a><abbr title="3">III</abbr><br> + +A Talk Under the Cedar Tree.</h2> + + +<p>Day by day, Fanny threw off somewhat of the homesickness which had +weighted her at coming. Not by any determined effort of the will, nor +by any resolve to make the best of things. Outside influences meeting +half-way the workings of unconscious inward forces, were the agents +that by degrees were gently ridding her of the acute pressure of +dissatisfaction, which up to the present, she had stolidly borne +without any personal effort to cast it off.</p> + +<p>Thrse affected her forcibly. This woman so wholesome, so fair and +strong; so un-American as to be not ashamed to show tenderness and +sympathy with eye and lip, moved Fanny like a new and pleasing +experience. When Thrse touched her caressingly, or gently stroked +her limp hand, she started guiltily, and looked furtively around to +make sure that none had witnessed an exhibition of tenderness that +made her flush, and the first time found her unresponsive. A second +time, she awkwardly returned the hand pressure, and later, these +mildly sensuous exchanges prefaced the outpouring of all Fanny’s woes, +great and small.</p> + +<p>“I don’t say that I always done what was right, Mrs. Laferm, but I +guess David’s told you just what suited him about me. You got to +remember there’s always two sides to a story.”</p> + +<p>She had been to the poultry yard with Thrse, who had introduced her +to its feathery tenants, making her acquainted with stately Brahmas +and sleek Plymouth-Rocks and hardy little “Creole chickens”—not much +to look at, but very palatable when converted into <span class="italic" lang="fr">fricasse</span>.</p> + +<p>Returning, they seated themselves on the bench that encircled a +massive cedar—spreading and conical. Hector, who had trotted +attendance upon them during their visit of inspection, cast himself +heavily down at his mistress’ feet and after glancing knowingly up +into her face, looked placidly forth at Sampson, gathering garden +greens on the other side of a low dividing fence.</p> + +<p>“You see if David’d always been like he is now, I don’t know but +things’d been different. Do you suppose he ever went any wheres with +me, or even so much as talked to me when he came home? There was +always that everlasting newspaper in his pocket, and he’d haul it out +the first thing. Then I used to read the paper too sometimes, and when +I’d go to talk to him about what I read, he’d never even looked at the +same things. Goodness knows what he read in the paper, I never could +find out; but here’d be the edges all covered over with figuring. I +believe it’s the only thing he ever thought or dreamt about; that +eternal figuring on every bit of paper he could lay hold of, till I +was tired picking them up all over the house. Belle Worthington used +to say it’d of took an angel to stand him. I mean his throwing papers +around that way. For as far as his never talking went, she couldn’t +find any fault with that; Mr. Worthington was just as bad, if he +wasn’t worse. But Belle’s not like me; I don’t believe she’d let poor +Mr. Worthington talk in the house if he wanted to.”</p> + +<p>She gradually drifted away from her starting point, and like most +people who have usually little to say, became very voluble, when once +she passed into the humor of talking. Thrse let her talk unchecked. +It seemed to do her good to chatter about Belle and Lou, and Jack +Dawson, and about her home life, of which she unknowingly made such a +pitiable picture to her listener.</p> + +<p>“I guess David never let on to you about himself,” she said moodily, +having come back to the sore that rankled: the dread that Thrse had +laid all the blame of the rupture on her shoulders.</p> + +<p>“You’re mistaken, Mrs. Hosmer. It was a knowledge of his own +short-comings that prompted your husband to go back and ask your +forgiveness. You must grant, there’s nothing in his conduct now that +you could reproach him with. And,” she added, laying her hand gently +on Fanny’s arm, “I know you’ll be strong, and do your share in this +reconciliation—do what you can to please him.”</p> + +<p>Fanny flushed uneasily under Thrse’s appealing glance.</p> + +<p>“I’m willing to do anything that David wants,” she replied, “I made up +my mind to that from the start. He’s a mighty good husband now, Mrs. +Laferm. Don’t mind what I said about him. I was afraid you thought +that—”</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” returned Thrse kindly, “I know all about it. Don’t +worry any farther over what I may think. I believe in you and in him, +and I know you’ll both be brave and do what’s right.”</p> + +<p>“There isn’t anything so very hard for David to do,” she said, +depressed with a sense of her inadequate strength to do the task which +she had set herself. “He’s got no faults to give up. David never did +have any faults. He’s a true, honest man; and I was a coward to say +those things about him.”</p> + +<p>Melicent and Grgoire were coming across the lawn to join the two, and +Fanny, seeing them approach, suddenly chilled and wrapt herself about +in her mantle of reserve.</p> + +<p>“I guess I better go,” she said, offering to rise, but Thrse held +out a detaining hand.</p> + +<p>“You don’t want to go and sit alone in the cottage; stay here with me +till Mr. Hosmer comes back from the mill.”</p> + +<p>Grgoire’s face was a study. Melicent, who did what she wanted with +him, had chosen this afternoon, for some inscrutable reason, to make +him happy. He carried her shawl and parasol; she herself bearing a +veritable armful of flowers, leaves, red berried sprigs, a tangle of +richest color. They had been in the woods and she had bedecked him +with garlands and festoons of autumn leaves, till he looked a very +Satyr; a character which his flushed, swarthy cheeks, and glittering +animal eyes did not belie.</p> + +<p>They were laughing immoderately, and their whole bearing still +reflected their exuberant gaiety as they joined Thrse and Fanny.</p> + +<p>“What a ‘Mater Dolorosa’ Fanny looks!” exclaimed Melicent, throwing +herself into a picturesque attitude on the bench beside Thrse, and +resting her feet on Hector’s broad back.</p> + +<p>Fanny offered no reply, but to look helplessly resigned; an expression +which Melicent knew of old, and which had always the effect of +irritating her. Not now, however, for the curve of the bench around +the great cedar tree removed her from the possibility of contemplating +Fanny’s doleful visage, unless she made an effort to that end, which +she was certainly not inclined to do.</p> + +<p>“No, Grgoire,” she said, flinging a rose into his face when he would +have seated himself beside her, “go sit by Fanny and do something to +make her laugh; only don’t tickle her; David mightn’t like it. And +here’s Mrs. Lafirme looking almost as glum. Now, if David would only +join us with that ‘pale cast of thought’ that he bears about usually, +what a merry go round we’d have.”</p> + +<p>“When Melicent looks at the world laughing, she wants it to laugh back +at her,” said Thrse, reflecting something of the girl’s gaiety.</p> + +<p>“As in a looking-glass, well isn’t that square?” she returned, falling +into slang, in her recklessness of spirit.</p> + +<p>Endeavoring to guard her treasure of flowers from Thrse, who was +without ceremony making a critical selection among them of what +pleased her, Melicent slid around the bench, bringing herself close to +Grgoire and begging his protection against the Vandalism of his aunt. +She looked into his eyes for an instant as though asking him for love +instead of so slight a favor and he grasped her arm, pressing it till +she cried out from the pain: which act, on his side, served to drive +her again around to Thrse.</p> + +<p>“Guess what we are going to do to-morrow: you and I and all of us; +Grgoire and David and Fanny and everybody?”</p> + +<p>“Going to Bedlam along with you?” Thrse asked.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Lafirme is in need of a rebuke, which I shall proceed to +administer,” thrusting a crumpled handful of rose leaves down the neck +of Thrse’s dress, and laughing joyously in her scuffle to accomplish +the punishment.</p> + +<p>“No, madam; I don’t go to Bedlam; I drive others there. Ask Grgoire +what we’re going to do. Tell them, Grgoire.”</p> + +<p>“They ain’t much to tell. We’a goin’ hoss back ridin’.”</p> + +<p>“Not me; I can’t ride,” wailed Fanny.</p> + +<p>“You can get up Torpedo for Mrs. Hosmer, can’t you, Grgoire?” asked +Thrse.</p> + +<p>“Certainly. W’y you could ride ole Torpedo, Mrs. Hosma, if you nova +saw a hoss in yo’ life. A li’l chile could manage him.”</p> + +<p>Fanny turned to Thrse for further assurance and found all that she +looked for.</p> + +<p>“We’ll go up on the hill and see that dear old Morico, and I shall +take along a comb, and comb out that exquisite white hair of his and +then I shall focus him, seated in his low chair and making one of +those cute turkey fans.”</p> + +<p>“Ole Morico ain’t goin’ to let you try no monkeyshines on him; I tell +you that befo’ han’,” said Grgoire, rising and coming to Melicent to +rid him of his sylvan ornamentations, for it was time for him to leave +them. When he turned away, Melicent rose and flung all her flowery +wealth into Thrse’s lap, and following took his arm.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” asked Thrse.</p> + +<p>“Going to help Grgoire feed the mules,” she called back looking over +her shoulder; the sinking sun lighting her handsome mischievous face.</p> + +<p>Thrse proceeded to arrange the flowers with some regard to graceful +symmetry; and Fanny did not regain her talkative spirit that +Melicent’s coming had put to flight, but sat looking silent and +listlessly into the distance.</p> + +<p>As Thrse glanced casually up into her face she saw it warmed by a +sudden faint glow—an unusual animation, and following her gaze, she +saw that Hosmer had returned and was entering the cottage.</p> + +<p>“I guess I better be going,” said Fanny rising, and this time Thrse +no longer detained her.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_IV" name="II_IV"></a><abbr title="4">IV</abbr><br> + +Thrse Crosses the River.</h2> + + +<p>To shirk any serious duties of life would have been entirely foreign +to Thrse’s methods or even instincts. But there did come to her +moments of rebellion—or repulsion, against the small demands that +presented themselves with an unfailing recurrence; and from such, she +at times indulged herself with the privilege of running away. When +Fanny left her alone—a pathetic little droop took possession of the +corners of her mouth that might not have come there if she had not +been alone. She laid the flowers, only half arranged, on the bench +beside her, as a child would put aside a toy that no longer interested +it. She looked towards the house and could see the servants going back +and forth. She knew if she entered, she would be met by appeals from +one and the other. The overseer would soon be along, with his crib +keys, and stable keys; his account of the day’s doings and +consultations for to-morrow’s work, and for the moment, she would have +none of it.</p> + +<p>“Come, Hector—come, old boy,” she said rising abruptly; and crossing +the lawn she soon gained the gravel path that led to the outer road. +This road brought her by a mild descent to the river bank. The water, +seldom stationary for any long period, was at present running low and +sluggishly between its red banks.</p> + +<p>Tied to the landing was a huge flat-boat, that was managed by the aid +of a stout cable reaching quite across the river; and beside it +nestled a small light skiff. In this Thrse seated herself, and +proceeded to row across the stream, Hector plunging into the water and +swimming in advance of her.</p> + +<p>The banks on the opposite shore were almost perpendicular; and their +summit to be reached only by the artificial road that had been cut +into them: broad and of easy ascent. This river front was a standing +worry to Thrse, for when the water was high and rapid, the banks +caved constantly, carrying away great sections from the land. Almost +every year, the fences in places had to be moved back, not only for +security, but to allow a margin for the road that on this side +followed the course of the small river.</p> + +<p>High up and perilously near the edge, stood a small cabin. It had once +been far removed from the river, which had now, however, eaten its way +close up to it—leaving no space for the road-way. The house was +somewhat more pretentious than others of its class, being fashioned of +planed painted boards, and having a brick chimney that stood fully +exposed at one end. A great rose tree climbed and spread generously +over one side, and the big red roses grew by hundreds amid the dark +green setting of their leaves.</p> + +<p>At the gate of this cabin Thrse stopped, calling out, “<span class="italic" lang="fr">Grosse +tante!—oh, Grosse tante!</span>”</p> + +<p>The sound of her voice brought to the door a negress—coal black and +so enormously fat that she moved about with evident difficulty. She +was dressed in a loosely hanging purple calico garment of the mother +Hubbard type—known as a <span class="italic" lang="fr">volante</span> amongst Louisiana Creoles; and on +her head was knotted and fantastically twisted a bright <span class="italic" lang="fr">tignon</span>. Her +glistening good-natured countenance illumined at the sight of Thrse.</p> + +<p>“<span class="italic" lang="fr">Quo faire to pas woulez rentrer, Tite matresse?</span>” and Thrse +answered in the same Creole dialect: “Not now, <span class="italic" lang="fr">Grosse tante</span>—I shall +be back in half an hour to drink a cup of coffee with you.” No English +words can convey the soft music of that speech, seemingly made for +tenderness and endearment.</p> + +<p>As Thrse turned away from the gate, the black woman re-entered the +house, and as briskly as her cumbersome size would permit, began +preparations for her mistress’ visit. Milk and butter were taken from +the safe; eggs, from the India rush basket that hung against the wall; +and flour, from the half barrel that stood in convenient readiness in +the corner: for <span class="italic" lang="fr">Tite matresse</span> was to be treated to a dish of +<span class="italic" lang="fr">croquignoles</span>. Coffee was always an accomplished fact at hand in the +chimney corner.</p> + +<p><span class="italic" lang="fr">Grosse tante</span>, or more properly, Marie Louise, was a +Creole—Thrse’s nurse and attendant from infancy, and the only one +of the family servants who had come with her mistress from New Orleans +to Place-du-Bois at that lady’s marriage with Jrme Lafirme. But her +ever increasing weight had long since removed her from the possibility +of usefulness, otherwise than in supervising her small farm yard. She +had little use for “<span class="italic" lang="fr">ces nges Amricains</span>,” as she called the +plantation hands—a restless lot forever shifting about and changing +quarters.</p> + +<p>It was seldom now that she crossed the river; only two occasions being +considered of sufficient importance to induce her to such effort. One +was in the event of her mistress’ illness, when she would install +herself at her bedside as a fixture, not to be dislodged by any less +inducement than Thrse’s full recovery. The other was when a dinner +of importance was to be given: then Marie Louise consented to act as +<span class="italic" lang="fr">chef de cuisine</span>, for there was no more famous cook than she in the +State; her instructor having been no less a personage than old Lucien +Santien—a <span class="italic" lang="fr">gourmet</span> famed for his ultra Parisian tastes.</p> + +<p>Seated at the base of a great China-berry on whose gnarled protruding +roots she rested an arm languidly, Thrse looked out over the river +and gave herself up to doubts and misgivings. She first took exception +with herself for that constant interference in the concerns of other +people. Might not this propensity be carried too far at times? Did the +good accruing counterbalance the personal discomfort into which she +was often driven by her own agency? What reason had she to know that a +policy of non-interference in the affairs of others might not after +all be the judicious one? As much as she tried to vaguely generalize, +she found her reasoning applying itself to her relation with Hosmer.</p> + +<p>The look which she had surprised in Fanny’s face had been a painful +revelation to her. Yet could she have expected other, and should she +have hoped for less, than that Fanny should love her husband and he in +turn should come to love his wife?</p> + +<p>Had she married Hosmer herself! Here she smiled to think of the storm +of indignation that such a marriage would have roused in the parish. +Yet, even facing the impossibility of such contingency, it pleased her +to indulge in a short dream of what might have been.</p> + +<p>If it were her right instead of another’s to watch for his coming and +rejoice at it! Hers to call him husband and lavish on him the love +that awoke so strongly when she permitted herself, as she was doing +now, to invoke it! She felt what capability lay within her of rousing +the man to new interests in life. She pictured the dawn of an +unsuspected happiness coming to him: broadening; illuminating; growing +in him to answer to her own big-heartedness.</p> + +<p>Were Fanny, and her own prejudices, worth the sacrifice which she and +Hosmer had made? This was the doubt that bade fair to unsettle her; +that called for a sharp, strong out-putting of the will before she +could bring herself to face the situation without its accessions of +personalities. Such communing with herself could not be condemned as a +weakness with Thrse, for the effect which it left upon her strong +nature was one of added courage and determination.</p> + +<p>When she reached Marie Louise’s cabin again, twilight, which is so +brief in the South, was giving place to the night.</p> + +<p>Within the cabin, the lamp had already been lighted, and Marie Louise +was growing restless at Thrse’s long delay.</p> + +<p>“Ah <span class="italic" lang="fr">Grosse tante</span>, I’m so tired,” she said, falling into a chair near +the door; not relishing the warmth of the room after her quick walk, +and wishing to delay as long as possible the necessity of sitting at +table. At another time she might have found the dish of golden brown +<span class="italic" lang="fr">croquignoles</span> very tempting with its accessory of fragrant coffee; +but not to-day.</p> + +<p>“Why do you run about so much, <span class="italic" lang="fr">Tite matresse</span>? You are always going +this way and that way; on horseback, on foot—through the house. Make +those lazy niggers work more. You spoil them. I tell you if it was old +mistress that had to deal with them, they would see something +different.”</p> + +<p>She had taken all the pins from Thrse’s hair which fell in a +gleaming, heavy mass; and with her big soft hands she was stroking her +head as gently as if those hands had been of the whitest and most +delicate.</p> + +<p>“I know that look in your eyes, it means headache. It’s time for me to +make you some more <span class="italic" lang="fr">eau sdative</span>—I am sure you haven’t any more; +you’ve given it away as you give away every thing.”</p> + +<p>“<span class="italic" lang="fr">Grosse tante</span>,” said Thrse seated at table and sipping her coffee; +<span class="italic" lang="fr">Grosse tante</span> also drinking her cup—but seated apart, “I am going to +insist on having your cabin moved back; it is silly to be so stubborn +about such a small matter. Some day you will find yourself out in the +middle of the river—and what am I going to do then?—no one to nurse +me when I am sick—no one to scold me—nobody to love me.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t say that, <span class="italic" lang="fr">Tite matresse</span>, all the world loves you—it isn’t +only Marie Louise. But no. You must remember the last time poor +Monsieur Jrme moved me, and said with a laugh that I can never +forget, ‘well, <span class="italic" lang="fr">Grosse tante</span>, I know we have got you far enough this +time out of danger,’ away back in Dumont’s field you recollect? I said +then, Marie Louise will move no more; she’s too old. If the good God +does not want to take care of me, then it’s time for me to go.”</p> + +<p>“Ah but, <span class="italic" lang="fr">Grosse tante</span>, remember—God does not want all the trouble +on his own shoulders,” Thrse answered humoring the woman, in her +conception of the Deity. “He wants us to do our share, too.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I have done my share. Nothing is going to harm Marie Louise. I +thought about all that, do not fret. So the last time Pre Antoine +passed in the road—going down to see that poor Pierre Pardou at the +Mouth—I called him in, and he blessed the whole house inside and out, +with holy water—notice how the roses have bloomed since then—and +gave me medals of the holy Virgin to hang about. Look over the door, +<span class="italic" lang="fr">Tite matresse</span>, how it shines, like a silver star.”</p> + +<p>“If you will not have your cabin removed, <span class="italic" lang="fr">Grosse tante</span>, then come +live with me. Old Hatton has wanted work at Place-du-Bois, the longest +time. We will have him build you a room wherever you choose, a pretty +little house like those in the city.”</p> + +<p>“<span class="italic" lang="fr">Non—non, Tite matresse, Marie Louise ’pr crver icite av tous +son butin, si faut</span>” (no, no, <span class="italic" lang="fr">Tite matresse</span>, Marie Louise will die +here with all her belongings if it must be).</p> + +<p>The servants were instructed that when their mistress was not at home +at a given hour, her absence should cause no delay in the household +arrangements. She did not choose that her humor or her movements be +hampered by a necessity of regularity which she owed to no one. When +she reached home supper had long been over.</p> + +<p>Nearing the house she heard the scraping of Nathan’s violin, the noise +of shuffling feet and unconstrained laughter. These festive sounds +came from the back veranda. She entered the dining-room, and from its +obscurity looked out on a curious scene. The veranda was lighted by a +lamp suspended from one of its pillars. In a corner sat Nathan; +serious, dignified, scraping out a monotonous but rhythmic minor +strain to which two young negroes from the lower quarters—famous +dancers—were keeping time in marvelous shuffling and pigeon-wings; +twisting their supple joints into astonishing contortions and the +sweat rolling from their black visages. A crowd of darkies stood at a +respectful distance an appreciative and encouraging audience. And +seated on the broad rail of the veranda were Melicent and Grgoire, +patting Juba and singing a loud accompaniment to the breakdown.</p> + +<p>Was this the Grgoire who had only yesterday wept such bitter tears on +his aunt’s bosom?</p> + +<p>Thrse turning away from the scene, the doubt assailed her whether it +were after all worth while to strive against the sorrows of life that +can be so readily put aside.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_V" name="II_V"></a><abbr title="5">V</abbr><br> + +One Afternoon.</h2> + + +<p>Whatever may have been Torpedo’s characteristics in days gone by, at +this advanced period in his history he possessed none so striking as a +stoical inaptitude for being moved. Another of his distinguishing +traits was a propensity for grazing which he was prone to indulge at +inopportune moments. Such points taken in conjunction with a gait +closely resembling that of the camel in the desert, might give much +cause to wonder at Thrse’s motive in recommending him as a suitable +mount for the unfortunate Fanny, were it not for his wide-spread +reputation of angelic inoffensiveness.</p> + +<p>The ride which Melicent had arranged and in which she held out such +promises of a “lark” proved after all but a desultory affair. For with +Fanny making but a sorry equestrian debut and Hosmer creeping along at +her side; Thrse unable to hold Beauregard within conventional +limits, and Melicent and Grgoire vanishing utterly from the scene, +sociability was a feature entirely lacking to the excursion.</p> + +<p>“David, I can’t go another step: I just can’t, so that settles it.”</p> + +<p>The look of unhappiness in Fanny’s face and attitude, would have moved +the proverbial stone.</p> + +<p>“I think if you change horses with me, Fanny, you’ll find it more +comfortable, and we’ll turn about and go home.”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t get on that horse’s back, David Hosmer, if I had to die +right here in the woods, I wouldn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think you could manage to walk back that distance then? I can +lead the horses,” he suggested as a <span class="italic" lang="fr">pis aller</span>.</p> + +<p>“I guess I’ll haf to; but goodness knows if I’ll ever get there +alive.”</p> + +<p>They were far up on the hill, which spot they had reached by painfully +slow and labored stages, each refraining from mention of a discomfort +that might interfere with the supposed enjoyment of the other, till +Fanny’s note of protest.</p> + +<p>Hosmer cast about him for some expedient that might lighten the +unpleasantness of the situation, when a happy thought occurred to him.</p> + +<p>“If you’ll try to bear up, a few yards further, you can dismount at +old Morico’s cabin and I’ll hurry back and get the buggy. It can be +driven this far anyway: and it’s only a short walk from here through +the woods.”</p> + +<p>So Hosmer set her down before Morico’s door: her long riding skirt, +borrowed for the occasion, twisting awkwardly around her legs, and +every joint in her body aching.</p> + +<p>Partly by pantomimic signs interwoven with a few French words which he +had picked up within the last year, Hosmer succeeded in making himself +understood to the old man, and rode away leaving Fanny in his care.</p> + +<p>Morico fussily preceded her into the house and placed a great clumsy +home-made rocker at her disposal, into which she cast herself with +every appearance of bodily distress. He then busied himself in tidying +up the room out of deference to his guest; gathering up the scissors, +waxen thread and turkey feathers which had fallen from his lap in his +disturbance, and laying them on the table. He knocked the ashes from +his corn-cob pipe which he now rested on a projection of the brick +chimney that extended into the room and that served as mantel-piece. +All the while he cast snatched glances at Fanny, who sat pale and +tired. Her appearance seemed to move him to make an effort towards +relieving it. He took a key from his pocket and unlocking a side of +the <span class="italic" lang="fr">garde manger</span>, drew forth a small flask of whisky. Fanny had +closed her eyes and was not aware of his action, till she heard him at +her elbow saying in his feeble quavering voice:—</p> + +<p>“<span class="italic" lang="fr">Tenez madame; goutez un peu: a va vous faire du bien,</span>” and opening +her eyes she saw that he held a glass half filled with strong “toddy” +for her acceptance.</p> + +<p>She thrust out her hand to ward it away as though it had been a +reptile that menaced her with its sting.</p> + +<p>Morico looked nonplussed and a little abashed: but he had much faith +in the healing qualities of his remedy and urged it on her anew. She +trembled a little, and looked away with rather excited eyes.</p> + +<p>“<span class="italic" lang="fr">Je vous assure madame, a ne peut pas vous faire du mal.</span>”</p> + +<p>Fanny took the glass from his hand, and rising went and placed it on +the table, then walked to the open door and looked eagerly out, as +though hoping for the impossibility of her husband’s return.</p> + +<p>She did not seat herself again, but walked restlessly about the room, +intently examining its meager details. The circuit of inspection +bringing her again to the table, she picked up Morico’s turkey fan, +looking at it long and critically. When she laid it down, it was to +seize the glass of “toddy” which she unhesitatingly put to her lips +and drained at a draught. All uneasiness and fatigue seemed to leave +her on the instant as though by magic. She went back to her chair and +reseated herself composedly. Her eyes now rested on her old host with +a certain quizzical curiosity strange to them.</p> + +<p>He was plainly demoralized by her presence, and still made pretense of +occupying himself with the arrangement of the room.</p> + +<p>Presently she said to him: “Your remedy did me more good than I’d +expected,” but not understanding her, he only smiled and looked at her +blankly.</p> + +<p>She laughed good-humoredly back at him, then went to the table and +poured from the flask which he had left standing there, liquor to the +depth of two fingers, this time drinking it more deliberately. After +that she tried to talk to Morico and thought it very amusing that he +could not understand her.</p> + +<p>Presently Joint came home and accepted her presence there very +indifferently. He went to the <span class="italic" lang="fr">garde manger</span> to stay his hunger, much +as he had done on the occasion of Thrse’s visit; talked in grum +abrupt utterances to his father, and disappeared into the adjoining +room where Fanny could hear him and occasionally see him polishing and +oiling his cherished rifle.</p> + +<p>Morico, more accustomed to foreign sounds in the woods than she, was +the first to detect the approach of Grgoire, whom he went out +hurriedly to meet, glad of the relief from the supposed necessity of +entertaining his puzzling visitor. When he was fairly out of the room, +she arose quickly, approached the table and reaching for the flask of +liquor, thrust it hastily into her pocket, then went to join him. At +the moment that Grgoire came up, Joint issued from a side door and +stood looking at the group.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mrs. Hosma, yere I am. I reckon you was tired waitin’. The +buggy’s yonda in the road.”</p> + +<p>He shook hands cordially with Morico saying something to him in French +which made the old man laugh heartily.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t David come? I thought he said he was coming; that’s the +way he does,” said Fanny complainingly.</p> + +<p>“That’s a po’ compliment to me, Mrs. Hosrma. Can’t you stan’ my +company for that li’le distance?” returned Grgoire gallantly. “Mr. +Hosma had a good deal to do w’en he got back, that’s w’y he sent me. +An’ we betta hurry up if we expec’ to git any suppa’ to-night. Like as +not you’ll fine your kitchen cleaned out.”</p> + +<p>Fanny looked her inquiry for his meaning.</p> + +<p>“Why, don’t you know this is ‘Tous-saint’ eve—w’en the dead git out +o’ their graves an’ walk about? You wouldn’t ketch a nigga out o’ his +cabin to-night afta dark to save his soul. They all gittin’ ready now +to hustle back to the quartas.”</p> + +<p>“That’s nonsense,” said Fanny, drawing on her gloves, “you ought to +have more sense than to repeat such things.”</p> + +<p>Grgoire laughed, looking surprised at her unusual energy of speech +and manner. Then he turned to Joint, whose presence he had thus far +ignored, and asked in a peremptory tone:</p> + +<p>“W’at did Woodson say ’bout watchin’ at the mill to-night? Did you ask +him like I tole you?”</p> + +<p>“Yaas, me ax um: ee’ low ee an’ goin’. Say how Sylveste d’wan’ watch +lak alluz. Say ee an’ goin’. Me don’ blem ’im neida, don’ ketch me +out de ’ouse night lak dat fu no man.”</p> + +<p>“<span class="italic" lang="fr">Sacr imbcile</span>,” muttered Grgoire, between his teeth, and +vouchsafed him no other answer, but nodded to Morico and turned away. +Fanny followed with a freedom of movement quite unlike that of her +coming.</p> + +<p>Morico went into the house and coming back hastily to the door called +to Joint:</p> + +<p>“Bring back that flask of whisky that you took off the table.”</p> + +<p>“You’re a liar: you know I have no use for whisky. That’s one of your +damned tricks to make me buy you more.” And he seated himself on an +over-turned tub and with his small black eyes half closed, looked +moodily out into the solemn darkening woods. The old man showed no +resentment at the harshness and disrespect of his son’s speech, being +evidently used to such. He passed his hand slowly over his white long +hair and turned bewildered into the house.</p> + +<p>“Is it just this same old thing year in and year out, Grgoire? Don’t +any one ever get up a dance, or a card party or anything?”</p> + +<p>“Jus’ as you say; the same old thing f’om one yea’s en’ to the otha. I +used to think it was putty lonesome myse’f w’en I firs’ come yere. +Then you see they’s no neighbo’s right roun’ yere. In Natchitoches +now; that’s the place to have a right down good time. But see yere; I +didn’ know you was fon’ o’ dancin’ an’ such things.”</p> + +<p>“Why, of course, I just dearly love to dance. But it’s as much as my +life’s worth to say that before David; he’s such a stick; but I guess +you know that by this time,” with a laugh, as he had never heard from +her before—so unconstrained; at the same time drawing nearer to him +and looking merrily into his face.</p> + +<p>“The little lady’s been having a ‘toddy’ at Morico’s, that makes her +lively,” thought Grgoire. But the knowledge did not abash him in the +least. He accommodated himself at once to the situation with that +adaptability common to the American youth, whether of the South, +North, East or West.</p> + +<p>“Where abouts did you leave David when you come away?” she asked with +a studied indifference.</p> + +<p>“Hol’ on there, Buckskin—w’ere you takin’ us? W’y, I lef’ him at the +sto’ mailin’ lettas.”</p> + +<p>“Had the others all got back? Mrs. Laferm? Melicent? did they all stop +at the store, too?”</p> + +<p>“Who? Aunt Thrrse? no, she was up at the house w’en I lef’—I reckon +Miss Melicent was there too. Talkin’ ’bout fun,—it’s to git into one +o’ them big spring wagons on a moonlight night, like they do in +Centaville sometimes; jus’ packed down with young folks—and start out +fur a dance up the coast. They ain’t nothin’ to beat it as fah as fun +goes.”</p> + +<p>“It must be just jolly. I guess you’re a pretty good dancer, +Grgoire?”</p> + +<p>“Well—’taint fur me to say. But they ain’t many can out dance me: not +in Natchitoches pa’ish, anyway. I can say that much.”</p> + +<p>If such a thing could have been, Fanny would have startled Grgoire +more than once during the drive home. Before its close she had +obtained a promise from him to take her up to Natchitoches for the +very next entertainment,—averring that she didn’t care what David +said. If he wanted to bury himself that was his own look out. And if +Mrs. Laferm took people to be angels that they could live in a place +like that, and give up everything and not have any kind of enjoyment +out of life, why, she was mistaken and that’s all there was to it. To +all of which freely expressed views Grgoire emphatically assented.</p> + +<p>Hosmer had very soon disembarrassed himself of Torpedo, knowing that +the animal would unerringly find his way to the corn crib by supper +time. He continued his own way now untrammelled, and at an agreeable +speed which soon brought him to the spring at the road side. Here he +found Thrse, half seated against a projection of rock, in her hand a +bunch of ferns which she had evidently dismounted to gather, and +holding Beauregard’s bridle while he munched at the cool wet tufts of +grass that grew everywhere.</p> + +<p>As Hosmer rode up at a rapid pace, he swung himself from his horse +almost before the animal came to a full stop. He removed his hat, +mopped his forehead, stamped about a little to relax his limbs and +turned to answer the enquiry with which Thrse met him.</p> + +<p>“Left her at Morico’s. I’ll have to send the buggy back for her.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t forgive myself for such a blunder,” said Thrse regretfully, +“indeed I had no idea of that miserable beast’s character. I never was +on him you know—only the little darkies, and they never complained: +they’d as well ride cows as not.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s mainly from her being unaccustomed to riding, I believe.”</p> + +<p>This was the first time that Hosmer and Thrse had met alone since +his return from St. Louis. They looked at each other with full +consciousness of what lay in the other’s mind. Thrse felt that +however adroitly another woman might have managed the situation, for +herself, it would have been a piece of affectation to completely +ignore it at this moment.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Hosmer, perhaps I ought to have said something before this, to +you—about what you’ve done.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, congratulated me—complimented me,” he replied with a +pretense at a laugh.</p> + +<p>“Well, the latter, perhaps. I think we all like to have our good and +right actions recognized for their worth.”</p> + +<p>He flushed, looked at her with a smile, then laughed out-right—this +time it was no pretense.</p> + +<p>“So I’ve been a good boy; have done as my mistress bade me and now I’m +to receive a condescending little pat on the head—and of course must +say thank you. Do you know, Mrs. Lafirme—and I don’t see why a woman +like you oughtn’t to know it—it’s one of those things to drive a man +mad, the sweet complaisance with which women accept situations, or +inflict situations that it takes the utmost of a man’s strength to +endure.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Hosmer,” said Thrse plainly discomposed, “you must +concede you decided it was the right thing to do.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t do it because I thought it was right, but because you +thought it was right. But that makes no difference.”</p> + +<p>“Then remember your wife is going to do the right thing herself—she +admitted as much to me.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you fool yourself, as Melicent says, about what Mrs. Hosmer +means to do. I take no account of it. But you take it so easily; so as +a matter of course. That’s what exasperates me. That you, you, you, +shouldn’t have a suspicion of the torture of it; the loathsomeness of +it. But how could you—how could any woman understand it? Oh forgive +me, Thrse—I wouldn’t want you to. There’s no brute so brutal as a +man,” he cried, seeing the pain in her face and knowing he had caused +it. “But you know you promised to help me—oh I’m talking like an +idiot.”</p> + +<p>“And I do,” returned Thrse, “that is, I want to, I mean to.”</p> + +<p>“Then don’t tell me again that I have done right. Only look at me +sometimes a little differently than you do at Hiram or the gate post. +Let me once in a while see a look in your face that tells me that you +understand—if it’s only a little bit.”</p> + +<p>Thrse thought it best to interrupt the situation; so, pale and +silently she prepared to mount her horse. He came to her assistance of +course, and when she was seated she drew off her loose riding glove +and held out her hand to him. He pressed it gratefully, then touched +it with his lips; then turned it and kissed the half open palm.</p> + +<p>She did not leave him this time, but rode at his side in silence with +a frown and little line of thought between her blue eyes.</p> + +<p>As they were nearing the store she said diffidently: “Mr. Hosmer, I +wonder if it wouldn’t be best for you to put the mill in some one +else’s charge—and go away from Place-du-Bois.”</p> + +<p>“I believe you always speak with a purpose, Mrs. Lafirme: you have +somebody’s ultimate good in view, when you say that. Is it your own, +or mine or whose is it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! not mine.”</p> + +<p>“I will leave Place-du-Bois, certainly, if you wish it.”</p> + +<p>As she looked at him she was forced to admit that she had never seen +him look as he did now. His face, usually serious, had a whole +unwritten tragedy in it. And she felt altogether sore and puzzled and +exasperated over man’s problematic nature.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think it should be left entirely to me to say. Doesn’t your +own reason suggest a proper course in the matter?”</p> + +<p>“My reason is utterly unable to determine anything in which you are +concerned. Mrs. Lafirme,” he said checking his horse and laying a +restraining hand on her bridle, “let me speak to you one moment. I +know you are a woman to whom one may speak the truth. Of course, you +remember that you prevailed upon me to go back to my wife. To you it +seemed the right thing—to me it seemed certainly hard—but no more +nor less than taking up the old unhappy routine of life, where I had +left it when I quitted her. I reasoned much like a stupid child who +thinks the colors in his kaleidoscope may fall twice into the same +design. In place of the old, I found an entirely new +situation—horrid, sickening, requiring such a strain upon my energies +to live through it, that I believe it’s an absurdity to waste so much +moral force for so poor an aim—there would be more dignity in putting +an end to my life. It doesn’t make it any the more bearable to feel +that the cause of this unlooked for change lies within myself—my +altered feelings. But it seems to me that I have the right to ask you +not to take yourself out of my life; your moral support; your bodily +atmosphere. I hope not to give way to the weakness of speaking of +these things again: but before you leave me, tell me, do you +understand a little better why I need you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I understand now; and I thank you for talking so openly to me. +Don’t go away from Place-du-Bois: it would make me very wretched.”</p> + +<p>She said no more and he was glad of it, for her last words held almost +the force of action for him; as though she had let him feel for an +instant her heart beat against his own with an echoing pain.</p> + +<p>Their ways now diverged. She went in the direction of the house and he +to the store where he found Grgoire, whom he sent for his wife.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_VI" name="II_VI"></a><abbr title="6">VI</abbr><br> + +One Night.</h2> + + +<p>“Grgoire was right: do you know those nasty creatures have gone and +left every speck of the supper dishes unwashed? I’ve got half a mind +to give them both warning to-morrow morning.”</p> + +<p>Fanny had come in from the kitchen to the sitting-room, and the above +homily was addressed to her husband who stood lighting his cigar. He +had lately taken to smoking.</p> + +<p>“You’d better do nothing of the kind; you wouldn’t find it easy to +replace them. Put up a little with their vagaries: this sort of thing +only happens once a year.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know it won’t be something else just as ridiculous +to-morrow? And that idiot of a Minervy; what do you suppose she told +me when I insisted on her staying to wash up things? She says, last +whatever you call it, her husband wanted to act hard-headed and staid +out after dark, and when he was crossing the bayou, the spirits jerked +him off his horse and dragged him up and down in the water, till he +was nearly drowned. I don’t see what you’re laughing at; I guess you’d +like to make out that they’re in the right.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer was perfectly aware that Fanny had had a drink, and he rightly +guessed that Morico had given it to her. But he was at a loss to +account for the increasing symptoms of intoxication that she showed. +He tried to persuade her to go to bed; but his efforts to that end +remained unheeded, till she had eased her mind of an accumulation of +grievances, mostly fancied. He had much difficulty in preventing her +from going over to give Melicent a piece of her mind about her lofty +airs and arrogance in thinking herself better than other people. And +she was very eager to tell Thrse that she meant to do as she liked, +and would stand no poking of noses in her business. It was a good +while before she fell into a heavy sleep, after shedding a few maudlin +tears over the conviction that he intended to leave her again, and +clinging to his neck with beseeching enquiry whether he loved her.</p> + +<p>He went out on the veranda feeling much as if he had been wrestling +with a strong adversary who had mastered him, and whom he was glad to +be freed of, even at the cost of coming inglorious from the conflict. +The night was so dark, so hushed, that if ever the dead had wished to +step from their graves and take a stroll above ground, they could not +have found a more fitting hour. Hosmer walked very long in the +soothing quiet. He would have liked to walk the night through. The +last three hours had been like an acute physical pain, that was over +for the moment, and that being over, left his mind free to return to +the delicious consciousness, that he had needed to be reminded of, +that Thrse loved him after all. When his measured tread upon the +veranda finally ceased to mark the passing hours, a quiet that was +almost pulseless fell upon the plantation. Place-du-Bois slept. +Perhaps the only night in the year that some or other of the negroes +did not lurk in fence corners, or make exchange of nocturnal visits.</p> + +<p>But out in the hills there was no such unearthly stillness reigning. +Those restless wood-dwellers, that never sleep, were sending startling +gruesome calls to each other. Bats were flapping and whirling and +darting hither and thither; the gliding serpent making quick rustle +amid the dry, crisp leaves, and over all sounded the murmur of the +great pine trees, telling their mystic secrets to the night.</p> + +<p>A human creature was there too, feeling a close fellowship with these +spirits of night and darkness; with no more fear in his heart than the +unheeded serpent crossing his path. Every inch of the ground he knew. +He wanted no daylight to guide him. Had his eyes been blinded he would +no doubt have bent his body close to earth and scented his way along +like the human hound that he was. Over his shoulder hung the polished +rifle that sent dull and sudden gleamings into the dark. A large tin +pail swung from his hand. He was very careful of this pail—or its +contents, for he feared to lose a drop. And when he accidentally +struck an intervening tree and spilled some upon the ground, he +muttered a curse against his own awkwardness.</p> + +<p>Twice since leaving his cabin up in the clearing, he had turned to +drive back his yellow skulking dog that followed him. Each time the +brute had fled in abject terror, only to come creeping again into his +master’s footsteps, when he thought himself forgotten. Here was a +companion whom neither Joint nor his mission required. Exasperated, +he seated himself on a fallen tree and whistled softly. The dog, who +had been holding back, dashed to his side, trembling with eagerness, +and striving to twist his head around to lick the hand that patted +him. Joint’s other hand glided quickly into his pocket, from which he +drew forth a coil of thin rope that he flung deftly over the animal’s +head, drawing it close and tight about the homely, shaggy throat. So +quickly was the action done, that no sound was uttered, and Joint +continued his way untroubled by his old and faithful friend, whom he +left hanging to the limb of a tree.</p> + +<p>He was following the same path that he traversed daily to and from the +mill, and which soon brought him out into the level with its soft +tufted grass and clumps of squat thorn trees. There was no longer the +protecting wood to screen him; but of such there was no need, for the +darkness hung about him like the magic mantle of story. Nearing the +mill he grew cautious, creeping along with the tread of a stealthy +beast, and halting at intervals to listen for sounds that he wished +not to hear. He knew there was no one on guard tonight. A movement in +the bushes near by, made him fall quick and sprawling to earth. It was +only Grgoire’s horse munching the soft grass. Joint drew near and +laid his hand on the horse’s back. It was hot and reeking with sweat. +Here was a fact to make him more wary. Horses were not found in such +condition from quietly grazing of a cool autumn night. He seated +himself upon the ground, with his hands clasped about his knees, all +doubled up in a little heap, and waited there with the patience of the +savage, letting an hour go by, whilst he made no movement.</p> + +<p>The hour past, he stole towards the mill, and began his work of +sprinkling the contents of his pail here and there along the dry +timbers at well calculated distances, with care that no drop should be +lost. Then, he drew together a great heap of crisp shavings and +slathers, plentifully besprinkling it with what remained in the can. +When he had struck a match against his rough trousers and placed it +carefully in the midst of this small pyramid, he found that he had +done his work but too surely. The quick flame sprang into life, +seizing at once all it could reach. Leaping over intervals; effacing +the darkness that had shrouded him; seeming to mock him as a fool and +point him out as a target for heaven and earth to hurl destruction at +if they would. Where should he hide himself? He only thought now of +how he might have done the deed differently, and with safety to +himself. He stood with great beams and loose planks surrounding him; +quaking with a premonition of evil. He wanted to fly in one direction; +then thought it best to follow the opposite; but a force outside of +himself seemed to hold him fast to one spot. When turning suddenly +about, he knew it was too late, he felt that all was lost, for there +was Grgoire, not twenty paces away—covering him with the muzzle of a +pistol and—cursed luck—his own rifle along with the empty pail in +the raging fire.</p> + +<p>Thrse was passing a restless night. She had lain long awake, +dwelling on the insistent thoughts that the day’s happenings had given +rise to. The sleep which finally came to her was troubled by +dreams—demoniac—grotesque. Hosmer was in a danger from which she was +striving with physical effort to rescue him, and when she dragged him +painfully from the peril that menaced him, she turned to see that it +was Fanny whom she had saved—laughing at her derisively, and Hosmer +had been left to perish. The dream was agonizing; like an appalling +nightmare. She awoke in a fever of distress, and raised herself in bed +to shake off the unnatural impression which such a dream can leave. +The curtains were drawn aside from the window that faced her bed, and +looking out she saw a long tongue of flame, reaching far up into the +sky—away over the tree tops and the whole Southern horizon a glow. +She knew at once that the mill was burning, and it was the affair of a +moment with her to spring from her bed and don slippers and wrapper. +She knocked on Melicent’s door to acquaint her with the startling +news; then hurried out into the back yard and rang the plantation +bell.</p> + +<p>Next she was at the cottage rousing Hosmer. But the alarm of the bell +had already awakened him, and he was dressed and out on the porch +almost as soon as Thrse had called. Melicent joined them, highly +agitated, and prepared to contribute her share towards any scene that +might be going forward. But she found little encouragement for heroics +with Hosmer. In saddling his horse rather hastily he was as unmoved as +though preparing for an uneventful morning canter. He stood at the +foot of the stairs preparing to mount when Grgoire rode up as if +pursued by furies; checking his horse with a quick, violent wrench +that set it quivering in its taut limbs.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Hosmer, “I guess it’s done for. How did it happen? who +did it?”</p> + +<p>“Joint’s work,” answered Grgoire bitingly.</p> + +<p>“The damned scoundrel,” muttered Hosmer, “where is he?”</p> + +<p>“Don’ botha ’bout Joint; he ain’t goin’ to set no mo’ mill afire,” +saying which, he turned his horse and the two rode furiously away.</p> + +<p>Melicent grasped Thrse’s arm convulsively.</p> + +<p>“What does he mean?” she asked in a frightened whisper.</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t know,” Thrse faltered. She had clasped her hands +spasmodically together, at Grgoire’s words, trembling with horror of +what must be their meaning.</p> + +<p>“May be he arrested him,” suggested the girl.</p> + +<p>“I hope so. Come; let’s go to bed: there’s no use staying out here in +the cold and dark.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer had left the sitting-room door open, and Thrse entered. She +approached Fanny’s door and knocked twice: not brusquely, but +sufficiently loud to be heard from within, by any one who was awake. +No answer came, and she went away, knowing that Fanny slept.</p> + +<p>The unusual sound of the bell, ringing two hours past midnight—that +very deadest hour of the night—had roused the whole plantation. On +all sides squads of men and a few venturesome women were hurrying +towards the fire; the dread of supernatural encounters overcome for +the moment by such strong reality and by the confidence lent them in +each other’s company.</p> + +<p>There were many already gathered around the mill, when Grgoire and +Hosmer reached it. All effort to save anything had been abandoned as +useless. The books and valuables had been removed from the office. The +few householders—mill-hands—whose homes were close by, had carried +their scant belongings to places of safety, but everything else was +given over to the devouring flames.</p> + +<p>The heat from this big raging fire was intense, and had driven most of +the gaping spectators gradually back—almost into the woods. But +there, to one side, where the fire was rapidly gaining, and making +itself already uncomfortably felt, stood a small awe-stricken group +talking in whispers; their ignorance and superstition making them +irresolute to lay a hand upon the dead Joint. His body lay amongst +the heavy timbers, across a huge beam, with arms outstretched and head +hanging down upon the ground. The glazed eyes were staring up into the +red sky, and on his swarthy visage was yet the horror which had come +there, when he looked in the face of death.</p> + +<p>“In God’s name, what are you doing?” cried Hosmer. “Can’t some of you +carry that boy’s body to a place of safety?”</p> + +<p>Grgoire had followed, and was looking down indifferently at the dead. +“Come, len’ a han’ there; this is gittin’ too durn hot,” he said, +stooping to raise the lifeless form. Hosmer was preparing to help him. +But there was some one staggering through the crowd; pushing men to +right and left. With now a hand upon the breast of both Hosmer and +Grgoire, and thrusting them with such force and violence, as to lay +them prone amongst the timbers. It was the father. It was old Morico. +He had awakened in the night and missed his boy. He had seen the fire; +indeed close enough that he could hear its roaring; and he knew +everything. The whole story was plain to him as if it had been told by +a revealing angel. The strength of his youth had come back to speed +him over the ground.</p> + +<p>“Murderers!” he cried looking about him with hate in his face. He did +not know who had done it; no one knew yet, and he saw in every man he +looked upon the possible slayer of his child.</p> + +<p>So here he stood over the prostrate figure; his old gray jeans hanging +loosely about him; wild eyed—with bare head clasped between his +claw-like hands, which the white disheveled hair swept over. Hosmer +approached again, offering gently to help him carry his son away.</p> + +<p>“Stand back,” he hurled at him. But he had understood the offer. His +boy must not be left to burn like a log of wood. He bent down and +strove to lift the heavy body, but the effort was beyond his strength. +Seeing this he stooped again and this time grasped it beneath the +arms; then slowly, draggingly, with halting step, began to move +backward.</p> + +<p>The fire claimed no more attention. All eyes were fastened upon this +weird picture; a sight which moved the most callous to offer again and +again assistance, that was each time spurned with an added defiance.</p> + +<p>Hosmer stood looking on, with folded arms; moved by the grandeur and +majesty of the scene. The devouring element, loosed in its awful +recklessness there in the heart of this lonely forest. The motley +group of black and white standing out in the great red light, +powerless to do more than wait and watch. But more was he stirred to +the depths of his being, by the sight of this human tragedy enacted +before his eyes.</p> + +<p>Once, the old man stops in his backward journey. Will he give over? +has his strength deserted him? is the thought that seizes every +on-looker. But no—with renewed effort he begins again his slow +retreat, till at last a sigh of relief comes from the whole watching +multitude. Morico with his burden has reached a spot of safety. What +will he do next? They watch in breathless suspense. But Morico does +nothing. He only stands immovable as a carved image. Suddenly there is +a cry that reaches far above the roar of fire and crash of falling +timbers: “<span class="italic" lang="fr">Mon fils! mon garon!</span>” and the old man totters and falls +backward to earth, still clinging to the lifeless body of his son. All +hasten towards him. Hosmer reaches him first. And when he gently lifts +the dead Joint, the father this time makes no hinderance, for he too +has gone beyond the knowledge of all earthly happenings.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_VII" name="II_VII"></a><abbr title="7">VII</abbr><br> + +Melicent Leaves Place-du-Bois.</h2> + + +<p>There had been no witness to the killing of Joint; but there were few +who did not recognize Grgoire’s hand in the affair. When met with the +accusation, he denied it, or acknowledged it, or evaded the charge +with a jest, as he felt for the moment inclined. It was a deed +characteristic of any one of the Santien boys, and if not altogether +laudable—Joint having been at the time of the shooting unarmed—yet +was it thought in a measure justified by the heinousness of his +offense, and beyond dispute, a benefit to the community.</p> + +<p>Hosmer reserved the expression of his opinion. The occurrence once +over, with the emotions which it had awakened, he was inclined to look +at it from one of those philosophic stand-points of his friend +Homeyer. Heredity and pathology had to be considered in relation with +the slayer’s character. He saw in it one of those interesting problems +of human existence that are ever turning up for man’s contemplation, +but hardly for the exercise of man’s individual judgment. He was +conscious of an inward repulsion which this action of Grgoire’s +awakened in him,—much the same as a feeling of disgust for an animal +whose instinct drives it to the doing of violent deeds,—yet he made +no difference in his manner towards him.</p> + +<p>Thrse was deeply distressed over this double tragedy: feeling keenly +the unhappy ending of old Morico. But her chief sorrow came from the +callousness of Grgoire, whom she could not move even to an avowal of +regret. He could not understand that he should receive any thing but +praise for having rid the community of so offensive and dangerous a +personage as Joint; and seemed utterly blind to the moral aspect of +his deed.</p> + +<p>An event at once so exciting and dramatic as this conflagration, with +the attendant deaths of Morico and his son, was much discussed amongst +the negroes. They were a good deal of one opinion in regard to Joint +having been only properly served in getting “w’at he done ben lookin’ +fu’ dis long time.” Grgoire was rather looked upon as a clever +instrument in the Lord’s service; and the occurrence pointed a moral +which they were not likely to forget.</p> + +<p>The burning of the mill entailed much work upon Hosmer, to which he +turned with a zest—an absorption that for the time excluded +everything else.</p> + +<p>Melicent had shunned Grgoire since the shooting. She had avoided +speaking with him—even looking at him. During the turmoil which +closely followed upon the tragic event, this change in the girl had +escaped his notice. On the next day he suspected it only. But the +third day brought him the terrible conviction. He did not know that +she was making preparations to leave for St. Louis, and quite +accidentally overheard Hosmer giving an order to one of the unemployed +mill hands to call for her baggage on the following morning before +train time.</p> + +<p>As much as he had expected her departure, and looked painfully forward +to it, this certainty—that she was leaving on the morrow and without +a word to him—bewildered him. He abandoned at once the work that was +occupying him.</p> + +<p>“I didn’ know Miss Melicent was goin’ away to-morrow,” he said in a +strange pleading voice to Hosmer.</p> + +<p>“Why, yes,” Hosmer answered, “I thought you knew. She’s been talking +about it for a couple of days.”</p> + +<p>“No, I didn’ know nothin’ ’tall ’bout it,” he said, turning away and +reaching for his hat, but with such nerveless hand that he almost +dropped it before placing it on his head.</p> + +<p>“If you’re going to the house,” Hosmer called after him, “tell +Melicent that Woodson won’t go for her trunks before morning. She +thought she’d need to have them ready to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if I go to the house. I don’ know if I’m goin’ to the house or +not,” he replied, walking listlessly away.</p> + +<p>Hosmer looked after the young man, and thought of him for a moment: of +his soft voice and gentle manner—perplexed that he should be the same +who had expressed in confidence the single regret that he had not been +able to kill Joint more than once.</p> + +<p>Grgoire went directly to the house, and approached that end of the +veranda on which Melicent’s room opened. A trunk had already been +packed and fastened and stood outside, just beneath the low-silled +window that was open. Within the room, and also beneath the window, +was another trunk, before which Melicent kneeled, filling it more or +less systematically from an abundance of woman’s toggery that lay in a +cumbrous heap on the floor beside her. Grgoire stopped at the window +to tell her, with a sad attempt at indifference:</p> + +<p>“Yo’ brotha says don’t hurry packin’; Woodson ain’t goin’ to come fur +your trunks tell mornin’.”</p> + +<p>“All right, thank you,” glancing towards him for an instant carelessly +and going on with her work.</p> + +<p>“I didn’ know you was goin’ away.”</p> + +<p>“That’s absurd: you knew all along I was going away,” she returned, +with countenance as expressionless as feminine subtlety could make it.</p> + +<p>“W’y don’t you let somebody else do that? Can’t you come out yere a +w’ile?”</p> + +<p>“No, I prefer doing it myself; and I don’t care to go out.”</p> + +<p>What could he do? what could he say? There were no convenient depths +in his mind from which he might draw at will, apt and telling speeches +to taunt her with. His heart was swelling and choking him, at sight of +the eyes that looked anywhere, but in his own; at sight of the lips +that he had one time kissed, pressed into an icy silence. She went on +with her task of packing, unmoved. He stood a while longer, silently +watching her, his hat in his hands that were clasped behind him, and a +stupor of grief holding him vise-like. Then he walked away. He felt +somewhat as he remembered to have felt oftentimes as a boy, when ill +and suffering, his mother would put him to bed and send him a cup of +bouillon perhaps, and a little negro to sit beside him. It seemed very +cruel to him now that some one should not do something for him—that +he should be left to suffer this way. He walked across the lawn over +to the cottage, where he saw Fanny pacing slowly up and down the +porch.</p> + +<p>She saw him approach and stood in a patch of sunlight to wait for him. +He really had nothing to say to her as he stood grasping two of the +balustrades and looking up at her. He wanted somebody to talk to him +about Melicent.</p> + +<p>“Did you know Miss Melicent was goin’ away?”</p> + +<p>Had it been Hosmer or Thrse asking her the question she would have +replied simply “yes,” but to Grgoire she said “yes; thank Goodness,” +as frankly as though she had been speaking to Belle Worthington. “I +don’t see what’s kept her down here all this time, anyway.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t like her?” he asked, stupefied at the strange possibility +of any one not loving Melicent to distraction.</p> + +<p>“No. You wouldn’t either, if you knew her as well as I do. If she +likes a person she goes on like a lunatic over them as long as it +lasts; then good-bye John! she’ll throw them aside as she would an old +dress.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I believe she thinks a heap of Aunt Thrse.”</p> + +<p>“All right; you’ll see how much she thinks of Aunt Thrse. And the +people she’s been engaged to! There ain’t a worse flirt in the city of +St. Louis; and always some excuse or other to break it off at the last +minute. I haven’t got any use for her, Lord knows. There ain’t much +love lost between us.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I reckon she knows they ain’t anybody born, good enough fur +her?” he said, thinking of those engagements that she had shattered.</p> + +<p>“What was David doing?” Fanny asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>“Writin’ lettas at the sto’.”</p> + +<p>“Did he say when he was coming?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Do you guess he’ll come pretty soon?”</p> + +<p>“No, I reckon not fur a good w’ile.”</p> + +<p>“Is Melicent with Mrs. Laferm?”</p> + +<p>“No; she’s packin’ her things.”</p> + +<p>“I guess I’ll go sit with Mrs. Laferm, d’you think she’ll mind?”</p> + +<p>“No, she’ll be glad to have you.”</p> + +<p>Fanny crossed over to go join Thrse. She liked to be with her when +there was no danger of interruption from Melicent, and Grgoire went +wandering aimlessly about the plantation.</p> + +<p>He staked great hopes on what the night might bring for him. She would +melt, perhaps, to the extent of a smile or one of her old glances. He +was almost cheerful when he seated himself at table; only he and his +aunt and Melicent. He had never seen her look so handsome as now, in a +woolen gown that she had not worn before, of warm rich tint, that +brought out a certain regal splendor that he had not suspected in her. +A something that she seemed to have held in reserve till this final +moment. But she had nothing for him—nothing. All her conversation was +addressed to Thrse; and she hurried away from table at the close of +the meal, under pretext of completing her arrangements for departure.</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t she mean to speak to me?” he asked fiercely of Thrse.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Grgoire, I see so much trouble around me; so many sad mistakes, +and I feel so powerless to right them; as if my hands were tied. I +can’t help you in this; not now. But let me help you in other ways. +Will you listen to me?”</p> + +<p>“If you want to help me, Aunt,” he said stabbing his fork into a piece +of bread before him, “go and ask her if she doesn’t mean to talk to +me: if she won’t come out on the gallery a minute.”</p> + +<p>“Grgoire wants to know if you won’t go out and speak to him a moment, +Melicent,” said Thrse entering the girl’s room. “Do as you wish, of +course. But remember you are going away to-morrow; you’ll likely never +see him again. A friendly word from you now, may do more good than you +imagine. I believe he’s as unhappy at this moment as a creature can +be!”</p> + +<p>Melicent looked at her horrified. “I don’t understand you at all, Mrs. +Lafirme. Think what he’s done; murdered a defenseless man! How can you +have him near you—seated at your table? I don’t know what nerves you +have in your bodies, you and David. There’s David, hobnobbing with +him. Even that Fanny talking to him as if he were blameless. Never! If +he were dying I wouldn’t go near him.”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you a spark of humanity in you?” asked Thrse, flushing +violently.</p> + +<p>“Oh, this is something physical,” she replied, shivering, “let me +alone.”</p> + +<p>Thrse went out to Grgoire, who stood waiting on the veranda. She +only took his hand and pressed it telling him good-night, and he knew +that it was a dismissal.</p> + +<p>There may be lovers, who, under the circumstances, would have felt +sufficient pride to refrain from going to the dept on the following +morning, but Grgoire was not one of them. He was there. He who only a +week before had thought that nothing but her constant presence could +reconcile him with life, had narrowed down the conditions for his +life’s happiness now to a glance or a kind word. He stood close to the +steps of the Pullman car that she was about to enter, and as she +passed him he held out his hand, saying “Good-bye.” But he held his +hand to no purpose. She was much occupied in taking her valise from +the conductor who had hoisted her up, and who was now shouting in +stentorian tones “All aboard,” though there was not a soul with the +slightest intention of boarding the train but herself.</p> + +<p>She leaned forward to wave good-bye to Hosmer, and Fanny, and Thrse, +who were on the platform; then she was gone.</p> + +<p>Grgoire stood looking stupidly at the vanishing train.</p> + +<p>“Are you going back with us?” Hosmer asked him. Fanny and Thrse had +walked ahead.</p> + +<p>“No,” he replied, looking at Hosmer with ashen face, “I got to go fine +my hoss.”<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_VIII" name="II_VIII"></a><abbr title="8">VIII</abbr><br> + +With Loose Rein.</h2> + + +<p>“De Lord be praised fu’ de blessin’s dat he showers down ’pon us,” was +Uncle Hiram’s graceful conclusion of his supper, after which he pushed +his empty plate aside regretfully, and addressed Aunt Belindy. +“’Pears to me, Belindy, as you reached a pint wid dem bacon an’ greens +to-night, dat you never tetched befo’. De pint o’ de flavorin’ is w’at +I alludes to.”</p> + +<p>“All de same, dat ain’t gwine to fetch no mo’,” was the rather uncivil +reply to this neat compliment to her culinary powers.</p> + +<p>“Dah!” cried the youthful Betsy, who formed one of the trio gathered +together in the kitchen at Place-du-Bois. “Jis listen (to) Unc’ Hiurm! +Aunt B’lindy neva tetched a han’ to dem bacon an’ greens. She tole me +out o’ her own mouf to put’em on de fiar; she warn’t gwine pesta wid +’em.”</p> + +<p>“Warn’t gwine pesta wid ’em?” administering a cuff on the ear of the +too communicative Betsy, that sent her sprawling across the table. +“T’inks I’se gwine pesta wid you—does you? Messin’ roun’ heah in de +kitchin’ an’ ain’t tu’ned down a bed or drawed a bah, or done a lick +o’ yo’ night wurk yit.”</p> + +<p>“I is done my night wurk, too,” returned Betsy whimpering but +defiantly, as she retreated beyond reach of further blows from Aunt +Belindy’s powerful right hand.</p> + +<p>“Dat harshness o’ yourn, Belindy, is wat’s a sourin’ yo’ tempa, an’ a +turnin’ of it intur gall an’ wormwood. Does you know wat de Scripture +tells us of de wrathful woman?”</p> + +<p>“Whar I got time to go a foolin’ wid Scripture? W’at I wants to know; +whar dat Pierson boy, he don’t come. He ben gone time ’nough to walk +to Natch’toches an’ back.”</p> + +<p>“Ain’t dat him I years yonda tu de crib?” suggestod Betsy, coming to +join Aunt Belindy in the open doorway.</p> + +<p>“You heahs mos’ too much fu’ yo’ own good, you does, gal.”</p> + +<p>But Betsy was right. For soon a tall, slim negro, young and coal +black, mounted the stairs and came into the kitchen, where he +deposited a meal bag filled with various necessities that he had +brought from Centerville. He was one of the dancers who had displayed +their skill before Melicent and Grgoire. Uncle Hiram at once accosted +him.</p> + +<p>“Well, Pierson, we jest a ben a wonderin’ consarnin’ you. W’at was de +’casion o’ dat long delay?”</p> + +<p>“De ’casion? W’y man alive, I couldn’t git a dog gone soul in de town +to wait on me.”</p> + +<p>“Dat boy kin lie, yas,” said Aunt Belindy, “God A’mighty knows ever +time I ben to Centaville dem sto’ keepas ain’t done a blessed t’ing +but settin’ down.”</p> + +<p>“Settin’ down—Lord! dey warn’t settin’ down to-day; you heah me.”</p> + +<p>“W’at dey doin’ ef dey ain’t settin’ down, Unc’ Pierson?” asked Betsy +with amiable curiosity.</p> + +<p>“You jis drap dat ‘uncle,’ you,” turning wrathfully upon the girl, +“sence w’en you start dat new trick?”</p> + +<p>“Lef de chile ’lone, Pierson, lef ’er alone. Come heah, Betsy, an’ set +by yo’ Uncle Hiurm.”</p> + +<p>From the encouraging nearness of Uncle Hiram, she ventured to ask +“w’at you ’low dey doin’ ef dey ain’t settin’ down?” this time without +adding the offensive title.</p> + +<p>“Dey flyin’ ’roun’, Lord! dey hidin’ dey sef! dey gittin’ out o’ de +way, I tell you. Grgor jis ben a raisin’ ole Cain in Centaville.”</p> + +<p>“I know’d it; could a’ tole you dat mese’f. My Lan’! but dats a piece, +dat Grgor,” Aunt Belindy enunciated between paroxysms of laughter, +seating herself with her fat arms resting on her knees, and her whole +bearing announcing pleased anticipation.</p> + +<p>“Dat boy neva did have no car’ fur de salvation o’ his soul,” groaned +Uncle Hiram.</p> + +<p>“W’at he ben a doin’ yonda?” demanded Aunt Belindy impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Pierson, assuming a declamatory air and position in the +middle of the large kitchen, “he lef’ heah—w’at time he lef heah, +Aunt B’lindy?”</p> + +<p>“He done lef’ fo’ dinna, ’caze I seed ’im a lopin’ to’ads de riva, +time I flung dat Sampson boy out o’ de doo’, bringin’ dem greens in +heah ’dout washin’ of ’em.”</p> + +<p>“Dat’s so; it war good dinna time w’en he come a lopin’ in town. Dat +hoss look like he ben swimmin’ in Cane Riva, he done ride him so hard. +He fling he se’f down front o’ Grammont’s sto’ an’ he come a stompin’ +in, look like gwine hu’t somebody. Ole Grammont tell him, ‘How you +come on, Grgor? Come ova tu de house an’ eat dinna wid us: de ladies +be pleas tu see you.’”</p> + +<p>“Humph,” muttered Aunt Belindy, “dem Grammont gals be glad to see any +t’ing dat got breeches on; lef ’lone good lookin’ piece like dat +Grgor.”</p> + +<p>“Grgor, he neva sey, ‘Tank you dog,’ jis’ fling he big dolla down on +de counta an’ ’low ‘don’t want no dinna: gimme some w’iskey.’”</p> + +<p>“Yas, yas, Lord,” from Aunt Belindy.</p> + +<p>“Ole Grammont, he push de bottle to’ads ’im, an’ I ’clar to Goodness +ef he didn’ mos fill dat tumbla to de brim, an’ drink it down, neva +blink a eye. Den he tu’n an treat ev’y las’ w’ite man stan’in’ roun’; +dat ole kiarpenta man; de blacksmif; Marse Verdon. He keep on a +treatin’; Grammont, he keep a handin’ out de w’iskey; Grgor he keep +on a drinkin’ an a treatin’—Grammont, he keep a handin’ out; don’t +make no odds tu him s’long uz dat bring de money in de draw. I ben a +stan’in’ out on de gallery, me, a peekin’ in. An’ Grgor, he cuss and +swar an’ he kiarry on, an ’low he want play game poka. Den dey all +goes a trompin’ in de back room an’ sets down roun’ de table, an’ I +comes a creepin’ in, me, whar I kin look frough de doo’, an dar dey +sets an’ plays an Grgor, he drinks w’iskey an’ he wins de money. An’ +arta w’ile Marse Verdon, he little eyes blinkin’, he ’low’, ‘y’ all +had a shootin’ down tu Place-du-Bois, <span class="italic" lang="fr">hein</span> Grgor?’ Grgor, he neva +say nuttin’: he jis’ draw he pistol slow out o’ he pocket an’ lay it +down on de table; an’ he look squar in Marse Verdon eyes. Man! ef you +eva seed some pussun tu’n’ w’ite!”</p> + +<p>“Reckon dat heifa ‘Milky’ look black side li’le Verdon dat time,” +chuckled Aunt Belindy.</p> + +<p>“Jis’ uz w’ite uz Unc’ Hiurm’s shurt an’ a trimblin’, an’ neva say no +mo’ ’bout shootin’. Den ole Grammont, he kine o’ hang back an’ say, +‘You git de jestice de peace, ’hine you, kiarrin’ conceal’ weepons dat +a-way, Grgor.’”</p> + +<p>“Dat ole Grammont, he got to git he gab in ef he gwine die fu’ it,” +interrupted Aunt Belindy.</p> + +<p>“Grgor say—‘I don’t ’lows to kiarr no conceal’ weepons,’ an he draw +nudda pistol slow out o’ he udda pocket an’ lay et on de table. By dat +time he gittin’ all de money, he crammin’ de money in he pocket; an’ +dem fellas dey gits up one arta d’udda kine o’ shy-like, an’ sneaks +out. Den Grgor, he git up an come out o’ de room, he coat ’crost he +arm, an’ de pistols a stickin’ out an him lookin’ sassy tell ev’y body +make way, same ef he ben Jay Goul’. Ef he look one o’ ’em in de eye +dey outs wid, ‘Howdy, Grgor—how you come on, Grgor?’ jis’ uz pelite +uz a peacock, an’ him neva take no trouble to yansa ’em. He jis’ holla +out fu’ somebody bring dat hoss tu de steps, an’ him stan’in’ ’s big +uz life, waitin’. I gits tu de hoss fus’, me, an’ leads ’im up, an’ he +gits top dat hoss stidy like he ain’t tetch a drap, an’ he fling me +big dolla.”</p> + +<p>“Whar de dolla, Mista Pierson?” enquired Betsy.</p> + +<p>“De dolla in my pocket, an’ et gwine stay dah. Didn’ ax you fu’ no +‘Mista Pierson.’ Whar yu’ all tink he went on dat hoss?”</p> + +<p>“How you reckon we knows whar he wint; we wasn’t dah,” replied Aunt +Belindy.</p> + +<p>“He jis’ went a lopin’ twenty yards down to Chartrand’s sto’. I goes +on ’hine ’im see w’at he gwine do. Dah he git down f’um de hoss an’ go +a stompin’ in de sto’—eve’ybody stan’in’ back jis’ same like fu’ Jay +Goul’, an’ he fling bill down on de counta an’ ’low, ‘Fill me up a +bottle, Chartrand, I’se gwine travelin’.’ Den he ’lows, ‘You treats +eve’y las’ man roun’ heah at my ’spence, black an’ w’ite—nuttin’ fu’ +me,’ an’ he fole he arms an’ lean back on de counta, jis’ so. +Chartrand, he look skeerd, he say ‘Franois gwine wait on you.’ But +Grgor, he ’low he don’t wants no rusty skileton a waitin’ on him w’en +he treat, ‘Wait on de gemmen yo’se’f—step up gemmen.’ Chartrand ’low, +‘Damn ef nigga gwine drink wid w’ite man in dat sto’,’ all same he +kine git ’hine box tu say dat.”</p> + +<p>“Lord, Lord, de ways o’ de transgressor!” groaned Uncle Hiram.</p> + +<p>“You want to see dem niggas sneaking ’way,” resumed Pierson, “dey +knows Grgor gwine fo’ce ’em drink; dey knows Chartrand gwine make it +hot fu’ ’em art’ards ef dey does. Grgor he spie me jis’ I’se tryin’ +glide frough de doo’ an he call out, ‘Yonda a gemmen f’um +Place-du-Bois; Pierson, come heah; you’se good ’nough tu drink wid any +w’ite man, ’cept me; you come heah, take drink wid Mr. Louis +Chartrand.’</p> + +<p>“I ’lows don’t wants no drink, much ’bleege, Marse Grgor’. ‘Yis, you +wants drink,’ an’ ’id dat he draws he pistol. ‘Mista Chartrand want +drink, too. I done owe Mista Chartrand somethin’ dis long time; I’se +gwine pay ’im wid a treat,’ he say. Chartrand look like he on fiar, he +so red, he so mad, he swell up same like ole bull frog.”</p> + +<p>“Dat make no odd,” chuckled Aunt Belindy, “he gwine drink wid nigga ef +Grgor say so.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he drink, Lord, only he cuss me slow, an’ ’low he gwine break my +skull.”</p> + +<p>“Lordy! I knows you was jis’ a trimblin’, Mista Pierson.”</p> + +<p>“Warn’t trimblin’ no mo’ ’en I’se trimblin’ dis minute, an’ you drap +dat ‘Mista.’ Den w’at you reckon? Yonda come Pre Antoine; he come an’ +stan’ in de doo’ an’ he hole up he han’; look like he ain’t ’feard no +body an’ he ’low: ‘Grgor Sanchun, how is you dar’ come in dis heah +peaceful town frowin’ of it into disorda an’ confusion? Ef you isn’t +’feard o’ man; hasn’t you got no fear o’ God A’mighty wat punishes?’”</p> + +<p>“Grgor, he look at ’im an’ he say cool like, ‘Howdy, Pre Antoine; +how you come on?’ He got he pistol w’at he draw fu’ make Chartrand +drink wid dis heah nigga,—he foolin’ wid it an’ a rubbin’ it up and +down he pants, an’ he ’low ‘Dis a gemmen w’at fit to drink wid a +Sanchun—w’at’ll you have?’ But Pre Antoine, he go on makin’ a su’mon +same like he make in chu’ch, an’ Grgor, he lean he two arm back on de +counta—kine o’ smilin’ like, an’ he say, ‘Chartrand, whar dat bottle +I orda you put up?’ Chartrand bring de bottle; Grgor, he put de +bottle in he coat pocket wat hang on he arm—car’ful.</p> + +<p>"Pre Antoine, he go on preachin’, he say, ‘I tell you dis young man, +you ’se on de big road w’at leads tu hell.’</p> + +<p>“Den Grgor straight he se’f up an’ walk close to Pre Antoine an’ he +say, ‘Hell an’ damnation dar ain’t no sich a place. I reckon she know; +w’at you know side o’ her. She say dar ain’t no hell, an’ ef you an’ +de Archbishop an’ de Angel Gabriel come along an’ ’low dey a hell, you +all liars,’ an’ he say, ‘Make way dah, I’se a gittin’ out o’ heah; dis +ain’t no town fittin’ to hol’ a Sanchun. Make way ef you don’ wants to +go to Kingdom come fo’ yo’ time.’</p> + +<p>“Well, I ’lows dey did make way. Only Pre Antoine, he look mighty +sorry an’ down cas’.</p> + +<p>“Grgor go out dat sto’ taking plenty room, an’ walkin’ car’ful like, +an’ he swing he se’f on de hoss; den he lean down mos’ flat an’ stick +he spurs in dat hoss an’ he go tar’in’ like de win’ down street, out +o’ de town, a firin’ he pistol up in de a’r.”</p> + +<p>Uncle Hiram had listened to the foregoing recital with troubled +countenance, and with many a protesting groan. He now shook his old +white head, and heaved a deep sigh. “All dat gwine come hard an’ heavy +on de madam. She don’t desarve it—God knows, she don’t desarve it.”</p> + +<p>“How you, ole like you is, kin look fu’ somethin’ diffunt, Unc’ +Hiurm?” observed Aunt Belindy philosophically. “Don’t you know Grgor +gwine be Grgor tell he die? Dat’s all dar is ’bout it.”</p> + +<p>Betsy arose with the sudden recollection that she had let the time +pass for bringing in Miss Thrse’s hot water, and Pierson went to the +stove to see what Aunt Belindy had reserved for him in the shape of +supper.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_IX" name="II_IX"></a><abbr title="9">IX</abbr><br> + +The Reason Why.</h2> + + +<p>Sampson, the young colored boy who had lighted Fanny’s fire on the +first day of her arrival at Place-du-Bois, and who had made such +insinuating advances of friendliness towards her, had continued to +attract her notice and good will. He it was who lighted her fires on +such mornings as they were needed. For there had been no winter. In +mid-January, the grass was fresh and green; trees and plants were +putting forth tender shoots, as if in welcome to spring; roses were +blossoming, and it was a veritable atmosphere of Havana rather than of +central Louisiana that the dwellers at Place-du-Bois were enjoying. +But finally winter made tardy assertion of its rights. One morning +broke raw and black with an icy rain falling, and young Sampson +arriving in the early bleakness to attend to his duties at the +cottage, presented a picture of human distress to move the most +hardened to pity. Though dressed comfortably in the clothing with +which Fanny had apparelled him—he was ashen. Save for the chattering +of his teeth, his body seemed possessed of a paralytic inability to +move. He knelt before the empty fire-place as he had done on that +first day, and with deep sighs and groans went about his work. Then he +remained long before the warmth that he had kindled; even lying full +length upon the soft rug, to bask in the generous heat that permeated +and seemed to thaw his stiffened limbs.</p> + +<p>Next, he went quietly into the bedroom to attend to the fire there. +Hosmer and Fanny were still sleeping. He approached a decorated basket +that hung against the wall; a receptacle for old newspapers and odds +and ends. He drew something from his rather capacious coat pocket, +and, satisfying himself that Hosmer slept, thrust it in the bottom of +the basket, well covered by the nondescript accumulation that was +there.</p> + +<p>The house was very warm and cheerful when they arose, and after +breakfasting Hosmer felt unusually reluctant to quit his fire-side and +face the inclement day; for an unaccustomed fatigue hung upon his +limbs and his body was sore, as from the effect of bruises. But he +went, nevertheless, well encased in protective rubber; and as he +turned away from the house, Fanny hastened to the hanging basket, and +fumbling nervously in its depths, found what the complaisant Sampson +had left for her.</p> + +<p>The cold rain had gradually changed into a fine mist, that in +descending, spread an icy coat upon every object that it touched. When +Hosmer returned at noon, he did not leave the house again.</p> + +<p>During the afternoon Thrse knocked at Fanny’s door. She was +enveloped in a long hooded cloak, her face glowing from contact with +the sharp moist air, and myriad crystal drops clinging to her fluffy +blonde hair that looked very golden under the dark hood that covered +it. She wanted to learn how Fanny accepted this unpleasant change of +atmospheric conditions, intending to bear her company for the +remainder of the day if she found her depressed, as was often the +case.</p> + +<p>“Why, I didn’t know you were home,” she said, a little startled, to +Hosmer who opened the door to her. “I came over to show Mrs. Hosmer +something pretty that I don’t suppose she ever saw before.” It was a +branch from a rose-tree, bearing two open blossoms and a multitude of +buds, creamy pink, all encased in an icy transparency that gleamed +like diamonds. “Isn’t it exquisite?” she said, holding the spray up +for Fanny’s admiration. But she saw at a glance that the spirit of +Disorder had descended and settled upon the Hosmer household.</p> + +<p>The usually neat room was in a sad state of confusion. Some of the +pictures had been taken from the walls, and were leaning here and +there against chairs and tables. The mantel ornaments had been removed +and deposited at random and in groups about the room. On the hearth +was a pail of water in which swam a huge sponge; and Fanny sat beside +the center-table that was piled with her husband’s wearing apparel, +holding in her lap a coat which she had evidently been passing under +inspection. Her hair had escaped from its fastenings; her collar was +hooked awry; her face was flushed and her whole bearing indicated her +condition.</p> + +<p>Hosmer took the frozen spray from Thrse’s hand, and spoke a little +about the beauty of the trees, especially the young cedars that he had +passed out in the hills on his way home.</p> + +<p>“It’s all well and good to talk about flowers and things, Mrs. +Laferm—sit down please—but when a person’s got the job that I’ve got +on my hands, she’s something else to think about. And David here +smoking one cigar after another. He knows all I’ve got to do, and goes +and sends those darkies home right after dinner.”</p> + +<p>Thrse was so shocked that for a while she could say nothing; till +for Hosmer’s sake she made a quick effort to appear at ease.</p> + +<p>“What have you to do, Mrs. Hosmer? Let me help you, I can give you the +whole afternoon,” she said with an appearance of being ready for any +thing that was at hand to be done.</p> + +<p>Fanny turned the coat over in her lap, and looked down helplessly at a +stain on the collar, that she had been endeavoring to remove; at the +same time pushing aside with patient repetition the wisp of hair that +kept falling over her cheek.</p> + +<p>“Belle Worthington’ll be here before we know it; her and her husband +and that Lucilla of hers. David knows how Belle Worthington is, just +as well as I do; there’s no use saying he don’t. If she was to see a +speck of dirt in this house or on David’s clothes, or anything, why +we’d never hear the last of it. I got a letter from her,” she +continued, letting the coat fall to the floor, whilst she endeavored +to find her pocket.</p> + +<p>“Is she coming to visit you?” asked Thrse who had taken up a feather +brush, and was dusting and replacing the various ornaments that were +scattered through the room.</p> + +<p>“She’s going down to Muddy Graw (Mardi-Gras) her and her husband and +Lucilla and she’s going to stop here a while. I had that letter—I +guess I must of left it in the other room.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” Thrse hastened to say, seeing that her whole energies +were centered on finding the letter.</p> + +<p>“Let me look,” said Hosmer, making a movement towards the bedroom +door, but Fanny had arisen and holding out a hand to detain him she +went into the room herself, saying she knew where she’d left it.</p> + +<p>“Is this the reason you’ve kept yourself shut up here in the house so +often?” Thrse asked of Hosmer, drawing near him. “Never telling me a +word of it,” she went on, “it wasn’t right; it wasn’t kind.”</p> + +<p>“Why should I have put any extra burden on you?” he answered, looking +down at her, and feeling a joy in her presence there, that seemed like +a guilty indulgence in face of his domestic shame.</p> + +<p>“Don’t stay,” Thrse said. “Leave me here. Go to your office or over +to the house—leave me alone with her.”</p> + +<p>Fanny returned, having found the letter, and spoke with increased +vehemence of the necessity of having the house in perfect trim against +the arrival of Belle Worthington, from whom they would never hear the +last, and so forth.</p> + +<p>“Well, your husband is going out, and that will give us a chance to +get things righted,” said Thrse encouragingly. “You know men are +always in the way at such times.”</p> + +<p>“It’s what he ought to done before; and left Suze and Minervy here,” +she replied with grudging acquiescence.</p> + +<p>After repeated visits to the bedroom, under various pretexts, Fanny +grew utterly incapable to do more than sit and gaze stupidly at +Thrse, who busied herself in bringing the confusion of the +sitting-room into some order.</p> + +<p>She continued to talk disjointedly of Belle Worthington and her well +known tyrannical characteristics in regard to cleanliness; finishing +by weeping mildly at the prospect of her own inability to ever reach +the high standard required by her exacting friend.</p> + +<p>It was far in the afternoon—verging upon night, when Thrse +succeeded in persuading her that she was ill and should go to bed. She +gladly seized upon the suggestion of illness; assuring Thrse that +she alone had guessed her affliction: that whatever was thought +singular in her behavior must be explained by that sickness which was +past being guessed at—then she went to bed.</p> + +<p>It was late when Hosmer left his office; a rough temporary shanty, put +together near the ruined mill.</p> + +<p>He started out slowly on his long cold ride. His physical malaise of +the morning had augmented as the day went on, and he was beginning to +admit to himself that he was “in for it.”</p> + +<p>But the cheerless ride was lightened by a picture that had been with +him through the afternoon, and that moved him in his whole being, as +the moment approached when it might be changed to reality. He knew +Fanny’s habits; knew that she would be sleeping now. Thrse would not +leave her there alone in the house—of that he was sure. And he +pictured Thrse at this moment seated at his fire-side. He would find +her there when he entered. His heart beat tumultuously at the thought. +It was a very weak moment with him, possibly, one in which his +unnerved condition stood for some account. But he felt that when he +saw her there, waiting for him, he would cast himself at her feet and +kiss them. He would crush her white hands against his bosom. He would +bury his face in her silken hair. She should know how strong his love +was, and he would hold her in his arms till she yield back tenderness +to his own. But—Thrse met him on the steps. As he was mounting +them, she was descending; wrapped in her long cloak, her pretty head +covered by the dark hood.</p> + +<p>“Oh, are you going?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She heard the note of entreaty in his voice.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she answered, “I shouldn’t have left her before you came; but I +knew you were here; I heard your horse’s tread a moment ago. She’s +asleep. Good night. Take courage and have a brave heart,” she said, +pressing his hand a moment in both hers, and was gone.</p> + +<p>The room was as he had pictured it; order restored and the fire +blazing brightly. On the table was a pot of hot tea and a tempting +little supper laid. But he pushed it all aside and buried his face +down upon the table into his folded arms, groaning aloud. Physical +suffering; thwarted love, and at the same time a feeling of +self-condemnation, made him wish that life were ended for him.</p> + +<p>Fanny awoke close upon morning, not knowing what had aroused her. She +was for a little while all bewildered and unable to collect herself. +She soon learned the cause of her disturbance. Hosmer was tossing +about and his outstretched arm lay across her face, where it had +evidently been flung with some violence. She took his hand to move it +away, and it burned her like a coal of fire. As she touched him he +started and began to talk incoherently. He evidently fancied himself +dictating a letter to some insurance company, in no pleased terms—of +which Fanny caught but snatches. Then:</p> + +<p>“That’s too much, Mrs. Lafirme; too much—too much—Don’t let Grgoire +burn—take him from the fire, some one. Thirty day’s credit—shipment +made on tenth,” he rambled on at intervals in his troubled sleep.</p> + +<p>Fanny trembled with apprehension as she heard him. Surely he has brain +fever she thought, and she laid her hand gently on his burning +forehead. He covered it with his own, muttering “Thrse, Thrse—so +good—let me love you.”<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_X" name="II_X"></a><abbr title="10">X</abbr><br> + +Perplexing Things.</h2> + + +<p>“Lucilla!”</p> + +<p>The pale, drooping girl started guiltily at her mother’s sharp +exclamation, and made an effort to throw back her shoulders. Then she +bit her nails nervously, but soon desisted, remembering that that +also, as well as yielding to a relaxed tendency of the spinal column, +was a forbidden indulgence.</p> + +<p>“Put on your hat and go on out and get a breath of fresh air; you’re +as white as milk-man’s cream.”</p> + +<p>Lucilla rose and obeyed her mother’s order with the precision of a +soldier, following the directions of his commander.</p> + +<p>“How submissive and gentle your daughter is,” remarked Thrse.</p> + +<p>“Well, she’s got to be, and she knows it. Why, I haven’t got to do +more than look at that girl most times for her to understand what I +want. You didn’t notice, did you, how she straightened up when I +called ‘Lucilla’ to her? She knows by the tone of my voice what she’s +got to do.”</p> + +<p>“Most mothers can’t boast of having such power over their daughters.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m not the woman to stand any shenanigans from a child of +mine. I could name you dead loads of women that are just completely +walked over by their children. It’s a blessing that boy of Fanny’s +died, between you and I; its what I’ve always said. Why, Mrs. Laferm, +she couldn’t any more look after a youngster than she could after a +baby elephant. By the by, what do you guess is the matter with her, +any way?”</p> + +<p>“How, the matter?” Thrse asked; the too ready blood flushing her +face and neck as she laid down her work and looked up at Mrs. +Worthington.</p> + +<p>“Why, she’s acting mighty queer, that’s all I can say for her.”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t been able to see her for some time,” Thrse returned, +going back to her sewing, “but I suppose she got a little upset and +nervous over her husband; he had a few days of very serious illness +before you came.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ve seen her in all sorts of states and conditions, and I’ve +never seen her like that before. Why, she does nothing in the God’s +world but whine and sniffle, and wish she was dead; it’s enough to +give a person the horrors. She can’t make out she’s sick; I never saw +her look better in my life. She must of gained ten pounds since she +come down here.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Thrse, “she was looking so well, and—and I thought +everything was going well with her too, but—” and she hesitated to go +on.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know what you want to say. You can’t help that. No use +bothering your brains about that—now you just take my advice,” +exclaimed Mrs. Worthington brusquely.</p> + +<p>Then she laughed so loud and suddenly that Thrse, being already +nervous, pricked her finger with her needle till the blood came; a +mishap which decided her to lay aside her work.</p> + +<p>“If you never saw a fish out of water, Mrs. Laferm, do take a peep at +Mr. Worthington astride that horse; it’s enough to make a cat expire!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Worthington was on the whole rather inclined to take her husband +seriously. As often as he might excite her disapproval, it was seldom +that he aroused her mirth. So it may be gathered that his appearance +in this unfamiliar rle of horseman was of the most mirth-provoking.</p> + +<p>He and Hosmer were dismounting at the cottage, which decided Mrs. +Worthington to go and look after them; Fanny for the time being—in +her opinion—not having “the gumption to look after a sick kitten.”</p> + +<p>“This is what I call solid comfort,” she said looking around the well +appointed sitting-room, before quitting it.</p> + +<p>“You ought to be a mighty happy woman, Mrs. Laferm; only I’d think +you’d die of lonesomeness, sometimes.”</p> + +<p>Thrse laughed, and told her not to forget that she expected them all +over in the evening.</p> + +<p>“You can depend on me; and I’ll do my best to drag Fanny over; +so-long.”</p> + +<p>When left alone, Thrse at once relapsed into the gloomy train of +reflections that had occupied her since the day she had seen with her +bodily eyes something of the wretched life that she had brought upon +the man she loved. And yet that wretchedness in its refinement of +cruelty and immorality she could not guess and was never to know. +Still, she had seen enough to cause her to ask herself with a shudder +“was I right—was I right?”</p> + +<p>She had always thought this lesson of right and wrong a very plain +one. So easy of interpretation that the simplest minded might solve it +if they would. And here had come for the first time in her life a +staggering doubt as to its nature. She did not suspect that she was +submitting one of those knotty problems to her unpracticed judgment +that philosophers and theologians delight in disagreeing upon, and her +inability to unravel it staggered her. She tried to convince herself +that a very insistent sting of remorse which she felt, came from +selfishness—from the pain that her own heart suffered in the +knowledge of Hosmer’s unhappiness. She was not callous enough to quiet +her soul with the balm of having intended the best. She continued to +ask herself only “was I right?” and it was by the answer to that +question that she would abide, whether in the stony content of +accomplished righteousness, or in an enduring remorse that pointed to +a goal in whose labyrinthine possibilities her soul lost itself and +fainted away.</p> + +<p>Lucilla went out to get a breath of fresh air as her mother had +commanded, but she did not go far to seek it. Not further than the end +of the back veranda, where she stood for some time motionless, before +beginning to occupy herself in a way which Aunt Belindy, who was +watching her from the kitchen window, considered highly problematical. +The negress was wiping a dish and giving it a fine polish in her +absence of mind. When her curiosity could no longer contain itself she +called out:</p> + +<p>“W’ats dat you’se doin’ dah, you li’le gal? Come heah an’ le’ me see.” +Lucilla turned with the startled look which seemed to be usual with +her when addressed.</p> + +<p>“Le’ me see,” repeated Aunt Belindy pleasantly.</p> + +<p>Lucilla approached the window and handed the woman a small square of +stiff writing paper which was stuck with myriad tiny pin-holes; some +of which she had been making when interrupted by Aunt Belindy.</p> + +<p>“W’at in God A’Mighty’s name you call dat ’ar?” the darkey asked +examining the paper critically, as though expecting the riddle would +solve itself before her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Those are my acts I’ve been counting,” the girl replied a little +gingerly.</p> + +<p>“Yo’ ax? I don’ see nuttin’ ’cep’ a piece o’ papah plum fill up wid +holes. W’at you call ax?”</p> + +<p>“Acts—acts. Don’t you know what acts are?”</p> + +<p>“How you want me know? I neva ben to no school whar you larn all dat.”</p> + +<p>“Why, an act is something you do that you don’t want to do—or +something you don’t want to do, that you do—I mean that you don’t do. +Or if you want to eat something and don’t. Or an aspiration; that’s an +act, too.”</p> + +<p>“Go long! W’ats dat—aspiration?”</p> + +<p>“Why, to say any kind of little prayer; or if you invoke our Lord, or +our Blessed Lady, or one of the saints, that’s an aspiration. You can +make them just as quick as you can think—you can make hundreds and +hundreds in a day.”</p> + +<p>“My Lan’! Dat’s w’at you’se studyin’ ’bout w’en you’se steppin’ ’roun’ +heah like a droopy pullet? An’ I t’ought you was studyin’ ’bout dat +beau you lef’ yonda to Sent Lous.”</p> + +<p>“You mustn’t say such things to me; I’m going to be a religious.”</p> + +<p>“How dat gwine henda you have a beau ef you’se religious?”</p> + +<p>“The religious never get married,” turning very red, “and don’t live +in the world like others.”</p> + +<p>“Look heah, chile, you t’inks I’se fool? Religion—no religion, whar +you gwine live ef you don’ live in de word? Gwine live up in de moon?”</p> + +<p>“You’re a very ignorant person,” replied Lucilla, highly offended. “A +religious devotes her life to God, and lives in the convent.”</p> + +<p>“Den w’y you neva said ‘convent’? I knows all ’bout convent. W’at you +gwine do wid dem ax w’en de papah done all fill up?” handing the +singular tablet back to her.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” replied Lucilla, “when I have thousands and thousands I gain +twenty-five years’ indulgence.”</p> + +<p>“Is dat so?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the girl; and divining that Aunt Belindy had not +understood, “twenty-five years that I don’t have to go to purgatory. +You see most people have to spend years and years in purgatory, before +they can get to Heaven.”</p> + +<p>“How you know dat?”</p> + +<p>If Aunt Belindy had asked Lucilla how she knew that the sun shone, she +could not have answered with more assurance “because I know” as she +turned and walked rather scornfully away.</p> + +<p>“W’at dat kine o’ fool talk dey larns gals up yonda tu Sent Lous? An’ +huh ma a putty woman; yas, bless me; all dress up fittin’ to kill. +Don’ ’pear like she studyin’ ’bout ax.”<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_XI" name="II_XI"></a><abbr title="11">XI</abbr><br> + +A Social Evening.</h2> + + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Duplan with their little daughter Ninette, who had +been invited to Place-du-Bois for supper, as well as for the evening, +were seated with Thrse in the parlor, awaiting the arrival of the +cottage guests. They had left their rather distant plantation, Les +Chnires, early in the afternoon, wishing as usual to make the most +of these visits, which, though infrequent, were always so much +enjoyed.</p> + +<p>The room was somewhat altered since that summer day when Thrse had +sat in its cool shadows, hearing the story of David Hosmer’s life. +Only with such difference, however, as the change of season called +for; imparting to it a rich warmth that invited to sociability and +friendly confidences. In the depths of the great chimney glowed with a +steady and dignified heat, the huge back-log, whose disposal Uncle +Hiram had superintended in person; and the leaping flames from the dry +hickories that surrounded it, lent a very genial light to the +grim-visaged Lafirmes who looked down from their elevation on the +interesting group gathered about the hearth.</p> + +<p>Conversation had never once flagged with these good friends; for, +aside from much neighborhood gossip to be told and listened to, there +was the always fertile topic of “crops” to be discussed in all its +bearings, that touched, in its local and restricted sense, the labor +question, cultivation, freight rates, and the city merchant.</p> + +<p>With Mrs. Duplan there was a good deal to be said about the unusual +mortality among “Plymouth-Rocks” owing to an alarming prevalence of +“pip,” which malady, however, that lady found to be gradually yielding +to a heroic treatment introduced into her <span class="italic" lang="fr">basse-cour</span> by one Coulon, +a piney wood sage of some repute as a mystic healer.</p> + +<p>This was a delicate refined little woman, somewhat old-fashioned and +stranded in her incapability to keep pace with the modern conduct of +life; but giving her views with a pretty self-confidence, that showed +her a ruler in her peculiar realm.</p> + +<p>The young Ninette had extended herself in an easy chair, in an +attitude of graceful abandonment, the earnest brown eyes looking +eagerly out from under a tangle of auburn hair, and resting with +absorbed admiration upon her father, whose words and movements she +followed with unflagging attentiveness. The fastidious little miss was +clad in a dainty gown that reached scarcely below the knees; revealing +the shapely limbs that were crossed and extended to let the well shod +feet rest upon the polished brass fender.</p> + +<p>Thrse had given what information lay within her range, concerning +the company which was expected. But her confidences had plainly been +insufficient to prepare Mrs. Duplan for the startling effect produced +by Mrs. Worthington on that little woman in her black silk of a +by-gone fashion; so splendid was Mrs. Worthington’s erect and imposing +figure, so blonde her blonde hair, so bright her striking color and so +comprehensive the sweep of her blue and scintillating gown. Yet was +Mrs. Worthington not at ease, as might be noticed in the unnatural +quaver of her high-pitched voice and the restless motion of her hands, +as she seated herself with an arm studiedly resting upon the table +near by.</p> + +<p>Hosmer had met the Duplans before; on the occasion of a former visit +to Place-du-Bois and again at Les Chnires when he had gone to see +the planter on business connected with the lumber trade.</p> + +<p>Fanny was a stranger to them and promised to remain such; for she +acknowledged her presentation with a silent bow and retreated as far +from the group as a decent concession to sociability would permit.</p> + +<p>Thrse with her pretty Creole tact was not long in bringing these +seemingly incongruent elements into some degree of harmony. Mr. Duplan +in his courteous and rather lordly way was presently imparting to Mrs. +Worthington certain reminiscences of a visit to St. Louis twenty-five +years before, when he and Mrs. Duplan had rather hastily traversed +that interesting town during their wedding journey. Mr. Duplan’s +manner had a singular effect upon Mrs. Worthington, who became +dignified, subdued, and altogether unnatural in her endeavor to adjust +herself to it.</p> + +<p>Mr. Worthington seated himself beside Mrs. Duplan and was soon trying +to glean information, in his eager short-sighted way, of psychological +interest concerning the negro race; such effort rather bewildering +that good lady, who could not bring herself to view the negro as an +interesting or suitable theme to be introduced into polite +conversation.</p> + +<p>Hosmer sat and talked good-naturedly to the little girls, endeavoring +to dispel the shyness with which they seemed inclined to view each +other—and Thrse crossed the room to join Fanny.</p> + +<p>“I hope you’re feeling better,” she ventured, “you should have let me +help you while Mr. Hosmer was ill.”</p> + +<p>Fanny looked away, biting her lip, the sudden tears coming to her +eyes. She answered with unsteady voice, “Oh, I was able to look after +my husband myself, Mrs. Laferm.”</p> + +<p>Thrse reddened at finding herself so misunderstood. “I meant in your +housekeeping, Mrs. Hosmer; I could have relieved you of some of that +worry, whilst you were occupied with your husband.”</p> + +<p>Fanny continued to look unhappy; her features taking on that peculiar +downward droop which Thrse had come to know and mistrust.</p> + +<p>“Are you going to New Orleans with Mrs. Worthington?” she asked, “she +told me she meant to try and persuade you.”</p> + +<p>“No; I’m not going. Why?” looking suspiciously in Thrse’s face.</p> + +<p>“Well,” laughed Thrse, “only for the sake of asking, I suppose. I +thought you’d enjoy Mardi-Gras, never having seen it.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not going anywheres unless David goes along,” she said, with an +impertinent ring in her voice, and with a conviction that she was +administering a stab and a rebuke. She had come prepared to watch her +husband and Mrs. Lafirme, her heart swelling with jealous suspicion as +she looked constantly from one to the other, endeavoring to detect +signs of an understanding between them. Failing to discover such, and +loth to be robbed of her morbid feast of misery, she set her failure +down to their pre-determined subtlety. Thrse was conscious of a +change in Fanny’s attitude, and felt herself unable to account for it +otherwise than by whim, which she knew played a not unimportant rle +in directing the manner of a large majority of women. Moreover, it was +not a moment to lose herself in speculation concerning this woman’s +capricious behavior. Her guests held the first claim upon her +attentions. Indeed, here was Mrs. Worthington even now loudly +demanding a pack of cards. “Here’s a gentleman never heard of +six-handed euchre. If you’ve got a pack of cards, Mrs. Laferm, I guess +I can show him quick enough that it can be done.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t doubt Mrs. Worthington’s ability to make any startling +and pleasing revelations,” rejoined the planter good humoredly, and +gallantly following Mrs. Worthington who had risen with the view of +putting into immediate effect her scheme of initiating these slow +people into the unsuspected possibilities of euchre; a game which, +however adaptable in other ways, could certainly not be indulged in by +seven persons. After each one proffering, as is usual on such +occasions, his readiness to assume the character of on-looker, Mr. +Worthington’s claim to entire indifference, if not +inability—confirmed by his wife—was accepted as the most sincere, +and that gentleman was excluded and excused.</p> + +<p>He watched them as they seated themselves at table, even lending +assistance, in his own awkward way, to range the chairs in place. Then +he followed the game for a while, standing behind Fanny to note the +outcome of her reckless offer of “five on hearts,” with only three +trumps in hand, and every indication of little assistance from her +partners, Mr. Duplan and Belle Worthington.</p> + +<p>At one end of the room was a long, low, well-filled book-case. Here +had been the direction of Mr. Worthington’s secret and stolen glances +the entire evening. And now towards this point he finally transported +himself by gradual movements which he believed appeared unstudied and +indifferent. He was confronted by a good deal of French—to him an +unfamiliar language. Here a long row of Balzac; then, the Waverley +Novels in faded red cloth of very old date. Racine, Moliere, Bulwer +following in more modern garb; Shakespeare in a compass that promised +very small type. His quick trained glance sweeping along the shelves, +contracted into a little frown of resentment while he sent his hand +impetuously through his scant locks, standing them quite on end.</p> + +<p>On the very lowest shelf were five imposing volumes in dignified black +and gold, bearing the simple inscription “Lives of the Saints—Rev. A. +Butler.” Upon one of them, Mr. Worthington seized, opening it at +hazard. He had fallen upon the history of St. Monica, mother of the +great St. Austin—a woman whose habits it appears had been so closely +guarded in her childhood by a pious nurse, that even the quenching of +her natural thirst was permitted only within certain well defined +bounds. This mentor used to say “you are now for drinking water, but +when you come to be mistress of the cellar, water will be despised, +but the habit of drinking will stick by you.” Highly interesting, Mr. +Worthington thought, as he brushed his hair all down again the right +way and seated himself the better to learn the fortunes of the good +St. Monica who, curiously enough, notwithstanding those early +incentives to temperance, “insensibly contracted an inclination to +wine,” drinking “whole cups of it with pleasure as it came in her +way.” A “dangerous intemperance” which it finally pleased Heaven to +cure through the instrumentality of a maid servant taunting her +mistress with being a “wine bibber.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Worthington did not stop with the story of Saint Monica. He lost +himself in those details of asceticism, martyrdom, superhuman +possibilities which man is capable of attaining under peculiar +conditions of life—something he had not yet “gone into.”</p> + +<p>The voices at the card table would certainly have disturbed a man with +less power of mind concentration. For Mrs. Worthington in this +familiar employment was herself again—<span class="italic">con fuoco</span>. Here was Mr. +Duplan in high spirits; his wife putting forth little gushes of +bird-like exaltation as the fascinations of the game revealed +themselves to her. Even Hosmer and Thrse were drawn for the moment +from their usual preoccupation. Fanny alone was the ghost of the +feast. Her features never relaxed from their settled gloom. She played +at hap-hazard, listlessly throwing down the cards or letting them fall +from her hands, vaguely asking what were trumps at inopportune +moments; showing that inattentiveness so exasperating to an eager +player and which oftener than once drew a sharp rebuke from Belle +Worthington.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you wish we could play,” said Ninette to her companion from her +comfortable perch beside the fire, and looking longingly towards the +card table.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” replied Lucilla briefly, gazing into the fire, with hands +folded in her lap. Thin hands, showing up very white against the dull +colored “convent uniform” that hung in plain, severe folds about her +and reached to her very ankles.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t you? I play often at home when company comes. And I play +cribbage and <span class="italic" lang="fr">vingt-et-un</span> with papa and win lots of money from him.”</p> + +<p>“That’s wrong.”</p> + +<p>“No, it isn’t; papa wouldn’t do it if it was wrong,” she answered +decidedly. “Do you go to the convent?” she asked, looking critically +at Lucilla and drawing a little nearer, so as to be confidential. +“Tell me about it,” she continued, when the other had replied +affirmatively. “Is it very dreadful? you know they’re going to send me +soon.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s the best place in the world,” corrected Lucilla as eagerly +as she could.</p> + +<p>“Well, mamma says she was just as happy as could be there, but you see +that’s so awfully long ago. It must have changed since then.”</p> + +<p>“The convent never changes: it’s always the same. You first go to +chapel to mass early in the morning.”</p> + +<p>“Ugh!” shuddered Ninette.</p> + +<p>“Then you have studies,” continued Lucilla. “Then breakfast, then +recreation, then classes, and there’s meditation.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, well,” interrupted Ninette, “I believe anything most would suit +you, and mamma when she was little; but if I don’t like it—see here, +if I tell you something will you promise never, never, to tell?”</p> + +<p>“Is it any thing wrong?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, not very; it isn’t a real mortal sin. Will you promise?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” agreed Lucilla; curiosity getting something the better of her +pious scruples.</p> + +<p>“Cross your heart?”</p> + +<p>Lucilla crossed her heart carefully, though a little reluctantly.</p> + +<p>“Hope you may die?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” exclaimed the little convent girl aghast.</p> + +<p>“Oh, pshaw,” laughed Ninette, “never mind. But that’s what Polly +always says when she wants me to believe her: ‘hope I may die, Miss +Ninette.’ Well, this is it: I’ve been saving up money for the longest +time, oh ever so long. I’ve got eighteen dollars and sixty cents, and +when they send me to the convent, if I don’t like it, I’m going to run +away.” This last and startling revelation was told in a tragic whisper +in Lucilla’s ear, for Betsy was standing before them with a tray of +chocolate and coffee that she was passing around.</p> + +<p>“I yeard you,” proclaimed Betsy with mischievous inscrutable +countenance.</p> + +<p>“You didn’t,” said Ninette defiantly, and taking a cup of coffee.</p> + +<p>“Yas, I did, I yeard you,” walking away.</p> + +<p>“See here, Betsy,” cried Ninette recalling the girl, “you’re not going +to tell, are you?”</p> + +<p>“Dun know ef I isn’t gwine tell. Dun know ef I isn’t gwine tell Miss +Duplan dis yere ver’ minute.”</p> + +<p>“Oh Betsy,” entreated Ninette, “I’ll give you this dress if you don’t. +I don’t want it any more.”</p> + +<p>Betsy’s eyes glowed, but she looked down unconcernedly at the pretty +gown.</p> + +<p>“Don’t spec it fit me. An’ you know Miss T’rse ain’t gwine let me go +flyin’ roun’ wid my laigs stickin’ out dat away.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll let the ruffle down, Betsy,” eagerly proposed Ninette.</p> + +<p>“Betsy!” called Thrse a little impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Yas, ’um—I ben waitin’ fu’ de cups.”</p> + +<p>Lucilla had made many an aspiration—many an “act” the while. This +whole evening of revelry, and now this last act of wicked conspiracy +seemed to have tainted her soul with a breath of sin which she would +not feel wholly freed from, till she had cleansed her spirit in the +waters of absolution.</p> + +<p>The party broke up at a late hour, though the Duplans had a long +distance to go, and, moreover, had to cross the high and turbid river +to reach their carriage which had been left on the opposite bank, +owing to the difficulty of the crossing.</p> + +<p>Mr. Duplan took occasion of a moment aside to whisper to Hosmer with +the air of a connoisseur, “fine woman that Mrs. Worthington of yours.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer laughed at the jesting implication, whilst disclaiming it, and +Fanny looked moodily at them both, jealously wondering at the cause of +their good humor.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Duplan, under the influence of a charming evening passed in such +agreeable and distinguished company, was full of amiable bustle in +leaving and had many pleasant parting words to say to each, in her +pretty broken English.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Mrs. Worthington to that lady, who had taken +admiring notice of the beautiful silver “Holy Angels” medal that hung +from Lucilla’s neck and rested against the dark gown. “Lucilla takes +after Mr. Worthington as far as religion goes—kind of different +though, for I must say it ain’t often he darkens the doors of a +church.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Worthington always spoke of her husband present as of a husband +absent. A peculiarity which he patiently endured, having no talent for +repartee, that he had at one time thought of cultivating. But that +time was long past.</p> + +<p>The Duplans were the first to leave. Then Thrse stood for a while on +the veranda in the chill night air watching the others disappear +across the lawn. Mr. and Mrs. Worthington and Lucilla had all shaken +hands with her in saying good night. Fanny followed suit limply and +grudgingly. Hosmer buttoned his coat impatiently and only lifted his +hat to Thrse as he helped his wife down the stairs.</p> + +<p>Poor Fanny! she had already taken exception at that hand pressure +which was to come and for which she watched, and now her whole small +being was in a jealous turmoil—because there had been none.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_XII" name="II_XII"></a><abbr title="12">XII</abbr><br> + +Tidings That Sting.</h2> + + +<p>Thrse felt that the room was growing oppressive. She had been +sitting all morning alone before the fire, passing in review a great +heap of household linen that lay piled beside her on the floor, +alternating this occupation with occasional careful and tender offices +bestowed upon a wee lamb that had been brought to her some hours +before, and that now lay wounded and half lifeless upon a pile of +coffee sacks before the blaze.</p> + +<p>A fire was hardly needed, except to dispel the dampness that had even +made its insistent way indoors, covering walls and furniture with a +clammy film. Outside, the moisture was dripping from the glistening +magnolia leaves and from the pointed polished leaves of the live-oaks, +and the sun that had come out with intense suddenness was drawing it +steaming from the shingled roof-tops.</p> + +<p>When Thrse, finally aware of the closeness of the room, opened the +door and went out on the veranda, she saw a man, a stranger, riding +towards the house and she stood to await his approach. He belonged to +what is rather indiscriminately known in that section of the State as +the “piney-woods” genus. A rawboned fellow, lank and long of leg; as +ungroomed with his scraggy yellow hair and beard as the scrubby little +Texas pony which he rode. His big soft felt hat had done unreasonable +service as a head-piece; and the “store clothes” that hung upon his +lean person could never in their remotest freshness have masqueraded +under the character of “all wool.” He was in transit, as the bulging +saddle-bags that hung across his horse indicated, as well as the rough +brown blanket strapped behind him to the animal’s back. He rode up +close to the rail of the veranda near which Thrse stood, and nodded +to her without offering to raise or touch his hat. She was prepared +for the drawl with which he addressed her, and even guessed at what +his first words would be.</p> + +<p>“You’re Mrs. Laferm I ’low?”</p> + +<p>Thrse acknowledged her identity with a bow.</p> + +<p>“My name’s Jimson; Rufe Jimson,” he went on, settling himself on the +pony and folding his long knotty hands over the hickory switch that he +carried in guise of whip.</p> + +<p>“Do you wish to speak to me? won’t you dismount?” Thrse asked.</p> + +<p>“I hed my dinner down to the store,” he said taking her proposal as an +invitation to dine, and turning to expectorate a mouth full of tobacco +juice before continuing. “Capital sardines them air,” passing his hand +over his mouth and beard in unctuous remembrance of the oily dainties.</p> + +<p>“I’m just from Cornstalk, Texas, on mu way to Grant. An’ them roads as +I’ve traversed isn’t what I’d call the best in a fair and square +talk.”</p> + +<p>His manner bore not the slightest mark of deference. He spoke to +Thrse as he might have spoken to one of her black servants, or as he +would have addressed a princess of royal blood if fate had ever +brought him into such unlikely contact, so clearly was the sense of +human equality native to him.</p> + +<p>Thrse knew her animal, and waited patiently for his business to +unfold itself.</p> + +<p>“I reckon thar hain’t no ford hereabouts?” he asked, looking at her +with a certain challenge.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no; its even difficult crossing in the flat,” she answered.</p> + +<p>“Wall, I hed calc’lated continooing on this near side. Reckon I could +make it?” challenging her again to an answer.</p> + +<p>“There’s no road on this side,” she said, turning away to fasten more +securely the escaped branches of a rose-bush that twined about a +column near which she stood.</p> + +<p>Whether there were a road on this side or on the other side, or no +road at all, appeared to be matter of equal indifference to Mr. +Jimson, so far as his manner showed. He continued imperturbably “I +’lowed to stop here on a little matter o’ business. ’Tis some out o’ +mu way; more’n I’d calc’lated. You couldn’t tell the ixact distance +from here to Colfax, could you?”</p> + +<p>Thrse rather impatiently gave him the desired information, and +begged that he would disclose his business with her.</p> + +<p>“Wall,” he said, “onpleasant news ’ll keep most times tell you’re +ready fur it. Thet’s my way o’ lookin’ at it.”</p> + +<p>“Unpleasant news for me?” she inquired, startled from her indifference +and listlessness.</p> + +<p>“Rather onpleasant ez I take it. I hain’t a makin’ no misstatement to +persume thet Grgor Sanchun was your nephew?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” responded Thrse, now thoroughly alarmed, and approaching +as close to Mr. Rufe Jimson as the dividing rail would permit, “What +of him, please?”</p> + +<p>He turned again to discharge an accumulation of tobacco juice into a +thick border of violets, and resumed.</p> + +<p>“You see a hot-blooded young feller, ez wouldn’t take no more ’an give +no odds, stranger or no stranger in the town, he couldn’t ixpect civil +treatment; leastways not from Colonel Bill Klayton. Ez I said to +Tozier—”</p> + +<p>“Please tell me as quickly as possible what has happened,” demanded +Thrse with trembling eagerness; steadying herself with both hands on +the railing before her.</p> + +<p>“You see it all riz out o’ a little altercation ’twixt him and Colonel +Klayton in the colonel’s store. Some says he’d ben drinkin’; others +denies it. Howsomever they did hev words risin’ out o’ the colonel +addressing your nephew under the title o’ ‘Frenchy’; which most takes +ez a insufficient cause for rilin’.”</p> + +<p>“He’s dead?” gasped Thrse, looking at the dispassionate Texan with +horrified eyes.</p> + +<p>“Wall, yes,” an admission which he seemed not yet willing to leave +unqualified; for he went on “It don’t do to alluz speak out open an’ +above boards, leastways not thar in Cornstalk. But I’ll ’low to you, +it’s my opinion the colonel acted hasty. It’s true ’nough, the young +feller hed drawed, but ez I said to Tozier, thet’s no reason to +persume it was his intention to use his gun.”</p> + +<p>So Grgoire was dead. She understood it all now. The manner of his +death was plain to her as if she had seen it, out there in some +disorderly settlement. Killed by the hand of a stranger with whom +perhaps the taking of a man’s life counted as little as it had once +counted with his victim. This flood of sudden and painful intelligence +staggered her, and leaning against the column she covered her eyes +with both hands, for a while forgetting the presence of the man who +had brought the sad tidings.</p> + +<p>But he had never ceased his monotonous unwinding. “Thar hain’t no +manner o’ doubt, marm,” he was saying, “thet he did hev the sympathy +o’ the intire community—ez far ez they was free to express +it—barrin’ a few. Fur he was a likely young chap, that warn’t no two +opinions o’ that. Free with his money—alluz ready to set up fur a +friend. Here’s a bit o’ writin’ thet’ll larn you more o’ the +pertic’lars,” drawing a letter from his pocket, “writ by the Catholic +priest, by name of O’Dowd. He ’lowed you mought want proyer meetin’s +and sich.”</p> + +<p>“Masses,” corrected Thrse, holding out her hand for the letter. With +the other hand she was wiping away the tears that had gathered thick +in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Thar’s a couple more little tricks thet he sont,” continued Rufe +Jimson, apparently dislocating his joints to reach the depths of his +trouser pocket, from which he drew a battered pocket book wrapped +around with an infinity of string. From the grimy folds of this +receptacle he took a small paper parcel which he placed in her hand. +It was partly unfastened, and as she opened it fully, the pent-up +tears came blindingly—for before her lay a few curling rings of soft +brown hair, and a pair of scapulars, one of which was pierced by a +tell-tale bullet hole.</p> + +<p>“Won’t you dismount?” she presently asked again, this time a little +more kindly.</p> + +<p>“No, marm,” said the Texan, jerking his hitherto patient pony by the +bridle till it performed feats of which an impartial observer could +scarcely have suspected it.</p> + +<p>“Don’t reckon I could make Colfax before dark, do you?”</p> + +<p>“Hardly,” she said, turning away, “I’m much obliged to you, Mr. +Jimson, for having taken this trouble—if the flat is on the other +side, you need only call for it.”</p> + +<p>“Wall, good day, marm—I wish you luck,” he added, with a touch of +gallantry which her tears and sweet feminine presence had inspired. +Then turning, he loped his horse rapidly forward, leaning well back in +the saddle and his elbows sawing the air.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_XIII" name="II_XIII"></a><abbr title="13">XIII</abbr><br> + +Melicent Hears the News.</h2> + + +<p>It was talked about and wept about at Place-du-Bois, that Grgoire +should be dead. It seemed to them all so unbelievable. Yet, whatever +hesitancy they had in accepting the fact of his death, was perforce +removed by the convincing proof of Father O’Dowd’s letter.</p> + +<p>None could remember but sweetness and kindness of him. Even Nathan, +who had been one day felled to earth by a crowbar in Grgoire’s hand, +had come himself to look at that deed as not altogether blamable in +light of the provocation that had called it forth.</p> + +<p>Fanny remembered those bouquets which had been daily offered to her +forlornness at her arrival; and the conversations in which they had +understood each other so well. The conviction that he was gone away +beyond the possibility of knowing him further, moved her to tears. +Hosmer, too, was grieved and shocked, without being able to view the +event in the light of a calamity.</p> + +<p>No one was left unmoved by the tidings which brought a lowering cloud +even upon the brow of Aunt Belindy, to rest there the whole day. Deep +were the mutterings she hurled at a fate that could have been so +short-sighted as to remove from earth so bright an ornament as +Grgoire. Her grief further spent much of itself upon the inoffensive +Betsy, who, for some inscrutable reason was for twenty-four hours +debarred entrance to the kitchen.</p> + +<p>Thrse seated at her desk, devoted a morning to the writing of +letters, acquainting various members of the family with the unhappy +intelligence. She wrote first to Madame Santien, living now her lazy +life in Paris, with eyes closed to the duties that lay before her and +heart choked up with an egoism that withered even the mother +instincts. It was very difficult to withhold the reproach which she +felt inclined to deal her; hard to refrain from upbraiding a +selfishness which for a life-time had appeared to Thrse as criminal.</p> + +<p>It was a matter less nice, less difficult, to write to the +brothers—one up on the Red River plantation living as best he could; +the other idling on the New Orleans streets. But it was after all a +short and simple story to tell. There was no lingering illness to +describe; no moment even of consciousness in which harrowing last +words were to be gathered and recorded. Only a hot senseless quarrel +to be told about; the speeding of a bullet with very sure aim, +and—quick death.</p> + +<p>Of course, masses must be said. Father O’Dowd was properly instructed. +Pre Antoine in Centerville was addressed on the subject. The Bishop +of Natchitoches, respectfully asked to perform this last sad office +for the departed soul. And the good old priest and friend at the New +Orleans Cathedral, was informed of her desires. Not that Thrse held +very strongly to this saying of masses for the dead; but it had been a +custom holding for generations in the family and which she was not +disposed to abandon now, even if she had thought of it.</p> + +<p>The last letter was sent to Melicent. Thrse made it purposely short +and pointed, with a bare statement of facts—a dry, unemotional +telling, that sounded heartless when she read it over; but she let it +go.</p> + +<hr> + +<p>Melicent was standing in her small, quaint sitting-room, her back to +the fire, and her hands clasped behind her. How handsome was this +Melicent! Pouting now, and with eyes half covered by the dark shaded +lids, as they gazed moodily out at the wild snowflakes that were +hurrying like crazy things against the warm window pane and meeting +their end there. A loose tea-gown clung in long folds about her. A +dull colored thing, save for the two broad bands of sapphire plush +hanging straight before, from throat to toe. Melicent was plainly +dejected; not troubled, nor sad, only dejected, and very much bored; a +condition that had made her yawn several times while she looked at the +falling snow.</p> + +<p>She was philosophizing a little. Wondering if the world this morning +were really the unpleasant place that it appeared, or if these +conditions of unpleasantness lay not rather within her own mental +vision; a train of thought that might be supposed to have furnished +her some degree of entertainment had she continued in its pursuit. But +she chose rather to dwell on her causes of unhappiness, and thus +convince herself that that unhappiness was indeed outside of her and +around her and not by any possibility to be avoided or circumvented. +There lay now a letter in her desk from David, filled with admonitions +if not reproof which she felt to be not entirely unjust, on the +disagreeable subject of Expenses. Looking around the pretty room she +conceded to herself that here had been temptations which she could not +reasonably have been expected to withstand. The temptation to lodge +herself in this charming little flat; furnish it after her own liking; +and install that delightful little old poverty-stricken English woman +as keeper of Proprieties, with her irresistible white starched caps +and her altogether delightful way of inquiring daily after that “poor, +dear, kind Mr. Hosmer.” It had all cost a little more than she had +foreseen. But the worst of it, the very worst of it was, that she had +already begun to ask herself if, for instance, it were not very +irritating to see every day, that same branching palm, posing by the +window, in that same yellow jardinire. If those draperies that +confronted her were not becoming positively offensive in the monotony +of their solemn folds. If the cuteness and quaintness of the +poverty-stricken little English woman were not after all a source of +entertainment that she would willingly forego on occasion. The answer +to these questions was a sigh that ended in another yawn.</p> + +<p>Then Melicent threw herself into a low easy chair by the table, took +up her visiting book, and bending lazily with her arms resting on her +knees, began to turn over its pages. The names which she saw there +recalled to her mind an entertainment at which she had assisted on the +previous afternoon. A progressive euchre party; and the remembrance of +what she had there endured now filled her soul with horror.</p> + +<p>She thought of those hundred cackling women—of course women are never +cackling, it was Melicent’s exaggerated way of expressing +herself—packed into those small overheated rooms, around those +twenty-five little tables; and how by no chance had she once found +herself with a congenial set. And how that Mrs. Van Wycke had cheated! +It was plain to Melicent that she had taken advantage of having fat +Miss Bloomdale for a partner, who went to euchre parties only to show +her hands and rings. And little Mrs. Brinke playing against her. +Little Mrs. Brinke! A woman who only the other day had read an +original paper entitled: “An Hour with Hegel” before her philosophy +class; who had published that dry mystical affair “Light on the +Inscrutable in Dante.” How could such a one by any possibility be +supposed to observe the disgusting action of Mrs. Van Wycke in +throwing off on her partner’s trump and swooping down on the last +trick with her right bower? Melicent would have thought it beneath her +to more than look her contempt as Mrs. Van Wycke rose with a +triumphant laugh to take her place at a higher table, dragging the +plastic Bloomdale with her. But she did mutter to herself now, “nasty +thief.”</p> + +<p>“Johannah,” Melicent called to her maid who sat sewing in the next +room.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Miss.”</p> + +<p>“You know Mrs. Van Wycke?”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Van Wycke, Miss? the lady with the pinted nose that I caught +a-feeling of the curtains?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, when she calls again I’m not at home. Do you understand? not at +home.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Miss.”</p> + +<p>It was gratifying enough to have thus summarily disposed of Mrs. Van +Wycke; but it was a source of entertainment which was soon ended. +Melicent continued to turn over the pages of her visiting book during +which employment she came to the conclusion that these people whom she +frequented were all very tiresome. All, all of them, except Miss Drake +who had been absent in Europe for the past six months. Perhaps Mrs. +Manning too, who was so seldom at home when Melicent called. Who when +at home, usually rushed down with her bonnet on, breathless with “I +can only spare you a moment, dear. It’s very sweet of you to come.” +She was always just going to the “Home” where things had got into such +a muddle whilst she was away for a week. Or it was that “Hospital” +meeting where she thought certain members were secretly conniving at +her removal from the presidency which she had held for so many years. +She was always reading minutes at assemblages which Melicent knew +nothing about; or introducing distinguished guests to Guild room +meetings. Altogether Melicent saw very little of Mrs. Manning.</p> + +<p>“Johannah, don’t you hear the bell?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Miss,” said Johannah, coming into the room and depositing a gown +on which she had been working, on the back of a chair. “It’s that +postman,” she said, as she fastened her needle to the bosom of her +dress. “And such a one as he is, thinking that people must fly when he +so much as touches the bell, and going off a writing of ‘no answer to +bell,’ and me with my hand on the very door-knob.”</p> + +<p>“I notice that always happens when I’m out, Johannah; he’s ringing +again.”</p> + +<p>It was Thrse’s letter, and as Melicent turned it about and looked +critically at the neatly written address, it was not without a hope +that the reading of it might furnish her a moment’s diversion. She did +not faint. The letter did not “fall from her nerveless clasp.” She +rather held it very steadily. But she grew a shade paler and looked +long into the fire. When she had read it three times she folded it +slowly and carefully and locked it away in her desk.</p> + +<p>“Johannah.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Miss.”</p> + +<p>“Put that gown away; I shan’t need it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Miss; and all the beautiful passmantry that you bought?”</p> + +<p>“It makes no difference, I shan’t use it. What’s become of that black +camel’s-hair that Mrs. Gauche spoiled so last winter?”</p> + +<p>“It’s laid away, Miss, the same in the cedar chest as the day it came +home from her hands and no more fit, that I’d be a shame meself and no +claims to a dress-maker. And there’s many a lady that she never would +have seen a cent, let alone making herself pay for the spiling of it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, well, Johannah, never mind. Get it out, we’ll see what can be +done with it. I’ve had some painful news, and I shall wear mourning +for a long, long time.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Miss, it’s not Mr. David! nor yet one of those sweet relations in +Utica? leastways not I hope that beautiful Miss Gertrude, with such +hair as I never see for the goldness of it and not dyed, except me +cousin that’s a nun, that her mother actually cried when it was cut +off?”</p> + +<p>“No, Johannah; only a very dear friend.”</p> + +<p>There were a few social engagements to be cancelled; and regrets to be +sent out, which she attended to immediately. Then she turned again to +look long into the fire. That crime for which she had scorned him, was +wiped out now by expiation. For a long time—how long she could not +yet determine—she would wrap herself in garb of mourning and move +about in sorrowing—giving evasive answer to the curious who +questioned her. Now might she live again through those summer months +with Grgoire—those golden afternoons in the pine woods—whose aroma +even now came back to her. She might look again into his loving brown +eyes; feel beneath her touch the softness of his curls. She recalled a +day when he had said, “Neva to see you—my God!” and how he had +trembled. She recalled—strangely enough and for the first time—that +one kiss, and a little tremor brought the hot color to her cheek.</p> + +<p>Was she in love with Grgoire now that he was dead? Perhaps. At all +events, for the next month, Melicent would not be bored.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_XIV" name="II_XIV"></a><abbr title="14">XIV</abbr><br> + +A Step Too Far.</h2> + + +<p>Who of us has not known the presence of Misery? Perhaps as those +fortunate ones whom he has but touched as he passed them by. It may be +that we see but a promise of him as we look into the prophetic faces +of children; into the eyes of those we love, and the awfulness of +life’s possibilities presses into our souls. Do we fly him? hearing +him gain upon us panting close at our heels, till we turn from the +desperation of uncertainty to grapple with him? In close scuffle we +may vanquish him. Fleeing, we may elude him. But what if he creep into +the sanctuary of our lives, with his subtle omnipresence, that we do +not see in all its horror till we are disarmed; thrusting the burden +of his companionship upon us to the end! However we turn he is there. +However we shrink he is there. However we come or go, or sleep or wake +he is before us. Till the keen sense grows dull with apathy at looking +on him, and he becomes like the familiar presence of sin.</p> + +<p>Into such callousness had Hosmer fallen. He had ceased to bruise his +soul in restless endeavor of resistance. When the awful presence bore +too closely upon him, he would close his eyes and brave himself to +endurance. Yet Fate might have dealt him worse things.</p> + +<p>But a man’s misery is after all his own, to make of it what he will or +what he can. And shall we be fools, wanting to lighten it with our +platitudes?</p> + +<p>My friend, your trouble I know weighs. That you should be driven by +earthly needs to drag the pinioned spirit of your days through rut and +mire. But think of the millions who are doing the like. Or is it your +boy, that part of your own self and that other dearer self, who is +walking in evil ways? Why, I know a man whose son was hanged the other +day; hanged on the gibbet; think of it. If you be quivering while the +surgeon cuts away that right arm, remember the poor devil in the +hospital yesterday who had both his sawed off.</p> + +<p>Oh, have done, with your mutilated men and your sons on gibbets! What +are they to me? My hurt is greater than all, because it is my own. If +it be only that day after day I must look with warm entreaty into eyes +that are cold. Let it be but that peculiar trick of feature which I +have come to hate, seen each morning across the breakfast table. That +recurrent pin-prick: it hurts. The blow that lays the heart in twain: +it kills. Let be mine which will; it is the one that counts.</p> + +<p>If Misery kill a man, that ends it. But Misery seldom deals so +summarily with his victims. And while they are spared to earth, we +find them usually sustaining life after the accepted fashion.</p> + +<p>Hosmer was seated at table, having finished his breakfast. He had also +finished glancing over the contents of a small memorandum book, which +he replaced in his pocket. He then looked at his wife sitting opposite +him, but turned rather hastily to gaze with a certain entreaty into +the big kind eyes of the great shaggy dog who stood—the shameless +beggar—at his side.</p> + +<p>“I knew there was something wrong,” he said abruptly, with his eyes +still fixed on the dog, and his fingers thrust into the animal’s +matted wool, “Where’s the mail this morning?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know if that stupid boy’s gone for it or not. I told him. You +can’t depend on any one in a place like this.”</p> + +<p>Fanny had scarcely touched the breakfast before her, and now pushed +aside her cup still half filled with coffee.</p> + +<p>“Why, how’s that? Sampson seems to do the right thing.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Sampson; but he ain’t here. That boy of Minervy’s been doing his +work all morning.”</p> + +<p>Minervy’s boy was even now making his appearance, carrying a good +sized bundle of papers and letters, with which he walked boldly up to +Hosmer, plainly impressed with the importance of this new rle.</p> + +<p>“Well, colonel; so you’ve taken Sampson’s place?” Hosmer observed, +receiving the mail from the boy’s little black paws.</p> + +<p>“My name’s Major, suh. Maje; dats my name. I ain’t tuck Sampson’s +place: no, suh.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s having a day off—” Hosmer went on, smiling quizzingly at +the dapper little darkey, and handing him a red apple from the dish of +fruit standing in the center of the table. Maje received it with a +very unmilitary bob of acknowledgment.</p> + +<p>“He yonda home ’cross de riva, suh. He ben too late fu’ kotch de +flat’s mornin’ An’ he holla an’ holla. He know dey warn’t gwine cross +dat flat ’gin jis’ fu’ Sampson.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer had commenced to open his letters. Fanny with her elbows on the +table, asked the boy—with a certain uneasiness in her voice—“Ain’t +he coming at all to-day? Don’t he know all the work he’s got to do? +His mother ought to make him.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t reckon. Dat away Sampson: he git mad he stay mad,” with which +assurance Maje vanished through the rear door, towards the region of +the kitchen, to seek more substantial condiments than the apple which +he still clutched firmly.</p> + +<p>One of the letters was for Fanny, which her husband handed her. When +he had finished reading his own, he seemed disposed to linger, for he +took from the fruit dish the mate to the red apple he had given Maje, +and commenced to peel it with his clasp knife.</p> + +<p>“What has our friend Belle Worthington to say for herself?” he +inquired good humoredly. “How does she get on with those Creoles down +there?”</p> + +<p>“You know as well as I do, Belle Worthington ain’t going to mix with +Creoles. She can’t talk French if she wanted to. She says Muddy-Graw +don’t begin to compare with the Veiled Prophets. It’s just what I +thought—with their ‘Muddy-Graw,’” Fanny added, contemptuously.</p> + +<p>“Coming from such high authority, we’ll consider that verdict a final +clincher,” Hosmer laughed a little provokingly.</p> + +<p>Fanny was looking again through the several sheets of Belle +Worthington’s letter. “She says if I’ll agree to go back with her, +she’ll pass this way again.”</p> + +<p>“Well, why don’t you? A little change wouldn’t hurt.”</p> + +<p>“’Tain’t because I want to stay here, Lord knows. A God-forsaken +place like this. I guess you’d be glad enough,” she added, with voice +shaking a little at her own boldness.</p> + +<p>He closed his knife, placed it in his pocket, and looked at his wife, +completely puzzled.</p> + +<p>The power of speech had come to her, for she went on, in an unnatural +tone, however, and fumbling nervously with the dishes before her. “I’m +fool enough about some things, but I ain’t quite such a fool as that.”</p> + +<p>“What are you talking about, Fanny?”</p> + +<p>“That woman wouldn’t ask anything better than for me to go to St. +Louis.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer was utterly amazed. He leaned his arms on the table, clasping +his hands together and looked at his wife.</p> + +<p>“That woman? Belle Worthington? What <em>do</em> you mean, any way?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mean Belle Worthington,” she said excitedly, with two deep +red spots in her cheeks. “I’m talking about Mrs. Laferm.”</p> + +<p>He thrust his hand into his pockets and leaned back in his chair. No +amazement now, but very pale, and with terrible concentration of +glance.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, don’t talk about Mrs. Lafirme,” he said very slowly, not +taking his eyes from her face.</p> + +<p>“I will talk about her, too. She ain’t worth talking about,” she +blurted incoherently. “It’s time for somebody to talk about a woman +passing herself off for a saint, and trying to take other women’s +husbands—”</p> + +<p>“Shut up!” cried Hosmer maddened with sudden fury, and rising +violently from his chair.</p> + +<p>“I won’t shut up,” Fanny cried excitedly back at him; rising also. +“And what’s more I won’t stay here and have you making love under my +very eyes to a woman that’s no better than she ought to be.”</p> + +<p>She meant to say more, but Hosmer grasped her arm with such a grasp, +that had it been her throat she would never have spoken more. The +other hand went to his pocket, with fingers clutching the clasp knife +there.</p> + +<p>“By heaven—I’ll—kill you!” every word weighted with murder, panted +close in her terrified face. What she would have uttered died upon her +pale lips, when her frightened eyes beheld the usually calm face of +her husband distorted by a passion of which she had not dreamed.</p> + +<p>“David,” she faltered, “let go my arm.”</p> + +<p>Her voice broke the spell that held him, and brought him again to his +senses. His fingers slowly relaxed their tense hold. A sigh that was +something between a moan and a gasp came with his deliverance and +shook him. All the horror now was in his own face as he seized his hat +and hurried speechless away.</p> + +<p>Fanny remained for a little while dazed. Hers was not the fine nature +that would stay cruelly stunned after such a scene. Her immediate +terror being past, the strongest resultant emotion was one of +self-satisfaction at having spoken out her mind.</p> + +<p>But there was a stronger feeling yet, moving and possessing her; +crowding out every other. A pressing want that only Sampson’s coming +would relieve, and which bade fair to drive her to any extremity if it +were not appeased.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_XV" name="II_XV"></a><abbr title="15">XV</abbr><br> + +A Fateful Solution.</h2> + + +<p>Hosmer passed the day with a great pain at his heart. His hasty and +violent passion of the morning had added another weight for his spirit +to drag about, and which he could not cast off. No feeling of +resentment remained with him; only wonder at his wife’s misshapen +knowledge and keen self-rebuke of his own momentary forgetfulness. +Even knowing Fanny as he did, he could not rid himself of the haunting +dread of having wounded her nature cruelly. He felt much as a man who +in a moment of anger inflicts an irreparable hurt upon some small, +weak, irresponsible creature, and must bear regret for his madness. +The only reparation that lay within his power—true, one that seemed +inadequate—was an open and manly apology and confession of wrong. He +would feel better when it was made. He would perhaps find relief in +discovering that the wound he had inflicted was not so deep—so +dangerous as he feared.</p> + +<p>With such end in view he came home early in the afternoon. His wife +was not there. The house was deserted. Even the servants had +disappeared. It took but a moment for him to search the various rooms +and find them one after the other, unoccupied. He went out on the +porch and looked around. The raw air chilled him. The wind was blowing +violently, bringing dashes of rain along with it from massed clouds +that hung leaden between sky and earth. Could she have gone over to +the house? It was unlikely, for he knew her to have avoided Mrs. +Lafirme of late, with a persistence that had puzzled him to seek its +cause, which had only fully revealed itself in the morning Yet, where +else could she be? An undefined terror was laying hold of him. His +sensitive nature, in exaggerating its own heartlessness, was blindly +overestimating the delicacy of hers. To what may he not have driven +her? What hitherto untouched chord may he not have started into +painful quivering? Was it for him to gauge the endurance of a woman’s +spirit? Fanny was not now the wife whom he hated; his own act of the +morning had changed her into the human being, the weak creature whom +he had wronged.</p> + +<p>In quitting the house she must have gone unprepared for the inclement +weather, for there hung her heavy wrap in its accustomed place, with +her umbrella beside it. He seized both and buttoning his own great +coat about him, hurried away and over to Mrs. Lafirme’s. He found that +lady in the sitting-room.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t Fanny here?” he asked abruptly, with no word of greeting.</p> + +<p>“No,” she answered looking up at him, and seeing the evident +uneasiness in his face. “Isn’t she at home? Is anything wrong?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, everything is wrong,” he returned desperately, “But the immediate +wrong is that she has disappeared—I must find her.”</p> + +<p>Thrse arose at once and called to Betsy who was occupied on the +front veranda.</p> + +<p>“Yas, um,” the girl answered to her mistress’ enquiry. “I seed ma’am +Hosma goin’ to’ads de riva good hour ’go. She mus’ crost w’en Nathan +tuck dat load ova. I yain’t seed ’er comin’ back yit.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer left the house hastily, hardly reassured by Betsy’s +information. Thrse’s glance—speculating and uneasy—followed his +hurrying figure till it disappeared from sight.</p> + +<p>The crossing was an affair of extreme difficulty, and which Nathan was +reluctant to undertake until he should have gathered a “load” that +would justify him in making it. In his estimation, Hosmer did not meet +such requirement, even taken in company with the solitary individual +who had been sitting on his horse with Egyptian patience for long +unheeded moments, the rain beating down upon his back, while he waited +the ferryman’s pleasure. But Nathan’s determination was not proof +against the substantial inducements which Hosmer held out to him; and +soon they were launched, all hands assisting in the toilsome passage.</p> + +<p>The water, in rising to an unaccustomed height, had taken on an added +and tremendous swiftness. The red turbid stream was eddying and +bulging and hurrying with terrific swiftness between its shallow +banks, striking with an immensity of power against the projection of +land on which stood Marie Louise’s cabin, and rebounding in great +circling waves that spread and lost themselves in the seething +turmoil. The cable used in crossing the unwieldly flat had long been +submerged and the posts which held it wrenched from their fastenings. +The three men, each with his long heavy oar in hand began to pull up +stream, using a force that brought the swelling veins like iron +tracings upon their foreheads where the sweat had gathered as if the +day were midsummer. They made their toilsome way by slow inches, that +finally landed them breathless and exhausted on the opposite side.</p> + +<p>What could have been the inducement to call Fanny out on such a day +and such a venture? The answer came only too readily from Hosmer’s +reproaching conscience. And now, where to seek her? There was nothing +to guide him; to indicate the course she might have taken. The rain +was falling heavily and in gusts and through it he looked about at the +small cabins standing dreary in their dismantled fields. Marie +Louise’s was the nearest at hand and towards it he directed his steps.</p> + +<p>The big good-natured negress had seen his approach from the window, +for she opened the door to him before he had time to knock, and +entering he saw Fanny seated before the fire holding a pair of very +wet smoking feet to dry. His first sensation was one of relief at +finding her safe and housed. His next, one of uncertainty as to the +kind and degree of resentment which he felt confident must now show +itself. But this last was soon dispelled, for turning, she greeted him +with a laugh. He would have rather a blow. That laugh said so many +things—too many things. True, it removed the dread which had been +haunting him all day, but it shattered what seemed to have been now +his last illusion regarding this woman. That unsounded chord which he +feared he had touched was after all but one in harmony with the rest +of her common nature. He saw too at a glance that her dominant passion +had been leading and now controlled her. And by one of those rapid +trains of thought in which odd and detached fancies, facts, +impressions and observations form themselves into an orderly sequence +leading to a final conviction—all was made plain to him that before +had puzzled him. She need not have told him her reason for crossing +the river, he knew it. He dismissed at once the attitude with which he +had thought to approach her. Here was no forgiveness to be asked of +dulled senses. No bending in expiation of faults committed. He was +here as master.</p> + +<p>“Fanny, what does this mean?” he asked in cold anger; with no heat +now, no passion.</p> + +<p>“Yaas, me tell madame, she goin’ fur ketch cole si she don’ mine out. +Dat not fur play dat kine wedder, no. Teck chair, M’sieur; dry +you’se’f leet beet. Me mek you one cup coffee.”</p> + +<p>Hosmer declined the good Marie Louise’s kind proffer of coffee, but he +seated himself and waited for Fanny to speak.</p> + +<p>“You know if you want a thing done in this place, you’ve got to do it +yourself. I’ve heard you say it myself, time and time again about +those people at the mill,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Could it have been so urgent as to call you out on a day like this, +and with such a perilous crossing? Couldn’t you have found some one +else to come for you?”</p> + +<p>“Who? I’d like to know. Just tell me who? It’s nothing to you if we’re +without servants, but I’m not going to stand it. I ain’t going to let +Samp<em>son</em> act like that without knowing what he means,” said Fanny +sharply.</p> + +<p>“Dat Samp<em>son</em>, he one leet dev’,” proffered Marie Louise, with +laudable design of shifting blame upon the easy shoulders of Sampson, +in event of the domestic jar which she anticipated. “No use try do +nuttin’ ’id Sampson, M’sieur.”</p> + +<p>“I had to know something, one way or the other,” Fanny said in a tone +which carried apology, rather by courtesy than by what she considered +due.</p> + +<p>Hosmer walked to the window where he looked out upon the dreary, +desolate scene, little calculated to cheer him. The river was just +below; and from this window he could gaze down upon the rushing +current as it swept around the bend further up and came striking +against this projection with a force all its own. The rain was falling +still; steadily, blindingly, with wild clatter against the shingled +roof so close above their heads. It coursed in little swift rivulets +down the furrows of the almost perpendicular banks. It mingled in a +demon dance with the dull, red water. There was something inviting to +Hosmer in the scene. He wanted to be outside there making a part of +it. He wanted to feel that rain and wind beating upon him. Within, it +was stifling, maddening; with his wife’s presence there, charging the +room with an atmosphere of hate that was possessing him and beginning +to course through his veins as it had never done before.</p> + +<p>“Do you want to go home?” he asked bluntly, turning half around.</p> + +<p>“You must be crazy,” she replied, with a slow, upward glance out the +window, then down at her feet that were still poised on the low stool +that Marie Louise had placed for her.</p> + +<p>“You’d better come.” He could not have said what moved him, unless it +were recklessness and defiance.</p> + +<p>“I guess you’re dreaming, or something, David. You go on home if you +want. Nobody asked you to come after me any way. I’m able to take care +of myself, I guess. Ain’t you going to take the umbrella?” she added, +seeing him start for the door empty handed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it doesn’t matter about the rain,” he answered without a look +back as he went out and slammed the door after him.</p> + +<p>“M’sieur look lak he not please,” said Marie Louise, with plain regret +at the turn of affairs. “You see he no lak you go out in dat kine +wedder, me know dat.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, bother,” was Fanny’s careless reply. “This suits me well enough; +I don’t care how long it lasts.”</p> + +<p>She was in Marie Louise’s big rocker, balancing comfortably back and +forth with a swing that had become automatic. She felt “good,” as she +would have termed it herself; her visit to Sampson’s hut having not +been without results tending to that condition. The warmth of the room +was very agreeable in contrast to the bleakness of out-doors. She felt +free and moved to exercise a looseness of tongue with the amiable old +negress which was not common with her. The occurrences of the morning +were gradually withdrawing themselves into a distant perspective that +left her in the attitude of a spectator rather than that of an actor. +And she laughed and talked with Marie Louise, and rocked, and rocked +herself on into drowsiness.</p> + +<p>Hosmer had no intention of returning home without his wife. He only +wanted to be out under the sky; he wanted to breathe, to use his +muscles again. He would go and help cross the flat if need be; an +occupation that promised him relief in physical effort. He joined +Nathan, whom he found standing under a big live-oak, disputing with an +old colored woman who wanted to cross to get back to her family before +supper time.</p> + +<p>“You didn’ have no call to come ova in de fus’ place,” he was saying +to her, “you womens is alluz runnin’ back’ards and for’ards like +skeard rabbit in de co’n fiel’.”</p> + +<p>“I don’ stan’ no sich talk is dat f’om you. Ef you kiant tin’ to yo’ +business o’ totin’ folks w’en dey wants, you betta quit. You done +cheat Mose out o’ de job, anyways; we all knows dat.”</p> + +<p>“Mine out, woman, you gwine git hu’t. Jis’ le’me see Mose han’le dat +’ar flat onct: Jis’ le’me. He lan’ you down to de Mouf ’fo’ you knows +it.”</p> + +<p>“Let me tell you, Nathan,” said Hosmer, looking at his watch, “say you +wait a quarter of an hour and if no one else comes, we’ll cross Aunt +Agnes anyway.”</p> + +<p>“Dat ’nudda t’ing ef you wants to go back, suh.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Agnes was grumbling now at Hosmer’s proposal that promised to +keep her another quarter of an hour from her expectant family, when a +big lumbering creaking wagon drove up, with its load of baled cotton +all covered with tarpaulins.</p> + +<p>“Dah!” exclaimed Nathan at sight of the wagon, “ef I’d ’a listened to +yo’ jawin’—what?”</p> + +<p>“Ef you’d listen to me, you’d ’tin’ to yo’ business betta ’an you +does,” replied Aunt Agnes, raising a very battered umbrella over her +grotesquely apparelled figure, as she stepped from under the shelter +of the tree to take her place in the flat.</p> + +<p>But she still met with obstacles, for the wagon must needs go first. +When it had rolled heavily into place with much loud and needless +swearing on the part of the driver who, being a white man, considered +Hosmer’s presence no hindrance, they let go the chain, and once again +pulled out. The crossing was even more difficult now, owing to the +extra weight of the wagon.</p> + +<p>“I guess you earn your money, Nathan,” said Hosmer bending and +quivering with the efforts he put forth.</p> + +<p>“Yas, suh, I does; an’ dis job’s wuf mo’ ’an I gits fu’ it.”</p> + +<p>“All de same you done lef’ off wurking crap sence you start it,” +mumbled Aunt Agnes.</p> + +<p>“You gwine git hu’t, woman; I done tole you dat; don’ wan’ listen,” +returned Nathan with halting breath.</p> + +<p>“Who gwine hu’t me?”</p> + +<p>Whether from tardy gallantry or from pre-occupation with his arduous +work, Nathan offered no reply to this challenge, and his silence left +Aunt Agnes in possession of the field.</p> + +<p>They were in full mid-stream. Hosmer and the teamster were in the fore +end of the boat; Nathan in the rear, and Aunt Agnes standing in the +center between the wagon and the protecting railing, against which she +leaned her clasped hands that still upheld the semblance of umbrella.</p> + +<p>The ill-mated horses stood motionless, letting fall their dejected +heads with apathetic droop. The rain was dripping from their +glistening coats, and making a great patter as it fell upon the +tarpaulins covering the cotton bales.</p> + +<p>Suddenly came an exclamation: “Gret God!” from Aunt Agnes, so genuine +in its amazement and dismay, that the three men with one accord looked +quickly up at her, then at the point on which her terrified gaze was +fixed. Almost on the instant of the woman’s cry, was heard a shrill, +piercing, feminine scream.</p> + +<p>What they saw was the section of land on which stood Marie Louise’s +cabin, undermined—broken away from the main body and gradually +gliding into the water. It must have sunk with a first abrupt wrench, +for the brick chimney was shaken from its foundation, the smoke +issuing in dense clouds from its shattered sides, the house toppling +and the roof caving. For a moment Hosmer lost his senses. He could but +look, as if at some awful apparition that must soon pass from sight +and leave him again in possession of his reason. The leaning house was +half submerged when Fanny appeared at the door, like a figure in a +dream; seeming a natural part of the awfulness of it. He only gazed +on. The two negroes uttered loud lamentations.</p> + +<p>“Pull with the current!” cried the teamster, first to regain his +presence of mind. It had needed but this, to awaken Hosmer to the +situation.</p> + +<p>“Leave off,” he cried at Nathan, who was wringing his hands. “Take +hold that oar or I’ll throw you overboard.” The trembling ashen negro +obeyed on the instant.</p> + +<p>“Hold fast—for God’s sake—hold fast!” he shouted to Fanny, who was +clinging with swaying figure to the door post. Of Marie Louise there +was no sign.</p> + +<p>The caved bank now remained fixed; but Hosmer knew that at any instant +it was liable to disappear before his riveted gaze.</p> + +<p>How heavy the flat was! And the horses had caught the contagion of +terror and were plunging madly.</p> + +<p>“Whip those horses and their load into the river,” called Hosmer, +“we’ve got to lighten at any price.”</p> + +<p>“Them horses an’ cotton’s worth money,” interposed the alarmed +teamster.</p> + +<p>“Force them into the river, I say; I’ll pay you twice their value.”</p> + +<p>“You ’low to pay fur the cotton, too?”</p> + +<p>“Into the river with them or I’ll brain you!” he cried, maddened at +the weight and delay that were holding them back.</p> + +<p>The frightened animals seemed to ask nothing more than to plunge into +the troubled water; dragging their load with them.</p> + +<p>They were speeding rapidly towards the scene of catastrophe; but to +Hosmer they crawled—the moments were hours. “Hold on! hold fast!” he +called again and again to his wife. But even as he cried out, the +detached section of earth swayed, lurched to one side—plunged to the +other, and the whole mass was submerged—leaving the water above it in +wild agitation.</p> + +<p>A cry of horror went up from the spectators—all but Hosmer. He cast +aside his oar—threw off his coat and hat; worked an instant without +avail at his wet clinging boots, and with a leap was in the water, +swimming towards the spot where the cabin had gone down. The current +bore him on without much effort of his own. The flat was close up with +him; but he could think of it no longer as a means of rescue. Detached +pieces of timber from the ruined house were beginning to rise to the +surface. Then something floating softly on the water: a woman’s dress, +but too far for him to reach it.</p> + +<p>When Fanny appeared again, Hosmer was close beside her. His left arm +was quickly thrown about her. She was insensible, and he remembered +that it was best so, for had she been in possession of her reason, she +might have struggled and impeded his movements. He held her +fast—close to him and turned to regain the shore. Another horrified +shriek went up from the occupants of the flat-boat not far away, and +Hosmer knew no more—for a great plunging beam struck him full upon +the forehead.</p> + +<p>When consciousness came back to him, he found that he lay extended in +the flat, which was fastened to the shore. The confused sound of many +voices mingled with a ringing din that filled his ears. A warm stream +was trickling down over his cheek. Another body lay beside him. Now +they were lifting him. Thrse’s face was somewhere—very near, he saw +it dimly and that it was white—and he fell again into insensibility.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_XVI" name="II_XVI"></a><abbr title="16">XVI</abbr><br> + +To Him Who Waits.</h2> + + +<p>The air was filled with the spring and all its promises. Full with the +sound of it, the smell of it, the deliciousness of it. Such sweet air; +soft and strong, like the touch of a brave woman’s hand. The air of an +early March day in New Orleans. It was folly to shut it out from nook +or cranny. Worse than folly the lady thought who was making futile +endeavors to open the car window near which she sat. Her face had +grown pink with the effort. She had bit firmly into her red nether +lip, making it all the redder; and then sat down from the +unaccomplished feat to look ruefully at the smirched finger tips of +her Parisian gloves. This flavor of Paris was well about her; in the +folds of her graceful wrap that set to her fine shoulders. It was +plainly a part of the little black velvet toque that rested on her +blonde hair. Even the umbrella and one small valise which she had just +laid on the seat opposite her, had Paris written plain upon them.</p> + +<p>These were impressions which the little grey-garbed conventional +figure, some seats removed, had been noting since the striking lady +had entered the car. Points likely to have escaped a man, who—unless +a minutely observant one,—would only have seen that she was handsome +and worthy of an admiration that he might easily fancy rising to +devotion.</p> + +<p>Beside herself and the little grey-garbed figure was an interesting +family group at the far end of the car. A husband, but doubly a +father, surrounded and sat upon by a small band of offspring. A +wife—presumably a mother—absorbed with the view of the outside world +and the elaborate gold chain that hung around her neck.</p> + +<p>The presence of a large valise, an overcoat, a cane and an umbrella +disposed on another seat, bespoke a further occupant, likely to be at +present in the smoking car.</p> + +<p>The train pushed out from the dept. The porter finally made tardy +haste to the assistance of the lady who had been attempting to open +the window, and when the fresh morning air came blowing in upon her +Thrse leaned back in her seat with a sigh of content.</p> + +<p>There was a full day’s journey before her. She would not reach +Place-du-Bois before dark, but she did not shrink from those hours +that were to be passed alone. She rather welcomed the quiet of them +after a visit to New Orleans full of pleasant disturbances. She was +eager to be home again. She loved Place-du-Bois with a love that was +real; that had grown deep since it was the one place in the world +which she could connect with the presence of David Hosmer. She had +often wondered—indeed was wondering now—if the memory of those +happenings to which he belonged would ever grow strange and far away +to her. It was a trick of memory with which she indulged herself on +occasion, this one of retrospection. Beginning with that June day when +she had sat in the hall and watched the course of a white sunshade +over the tops of the bending corn.</p> + +<p>Such idle thoughts they were with their mingling of bitter and +sweet—leading nowhere. But she clung to them and held to them as if +to a refuge which she might again and again return to.</p> + +<p>The picture of that one terrible day of Fanny’s death, stood out in +sharp prominent lines; a touch of the old agony always coming back as +she remembered how she had believed Hosmer dead too—lying so pale and +bleeding before her. Then the parting which had held not so much of +sorrow as of awe and bewilderment in it: when sick, wounded and broken +he had gone away at once with the dead body of his wife; when the two +had clasped hands without words that dared be uttered.</p> + +<p>But that was a year ago. And Thrse thought many things might come +about in a year. Anyhow, might not such length of time be hoped to rub +the edge off a pain that was not by its nature lasting?</p> + +<p>That time of acute trouble seemed to have thrown Hosmer back upon his +old diffidence. The letter he wrote her after a painful illness which +prostrated him on his arrival in St. Louis, was stiff and formal, as +men’s letters are apt to be, though it had breathed an untold story of +loyalty which she had felt at the time, and still cherished. Other +letters—a few—had gone back and forth between them, till Hosmer had +gone away to the sea-shore with Melicent, to recuperate, and June +coming, Thrse had sailed from New Orleans for Paris, whither she had +passed six months.</p> + +<p>Things had not gone well at Place-du-Bois during her absence, the +impecunious old kinsman whom she had left in charge, having a decided +preference for hunting the <span class="italic" lang="fr">Gros-Bec</span> and catching trout in the lake +to supervising the methods of a troublesome body of blacks. So Thrse +had had much to engage her thoughts from the morbid channel into which +those of a more idle woman might have drifted.</p> + +<p>She went occasionally enough to the mill. There at least she was +always sure to hear Hosmer’s name—and what a charm the sound of it +had for her. And what a delight it was to her eyes when she caught +sight of an envelope lying somewhere on desk or table of the office, +addressed in his handwriting. That was a weakness which she could not +pardon herself; but which staid with her, seeing that the same +trifling cause never failed to awaken the same unmeasured delight. She +had even trumped up an excuse one day for carrying off one of Hosmer’s +business letters—indeed of the dryest in substance, and which, when +half-way home, she had torn into the smallest bits and scattered to +the winds, so overcome was she by a sense of her own absurdity.</p> + +<p>Thrse had undergone the ordeal of having her ticket scrutinized, +commented upon and properly punched by the suave conductor. The little +conventional figure had given over the contemplation of Parisian +styles and betaken herself to the absorbing pages of a novel which she +read through smoked glasses. The husband and father had peeled and +distributed his second outlay of bananas amongst his family. It was at +this moment that Thrse, looking towards the door, saw Hosmer enter +the car.</p> + +<p>She must have felt his presence somewhere near; his being there and +coming towards her was so much a part of her thoughts. She held out +her hand to him and made place beside her, as if he had left her but a +half hour before. All the astonishment was his. But he pressed her +hand and took the seat she offered him.</p> + +<p>“You knew I was on the train?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, how should I?”</p> + +<p>Then naturally followed question and answer.</p> + +<p>Yes, he was going to Place-du-Bois.</p> + +<p>No, the mill did not require his presence; it had been very well +managed during his absence.</p> + +<p>Yes, she had been to New Orleans. Had had a very agreeable visit. +Beautiful weather for city dwellers. But such dryness. So disastrous +to the planters.</p> + +<p>Yes—quite likely there would be rain next month: there usually was in +April. But indeed there was need of more than April showers for that +stiff land—that strip along the bayou, if he remembered? Oh, he +remembered quite well, but for all that he did not know what she was +talking about. She did not know herself. Then they grew silent; not +from any feeling of the absurdity of such speech between them, for +each had but listened to the other’s voice. They became silently +absorbed by the consciousness of each other’s nearness. She was +looking at his hand that rested on his knee, and thinking it fuller +than she remembered it before. She was aware of some change in him +which she had not the opportunity to define; but this firmness and +fullness of the hand was part of it. She looked up into his face then, +to find the same change there, together with a new content. But what +she noted beside was the dull scar on his forehead, coming out like a +red letter when his eyes looked into her own. The sight of it was like +a hurt. She had forgotten it might be there, telling its story of pain +through the rest of his life.</p> + +<p>“Thrse,” Hosmer said finally, “won’t you look at me?”</p> + +<p>She was looking from the window. She did not turn her head, but her +hand went out and met his that was on the seat close beside her. He +held it firmly; but soon with an impatient movement drew down the +loose wristlet of her glove and clasped his fingers around her warm +wrist.</p> + +<p>“Thrse,” he said again; but more unsteadily, “look at me.”</p> + +<p>“Not here,” she answered him, “not now, I mean.” And presently she +drew her hand away from him and held it for a moment pressed firmly +over her eyes. Then she looked at him with brave loving glance.</p> + +<p>“It’s been so long,” she said, with the suspicion of a sigh.</p> + +<p>“Too long,” he returned, “I couldn’t have borne it but for you—the +thought of you always present with me; helping me to take myself out +of the past. That was why I waited—till I could come to you free. +Have you an idea, I wonder, how you have been a promise, and can be +the fulfillment of every good that life may give to a man?”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t know,” she said a little hopelessly, taking his hand +again, “I have seen myself at fault in following what seemed the only +right. I feel as if there were no way to turn for the truth. Old +supports appear to be giving way beneath me. They were so secure +before. It commenced, you remember—oh, you know when it must have +begun. But do you think, David, that it’s right we should find our +happiness out of that past of pain and sin and trouble?”</p> + +<p>“Thrse,” said Hosmer firmly, “the truth in its entirety isn’t given +to man to know—such knowledge, no doubt, would be beyond human +endurance. But we make a step towards it, when we learn that there is +rottenness and evil in the world, masquerading as right and +morality—when we learn to know the living spirit from the dead +letter. I have not cared to stop in this struggle of life to question. +You, perhaps, wouldn’t dare to alone. Together, dear one, we will work +it out. Be sure there is a way—we may not find it in the end, but we +will at least have tried.”<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + +<h2><a id="II_XVII" name="II_XVII"></a><abbr title="17">XVII</abbr><br> + +Conclusion.</h2> + + +<p>One month after their meeting on the train, Hosmer and Thrse had +gone together to Centerville where they had been made one, as the +saying goes, by the good Pre Antoine; and without more ado, had +driven back to Place-du-Bois: Mr. and Mrs. Hosmer. The event had +caused more than the proverbial nine days’ talk. Indeed, now, two +months after, it was still the absorbing theme that occupied the +dwellers of the parish: and such it promised to remain till supplanted +by something of sufficient dignity and importance to usurp its place.</p> + +<p>But of the opinions, favorable and other, that were being exchanged +regarding them and their marriage, Hosmer and Thrse heard little and +would have cared less, so absorbed were they in the overmastering +happiness that was holding them in thralldom. They could not yet bring +themselves to look at it calmly—this happiness. Even the intoxication +of it seemed a thing that promised to hold. Through love they had +sought each other, and now the fulfillment of that love had brought +more than tenfold its promise to both. It was a royal love; a generous +love and a rich one in its revelation. It was a magician that had +touched life for them and changed it into a glory. In giving them to +each other, it was moving them to the fullness of their own +capabilities. Much to do in two little months; but what cannot love +do?</p> + +<p>“Could it give a woman more than this?” Thrse was saying softly to +herself. Her hands were clasped as in prayer and pressed together +against her bosom. Her head bowed and her lips touching the +intertwined fingers. She spoke of her own emotion; of a certain sweet +turmoil that was stirring within her, as she stood out in the soft +June twilight waiting for her husband to come. Waiting to hear the new +ring in his voice that was like a song of joy. Waiting to see that new +strength and courage in his face, of whose significance she lost +nothing. To see the new light that had come in his eyes with +happiness. All gifts which love had given her.</p> + +<p>“Well, at last,” she said, going to the top of the steps to meet him +when he came. Her welcome was in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“At last,” he echoed, with a sigh of relief; pressing her hand which +she held out to him and raising it to his lips.</p> + +<p>He did not let it go, but passed it through his arm, and together they +turned to walk up and down the veranda.</p> + +<p>“You didn’t expect me at noon, did you?” he asked, looking down at +her.</p> + +<p>“No; you said you’d be likely not to come; but I hoped for you all the +same. I thought you’d manage it some way.”</p> + +<p>“No,” he answered her, laughing, “my efforts failed. I used even +strategy. Held out the temptation of your delightful Creole dishes and +all that. Nothing was of any avail. They were all business and I had +to be all business too, the whole day long. It was horribly stupid.”</p> + +<p>She pressed his arm significantly.</p> + +<p>“And do you think they will put all that money into the mill, David? +Into the business?”</p> + +<p>“No doubt of it, dear. But they’re shrewd fellows: didn’t commit +themselves in any way. Yet I could see they were impressed. We rode +for hours through the woods this morning and they didn’t leave a stick +of timber unscrutinized. We were out on the lake, too, and they were +like ferrets into every cranny of the mill.”</p> + +<p>“But won’t that give you more to do?”</p> + +<p>“No, it will give me less: division of labor, don’t you see? It will +give me more time to be with you.”</p> + +<p>“And to help with the plantation,” his wife suggested.</p> + +<p>“No, no, Madame Thrse,” he laughed, “I’ll not rob you of your +occupation. I’ll put no bungling hand into your concerns. I know a +sound piece of timber when I see it; but I should hardly be able to +tell a sample of Sea Island cotton from the veriest low middling.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s absurd, David. Do you know you’re getting to talk such +nonsense since we’re married; you remind me sometimes of Melicent.”</p> + +<p>“Of Melicent? Heaven forbid! Why, I have a letter from her,” he said, +feeling in his breast pocket. “The size and substance of it have +actually weighted my pocket the whole day.”</p> + +<p>“Melicent talking weighty things? That’s something new,” said Thrse +interested.</p> + +<p>“Is Melicent ever anything else than new?” he enquired.</p> + +<p>They went and sat together on the bench at the corner of the veranda, +where the fading Western light came over their shoulders. A quizzical +smile came into his eyes as he unfolded his sister’s letter—with +Thrse still holding his arm and sitting very close to him.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said, glancing over the first few pages—his wife +following—“she’s given up her charming little flat and her quaint +little English woman: concludes I was right about the expense, etc., +etc. But here comes the gist of the matter,” he said, reading from the +letter—“‘I know you won’t object to the trip, David, I have my heart +so set on it. The expense will be trifling, seeing there are four of +us to divide carriage hire, restaurant and all that: and it counts.</p> + +<p>“‘If you only knew Mrs. Griesmann I’d feel confident of your consent. +You’d be perfectly fascinated with her. She’s one of those highly +gifted women who knows everything. She’s very much interested in me. +Thinks to have found that I have a quick comprehensive intellectualism +(she calls it) that has been misdirected. I think there is something +in that, David; you know yourself I never did care really for society. +She says it’s impossible to ever come to a true knowledge of life as +it is—which should be every one’s aim—without studying certain +fundamental truths and things.’”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” breathed Thrse, overawed.</p> + +<p>“But wait—but listen,” said Hosmer, “‘Natural History and all +that—and we’re going to take that magnificent trip through the +West—the Yosemite and so forth. It appears the flora of California is +especially interesting and we’re to carry those delicious little tin +boxes strapped over our shoulders to hold specimens. Her son and +daughter are both, in their way, striking. He isn’t handsome; rather +the contrary; but so serene and collected—so intensely bitter—his +mother tells me he’s a pessimist. And the daughter really puts me to +shame, child as she is, with the amount of her knowledge. She labels +all her mother’s specimens in Latin. Oh, I feel there’s so much to be +learned. Mrs. Griesmann thinks I ought to wear glasses during the +trip. Says we often require them without knowing it ourselves—that +they are so restful. She has some theory about it. I’m trying a pair, +and see a great deal better through them than I expected to. Only they +don’t hold on very well, especially when I laugh.</p> + +<p>“‘Who do you suppose seized on to me in Vandervoort’s the other day, +but that impertinent Mrs. Belle Worthington! Positively took me by the +coat and commenced to gush about dear sister Thrse. She said: “I +tell you what, my dear—” called me my dear at the highest pitch, and +that odious Mrs. Van Wycke behind us listening and pretending to +examine a lace handkerchief. “That Mrs. Lafirme’s a trump,” she +said—“too good for most any man. Hope you won’t take offense, but I +must say, your brother David’s a perfect stick—it’s what I always +said.” Can you conceive of such shocking impertinence?’</p> + +<p>“Well; Belle Worthington does possess the virtue of candor,” said +Hosmer amused and folding the letter. “That’s about all there is, +except a piece of scandal concerning people you don’t know; that +wouldn’t interest you.”</p> + +<p>“But it would interest me,” Thrse insisted, with a little wifely +resentment that her husband should have a knowledge of people that +excluded her.</p> + +<p>“Then you shall hear it,” he said, turning to the letter again. “Let’s +see—‘conceive—shocking impertinence—’ oh, here it is.</p> + +<p>“‘Don’t know if you have learned the horrible scandal; too dreadful +to talk about. I shall send you the paper. I always knew that Lou +Dawson was a perfidious creature—and Bert Rodney! You never did like +him, David; but he was always so much the gentleman in his +manners—you must admit that. Who could have dreamed it of him. Poor +Mrs. Rodney is after all the one to be pitied. She is utterly +prostrated. Refuses to see even her most intimate friends. It all came +of those two vile wretches thinking Jack Dawson out of town when he +wasn’t; for he was right there following them around in their +perambulations. And the outcome is that Mr. Rodney has his beauty +spoiled they say forever; the shot came very near being fatal. But +poor, poor Mrs. Rodney!</p> + +<p>“‘Well, good-bye, you dearest David mine. How I wish you both knew +Mrs. Griesmann. Give that sweet sister Thrse as many kisses as she +will stand for me.</p> + +<p class="left50">Melicent.’”</p> + +<p>This time Hosmer put the letter into his pocket, and Thrse asked +with a little puzzled air: “What do you suppose is going to become of +Melicent, anyway, David?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, love, unless she marries my friend Homeyer.”</p> + +<p>“Now, David, you are trying to mystify me. I believe there’s a streak +of perversity in you after all.”</p> + +<p>“Of course there is; and here comes Mandy to say that ‘suppa’s gittin’ +cole.’”</p> + +<p>“Aunt B’lindy ’low suppa on de table gittin’ cole,” said Mandy, +retreating at once from the fire of their merriment.</p> + +<p>Thrse arose and held her two hands out to her husband.</p> + +<p>He took them but did not rise; only leaned further back on the seat +and looked up at her.</p> + +<p>“Oh, supper’s a bore; don’t you think so?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t,” she replied. “I’m hungry, and so are you. Come, David.”</p> + +<p>“But look, Thrse, just when the moon has climbed over the top of +that live-oak? We can’t go now. And then Melicent’s request; we must +think about that.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, surely not, David,” she said, drawing back.</p> + +<p>“Then let me tell you something,” and he drew her head down and +whispered something in her pink ear that he just brushed with his +lips. It made Thrse laugh and turn very rosy in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>Can that be Hosmer? Is this Thrse? Fie, fie. It is time we were +leaving them.<a href="#toc"><span class="smaller">[Back to Table of Contents]</span></a></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At Fault, by Kate Chopin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT FAULT *** + +***** This file should be named 23810-h.htm or 23810-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/8/1/23810/ + +Produced by Bernard Koloski + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: At Fault + +Author: Kate Chopin + +Release Date: December 10, 2007 [EBook #23810] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT FAULT *** + + + + +Produced by Bernard Koloski + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: There was no table of contents in the original +book; one has been added in this project to ease the navigation.] + + + + +At Fault + +by Kate Chopin + + + + +Part I. + + I. The Mistress of Place-du-Bois. + II. At the Mill. + III. In the Pirogue. + IV. A Small Interruption. + V. In the Pine Woods. + VI. Melicent Talks. + VII. Painful Disclosures. + VIII. Treats of Melicent. + IX. Face to Face. + X. Fanny's Friends. + XI. The Self-Assumed Burden. + XII. Severing Old Ties. + + +Part II. + + I. Fanny's First Night at Place-du-Bois. + II. "Neva to See You!" + III. A Talk Under the Cedar Tree. + IV. Therese Crosses the River. + V. One Afternoon. + VI. One Night. + VII. Melicent Leaves Place-du-Bois. + VIII. With Loose Rein. + IX. The Reason Why. + X. Perplexing Things. + XI. A Social Evening. + XII. Tidings That Sting. + XIII. Melicent Hears the News. + XIV. A Step Too Far. + XV. A Fateful Solution. + XVI. To Him Who Waits. + XVII. Conclusion. + + + + +PART I + + + + +I + +The Mistress of Place-du-Bois. + + +When Jerome Lafirme died, his neighbors awaited the results of his +sudden taking off with indolent watchfulness. It was a matter of +unusual interest to them that a plantation of four thousand acres had +been left unincumbered to the disposal of a handsome, inconsolable, +childless Creole widow of thirty. A _betise_ of some sort might safely +be looked for. But time passing, the anticipated folly failed to +reveal itself; and the only wonder was that Therese Lafirme so +successfully followed the methods of her departed husband. + +Of course Therese had wanted to die with her Jerome, feeling that life +without him held nothing that could reconcile her to its further +endurance. For days she lived alone with her grief; shutting out the +appeals that came to her from the demoralized "hands," and unmindful +of the disorder that gathered about her. Till Uncle Hiram came one day +with a respectful tender of sympathy, offered in the guise of a +reckless misquoting of Scripture--and with a grievance. + +"Mistuss," he said, "I 'lowed 'twar best to come to de house an' tell +you; fur Massa he alluz did say 'Hi'urm, I counts on you to keep a eye +open endurin' my appersunce;' you ricollic, marm?" addressing an +expanse of black bordered cambric that veiled the features of his +mistress. "Things is a goin' wrong; dat dey is. I don't wants to name +no names 'doubt I'se 'bleeged to; but dey done start a kiarrin' de +cotton seed off de place, and dats how." + +If Hiram's information had confined itself to the bare statement of +things "goin' wrong," such intimation, of its nature vague and +susceptible of uncertain interpretation, might have failed to rouse +Therese from her lethargy of grief. But that wrong doing presented as +a tangible abuse and defiance of authority, served to move her to +action. She felt at once the weight and sacredness of a trust, whose +acceptance brought consolation and awakened unsuspected powers of +doing. + +In spite of Uncle Hiram's parting prediction "de cotton 'll be a goin' +naxt" no more seed was hauled under cover of darkness from +Place-du-Bois. + +The short length of this Louisiana plantation stretched along Cane +River, meeting the water when that stream was at its highest, with a +thick growth of cotton-wood trees; save where a narrow convenient +opening had been cut into their midst, and where further down the pine +hills started in abrupt prominence from the water and the dead level +of land on either side of them. These hills extended in a long line of +gradual descent far back to the wooded borders of Lac du Bois; and +within the circuit which they formed on the one side, and the +irregular half circle of a sluggish bayou on the other, lay the +cultivated open ground of the plantation--rich in its exhaustless +powers of reproduction. + +Among changes which the railroad brought soon after Jerome Lafirme's +death, and which were viewed by many as of questionable benefit, was +one which drove Therese to seek another domicile. The old homestead +that nestled to the hill side and close to the water's edge, had been +abandoned to the inroads of progressive civilization; and Mrs. Lafirme +had rebuilt many rods away from the river and beyond sight of the +mutilated dwelling, converted now into a section house. In building, +she avoided the temptations offered by modern architectural +innovations, and clung to the simplicity of large rooms and broad +verandas: a style whose merits had stood the test of easy-going and +comfort-loving generations. + +The negro quarters were scattered at wide intervals over the land, +breaking with picturesque irregularity into the systematic division of +field from field; and in the early spring-time gleaming in their new +coat of whitewash against the tender green of the sprouting cotton and +corn. + +Therese loved to walk the length of the wide verandas, armed with her +field-glass, and to view her surrounding possessions with comfortable +satisfaction. Then her gaze swept from cabin to cabin; from patch to +patch; up to the pine-capped hills, and down to the station which +squatted a brown and ugly intruder within her fair domain. + +She had made pouting resistance to this change at first, opposing it +step by step with a conservatism that yielded only to the resistless. +She pictured a visionary troop of evils coming in the wake of the +railroad, which, in her eyes no conceivable benefits could mitigate. +The occasional tramp, she foresaw as an army; and the travelers whom +chance deposited at the store that adjoined the station, she dreaded +as an endless procession of intruders forcing themselves upon her +privacy. + +Gregoire, the young nephew of Mrs. Lafirme, whose duty on the +plantation was comprehended in doing as he was bid, qualified by a +propensity for doing as he liked, rode up from the store one day in +the reckless fashion peculiar to Southern youth, breathless with the +information that a stranger was there wishing audience with her. + +Therese at once bristled with objections. Here was a confirmation of +her worst dread. But encouraged by Gregoire's reiteration "he 'pear to +me like a nice sort o' person," she yielded a grudging assent to the +interview. + +She sat within the wide hall-way beyond the glare and heat that were +beating mercilessly down upon the world out of doors, engaged in a +light work not so exacting as to keep her thoughts and glance from +wandering. Looking through the wide open back doors, the picture which +she saw was a section of the perfect lawn that encircled the house for +an acre around, and from which Hiram was slowly raking the leaves cast +from a clump of tall magnolias. Beneath the spreading shade of an +umbrella-China tree, lay the burly Hector, but half awake to the +possible nearness of tramps; and Betsy, a piece of youthful ebony in +blue cottonade, was crossing leisurely on her way to the poultry yard; +unheeding the scorching sun-rays that she thought were sufficiently +parried by the pan of chick feed that she balanced adroitly on her +bushy black head. + +At the front, the view at certain seasons would have been clear and +unbroken: to the station, the store, and out-lying hills. But now she +could see beyond the lawn only a quivering curtain of rich green which +the growing corn spread before the level landscape, and above whose +swaying heads appeared occasionally the top of an advancing white +sun-shade. + +Therese was of a roundness of figure suggesting a future of excessive +fullness if not judiciously guarded; and she was fair, with a warm +whiteness that a passing thought could deepen into color. The waving +blonde hair, gathered in an abundant coil on top of her head, grew +away with a pretty sweep from the temples, the low forehead and nape +of the white neck that showed above a frill of soft lace. Her eyes +were blue, as certain gems are; that deep blue that lights, and glows, +and tells things of the soul. When David Hosmer presented himself, +they were intense only with expectancy and the color was in her cheek +like the blush in a shell. + +He was a tall individual of perhaps forty; thin and sallow. His black +hair was streaked abundantly with grey, and his face marked with +premature lines; left there by care, no doubt, and, by a too close +attention to what men are pleased to call the main chances of life. + +"A serious one," was Therese's first thought in looking at him. "A man +who has never learned to laugh or who has forgotten how." Though +plainly feeling the effects of the heat, he did not seem to appreciate +the relief offered by the grateful change into this shadowy, sweet +smelling, cool retreat; used as he was to ignore the comforting things +of life when presented to him as irrelevant to that dominant main +chance. He accepted under protest a glass of ice water from the +wide-eyed Betsy, and suffered a fan to be thrust into his hand, +seemingly to save his time or his timidity by its possibly unheeded +rejection. + +"Lor'-zee folks," exclaimed the observant Betsy on re-entering the +kitchen, "dey'se a man in yonda, look like he gwine eat somebody up. I +was fur gittin' 'way quick me." + +It can be readily imagined that Hosmer lost little time in preliminary +small talk. He introduced himself vaguely as from the West; then +perceiving the need of being more specific as from Saint Louis. She +had guessed he was no Southerner. He had come to Mrs. Lafirme on the +part of himself and others with a moneyed offer for the privilege of +cutting timber from her land for a given number of years. The amount +named was alluring, but here was proposed another change and she felt +plainly called on for resistance. + +The company which he represented had in view the erection of a sawmill +some two miles back in the woods, close beside the bayou and at a +convenient distance from the lake. He was not wordy, nor was he eager +in urging his plans; only in a quiet way insistent in showing points +to be considered in her own favor which she would be likely herself to +overlook. + +Mrs. Lafirme, a clever enough business woman, was moved by no undue +haste to give her answer. She begged for time to think the matter +over, which Hosmer readily agreed to; expressing a hope that a +favorable answer be sent to him at Natchitoches, where he would await +her convenience. Then resisting rather than declining all further +hospitality, he again took his way through the scorching fields. + +Therese wanted but time to become familiar with this further change. +Alone she went out to her beloved woods, and at the hush of mid-day, +bade a tearful farewell to the silence. + + + + +II + +At the Mill. + + +David Hosmer sat alone in his little office of roughly fashioned pine +board. So small a place, that with his desk and his clerk's desk, a +narrow bed in one corner, and two chairs, there was scant room for a +man to more than turn himself comfortably about. He had just +dispatched his clerk with the daily bundle of letters to the +post-office, two miles away in the Lafirme store, and he now turned +with the air of a man who had well earned his moment of leisure, to +the questionable relaxation of adding columns and columns of figures. + +The mill's unceasing buzz made pleasant music to his ears and stirred +reflections of a most agreeable nature. A year had gone by since Mrs. +Lafirme had consented to Hosmer's proposal; and already the business +more than gave promise of justifying the venture. Orders came in from +the North and West more rapidly than they could be filled. That +"Cypresse Funerall" which stands in grim majesty through the dense +forests of Louisiana had already won its just recognition; and +Hosmer's appreciation of a successful business venture was showing +itself in a little more pronounced stoop of shoulder, a deepening of +pre-occupation and a few additional lines about mouth and forehead. + +Hardly had the clerk gone with his letters than a light footstep +sounded on the narrow porch; the quick tap of a parasol was heard on +the door-sill; a pleasant voice asking, "Any admission except on +business?" and Therese crossed the small room and seated herself +beside Hosmer's desk before giving him time to arise. + +She laid her hand and arm,--bare to the elbow--across his work, and +said, looking at him reproachfully:-- + +"Is this the way you keep a promise?" + +"A promise?" he questioned, smiling awkwardly and looking furtively at +the white arm, then very earnestly at the ink-stand beyond. + +"Yes. Didn't you promise to do no work after five o'clock?" + +"But this is merely pastime," he said, touching the paper, yet leaving +it undisturbed beneath the fair weight that was pressing it down. "My +work is finished: you must have met Henry with the letters." + +"No, I suppose he went through the woods; we came on the hand-car. Oh, +dear! It's an ungrateful task, this one of reform," and she leaned +back, fanning leisurely, whilst he proceeded to throw the contents of +his desk into hopeless disorder by pretended efforts at arrangement. + +"My husband used sometimes to say, and no doubt with reason," she +continued, "that in my eagerness for the rest of mankind to do right, +I was often in danger of losing sight of such necessity for myself." + +"Oh, there could be no fear of that," said Hosmer with a short laugh. +There was no further pretext for continued occupation with his pens +and pencils and rulers, so he turned towards Therese, rested an arm on +the desk, pulled absently at his black moustache, and crossing his +knee, gazed with deep concern at the toe of his boot, and set of his +trouser about the ankle. + +"You are not what my friend Homeyer would call an individualist," he +ventured, "since you don't grant a man the right to follow the +promptings of his character." + +"No, I'm no individualist, if to be one is to permit men to fall into +hurtful habits without offering protest against it. I'm losing faith +in that friend Homeyer, who I strongly suspect is a mythical apology +for your own short-comings." + +"Indeed he's no myth; but a friend who is fond of going into such +things and allows me the benefit of his deeper perceptions." + +"You having no time, well understood. But if his influence has had the +merit of drawing your thoughts from business once in a while we won't +quarrel with it." + +"Mrs. Lafirme," said Hosmer, seeming moved to pursue the subject, and +addressing the spray of white blossoms that adorned Therese's black +hat, "you admit, I suppose, that in urging your views upon me, you +have in mind the advancement of my happiness?" + +"Well understood." + +"Then why wish to substitute some other form of enjoyment for the one +which I find in following my inclinations?" + +"Because there is an unsuspected selfishness in your inclinations that +works harm to yourself and to those around you. I want you to know," +she continued warmly, "the good things of life that cheer and warm, +that are always at hand." + +"Do you think the happiness of Melicent or--or others could be +materially lessened by my fondness for money getting?" he asked dryly, +with a faint elevation of eyebrow. + +"Yes, in proportion as it deprives them of a charm which any man's +society loses, when pursuing one object in life, he grows insensible +to every other. But I'll not scold any more. I've made myself +troublesome enough for one day. You haven't asked about Melicent. It's +true," she laughed, "I haven't given you much chance. She's out on the +lake with Gregoire." + +"Ah?" + +"Yes, in the pirogue. A dangerous little craft, I'm afraid; but she +tells me she can swim. I suppose it's all right." + +"Oh, Melicent will look after herself." + +Hosmer had great faith in his sister Melicent's ability to look after +herself; and it must be granted that the young lady fully justified +his belief in her. + +"She enjoys her visit more than I thought she would," he said. + +"Melicent's a dear girl," replied Therese cordially, "and a wise one +too in guarding herself against a somber influence that I know," with +a meaning glance at Hosmer, who was preparing to close his desk. + +She suddenly perceived the picture of a handsome boy, far back in one +of the pigeon-holes, and with the familiarity born of country +intercourse, she looked intently at it, remarking upon the boy's +beauty. + +"A child whom I loved very much," said Hosmer. "He's dead," and he +closed the desk, turning the key in the lock with a sharp click which +seemed to add--"and buried." + +Therese then approached the open door, leaned her back against its +casing, and turned her pretty profile towards Hosmer, who, it need not +be supposed, was averse to looking at it--only to being caught in the +act. + +"I want to look in at the mill before work closes," she said; and not +waiting for an answer she went on to ask--moved by some association of +ideas:-- + +"How is Jocint doing?" + +"Always unruly, the foreman tells me. I don't believe we shall be able +to keep him." + +Hosmer then spoke a few words through the telephone which connected +with the agent's desk at the station, put on his great slouch hat, and +thrusting keys and hands into his pocket, joined Therese in the +door-way. + +Quitting the office and making a sharp turn to the left, they came in +direct sight of the great mill. She quickly made her way past the huge +piles of sawed timber, not waiting for her companion, who loitered at +each step of the way, with observant watchfulness. Then mounting the +steep stairs that led to the upper portions of the mill, she went at +once to her favorite spot, quite on the edge of the open platform that +overhung the dam. Here she watched with fascinated delight the great +logs hauled dripping from the water, following each till it had +changed to the clean symmetry of sawed planks. The unending work made +her giddy. For no one was there a moment of rest, and she could well +understand the open revolt of the surly Jocint; for he rode the day +long on that narrow car, back and forth, back and forth, with his +heart in the pine hills and knowing that his little Creole pony was +roaming the woods in vicious idleness and his rifle gathering an +unsightly rust on the cabin wall at home. + +The boy gave but ugly acknowledgment to Therese's amiable nod; for he +thought she was one upon whom partly rested the fault of this +intrusive Industry which had come to fire the souls of indolent +fathers with a greedy ambition for gain, at the sore expense of +revolting youth. + + + + +III + +In the Pirogue. + + +"You got to set mighty still in this pirogue," said Gregoire, as with +a long oar-stroke he pulled out into mid stream. + +"Yes, I know," answered Melicent complacently, arranging herself +opposite him in the long narrow boat: all sense of danger which the +situation might arouse being dulled by the attractiveness of a new +experience. + +Her resemblance to Hosmer ended with height and slenderness of figure, +olive tinted skin, and eyes and hair which were of that dark brown +often miscalled black; but unlike his, her face was awake with an +eagerness to know and test the novelty and depth of unaccustomed +sensation. She had thus far lived an unstable existence, free from the +weight of responsibilities, with a notion lying somewhere deep in her +consciousness that the world must one day be taken seriously; but that +contingency was yet too far away to disturb the harmony of her days. + +She had eagerly responded to her brother's suggestion of spending a +summer with him in Louisiana. Hitherto, having passed her summers +North, West, or East as alternating caprice prompted, she was ready at +a word to fit her humor to the novelty of a season at the South. She +enjoyed in advance the startling effect which her announced intention +produced upon her intimate circle at home; thinking that her whim +deserved the distinction of eccentricity with which they chose to +invest it. But Melicent was chiefly moved by the prospect of an +uninterrupted sojourn with her brother, whom she loved blindly, and to +whom she attributed qualities of mind and heart which she thought the +world had discovered to use against him. + +"You got to set mighty still in this pirogue." + +"Yes, I know; you told me so before," and she laughed. + +"W'at are you laughin' at?" asked Gregoire with amused but uncertain +expectancy. + +"Laughing at you, Gregoire; how can I help it?" laughing again. + +"Betta wait tell I do somethin' funny, I reckon. Ain't this a putty +sight?" he added, referring to the dense canopy of an overarching +tree, beneath which they were gliding, and whose extreme branches +dipped quite into the slow moving water. + +The scene had not attracted Melicent. For she had been engaged in +observing her companion rather closely; his personality holding her +with a certain imaginative interest. + +The young man whom she so closely scrutinized was slightly undersized, +but of close and brawny build. His hands were not so refinedly white +as those of certain office bred young men of her acquaintance, yet +they were not coarsened by undue toil: it being somewhat an axiom with +him to do nothing that an available "nigger" might do for him. + +Close fitting, high-heeled boots of fine quality incased his feet, in +whose shapeliness he felt a pardonable pride; for a young man's +excellence was often measured in the circle which he had frequented, +by the possession of such a foot. A peculiar grace in the dance and a +talent for bold repartee were further characteristics which had made +Gregoire's departure keenly felt among certain belles of upper Red +River. His features were handsome, of sharp and refined cut; and his +eyes black and brilliant as eyes of an alert and intelligent animal +sometimes are. Melicent could not reconcile his voice to her liking; +it was too softly low and feminine, and carried a note of pleading or +pathos, unless he argued with his horse, his dog, or a "nigger," at +which times, though not unduly raised, it acquired a biting quality +that served the purpose of relieving him from further form of +insistence. + +He pulled rapidly and in silence down the bayou, that was now so +entirely sheltered from the open light of the sky by the meeting +branches above, as to seem a dim leafy tunnel fashioned by man's +ingenuity. There were no perceptible banks, for the water spread out +on either side of them, further than they could follow its flashings +through the rank underbrush. The dull plash of some object falling +into the water, or the wild call of a lonely bird were the only sounds +that broke upon the stillness, beside the monotonous dipping of the +oars and the occasional low undertones of their own voices. When +Gregoire called the girl's attention to an object near by, she fancied +it was the protruding stump of a decaying tree; but reaching for his +revolver and taking quiet aim, he drove a ball into the black upturned +nozzle that sent it below the surface with an angry splash. + +"Will he follow us?" she asked, mildly agitated. + +"Oh no; he's glad 'nough to git out o' the way. You betta put down yo' +veil," he added a moment later. + +Before she could ask a reason--for it was not her fashion to obey at +word of command--the air was filled with the doleful hum of a gray +swarm of mosquitoes, which attacked them fiercely. + +"You didn't tell me the bayou was the refuge of such savage +creatures," she said, fastening her veil closely about face and neck, +but not before she had felt the sharpness of their angry sting. + +"I reckoned you'd 'a knowed all about it: seems like you know +everything." After a short interval he added, "you betta take yo' veil +off." + +She was amused at Gregoire's authoritative tone and she said to him +laughing, yet obeying his suggestion, which carried a note of command: +"you shall tell me always, why I should do things." + +"All right," he replied; "because they ain't any mo' mosquitoes; +because I want you to see somethin' worth seein' afta while; and +because I like to look at you," which he was doing, with the innocent +boldness of a forward child. "Ain't that 'nough reasons?" + +"More than enough," she replied shortly. + +The rank and clustering vegetation had become denser as they went on, +forming an impenetrable tangle on either side, and pressing so closely +above that they often needed to lower their heads to avoid the blow of +some drooping branch. Then a sudden and unlooked for turn in the bayou +carried them out upon the far-spreading waters of the lake, with the +broad canopy of the open sky above them. + +"Oh," cried Melicent, in surprise. Her exclamation was like a sigh of +relief which comes at the removal of some pressure from body or brain. + +The wildness of the scene caught upon her erratic fancy, speeding it +for a quick moment into the realms of romance. She was an Indian +maiden of the far past, fleeing and seeking with her dusky lover some +wild and solitary retreat on the borders of this lake, which offered +them no seeming foot-hold save such as they would hew themselves with +axe or tomahawk. Here and there, a grim cypress lifted its head above +the water, and spread wide its moss covered arms inviting refuge to +the great black-winged buzzards that circled over and about it in +mid-air. Nameless voices--weird sounds that awake in a Southern forest +at twilight's approach,--were crying a sinister welcome to the +settling gloom. + +"This is a place thet can make a man sad, I tell you," said Gregoire, +resting his oars, and wiping the moisture from his forehead. "I +wouldn't want to be yere alone, not fur any money." + +"It is an awful place," replied Melicent with a little appreciative +shudder; adding "do you consider me a bodily protection?" and feebly +smiling into his face. + +"Oh; I ain't 'fraid o' any thing I can see an on'erstan'. I can han'le +mos' any thing thet's got a body. But they do tell some mighty queer +tales 'bout this lake an' the pine hills yonda." + +"Queer--how?" + +"W'y, ole McFarlane's buried up there on the hill; an' they's folks +'round yere says he walks about o' nights; can't res' in his grave fur +the niggas he's killed." + +"Gracious! and who was old McFarlane?" + +"The meanest w'ite man thet ever lived, seems like. Used to own this +place long befo' the Lafirmes got it. They say he's the person that +Mrs. W'at's her name wrote about in Uncle Tom's Cabin." + +"Legree? I wonder if it could be true?" Melicent asked with interest. + +"Thet's w'at they all say: ask any body." + +"You'll take me to his grave, won't you Gregoire," she entreated. + +"Well, not this evenin'--I reckon not. It'll have to be broad day, an' +the sun shinin' mighty bright w'en I take you to ole McFarlane's +grave." + +They had retraced their course and again entered the bayou, from which +the light had now nearly vanished, making it needful that they watch +carefully to escape the hewn logs that floated in numbers upon the +water. + +"I didn't suppose you were ever sad, Gregoire," Melicent said gently. + +"Oh my! yes;" with frank acknowledgment. "You ain't ever seen me w'en +I was real lonesome. 'Tain't so bad sence you come. But times w'en I +git to thinkin' 'bout home, I'm boun' to cry--seems like I can't he'p +it." + +"Why did you ever leave home?" she asked sympathetically. + +"You see w'en father died, fo' year ago, mother she went back to +France, t'her folks there; she never could stan' this country--an' +lef' us boys to manage the place. Hec, he took charge the firs' year +an' run it in debt. Placide an' me did'n' have no betta luck the naxt +year. Then the creditors come up from New Orleans an' took holt. +That's the time I packed my duds an' lef'." + +"And you came here?" + +"No, not at firs'. You see the Santien boys had a putty hard name in +the country. Aunt Therese, she'd fallen out with father years ago +'bout the way, she said, he was bringin' us up. Father, he wasn't the +man to take nothin' from nobody. Never 'lowed any of us to come down +yere. I was in Texas, goin' to the devil I reckon, w'en she sent for +me, an' yere I am." + +"And here you ought to stay, Gregoire." + +"Oh, they ain't no betta woman in the worl' then Aunt Therese, w'en +you do like she wants. See 'em yonda waitin' fur us? Reckon they +thought we was drowned." + + + + +IV + +A Small Interruption. + + +When Melicent came to visit her brother, Mrs. Lafirme persuaded him to +abandon his uncomfortable quarters at the mill and take up his +residence in the cottage, which stood just beyond the lawn of the big +house. This cottage had been furnished _de pied en cap_ many years +before, in readiness against an excess of visitors, which in days gone +by was not of infrequent occurrence at Place-du-Bois. It was +Melicent's delighted intention to keep house here. And she foresaw no +obstacle in the way of procuring the needed domestic aid in a place +which was clearly swarming with idle women and children. + +"Got a cook yet, Mel?" was Hosmer's daily enquiry on returning home, +to which Melicent was as often forced to admit that she had no cook, +but was not without abundant hope of procuring one. + +Betsy's Aunt Cynthy had promised with a sincerity which admitted not +of doubt, that "de Lord willin' " she would "be on han' Monday, time +to make de mornin' coffee." Which assurance had afforded Melicent a +Sunday free of disturbing doubts concerning the future of her +undertaking. But who may know what the morrow will bring forth? Cynthy +had been "tuck sick in de night." So ran the statement of the wee +pickaninny who appeared at Melicent's gate many hours later than +morning coffee time: delivering his message in a high voice of +complaint, and disappearing like a vision without further word. + +Uncle Hiram, then called to the breach, had staked his patriarchal +honor on the appearance of his niece Suze on Tuesday. Melicent and +Therese meeting Suze some days later in a field path, asked the cause +of her bad faith. The girl showed them all the white teeth which +nature had lavished on her, saying with the best natured laugh in the +world: "I don' know how come I didn' git dere Chewsday like I +promise." + +If the ladies were not disposed to consider that an all-sufficient +reason, so much the worse, for Suze had no other to offer. + +From Mose's wife, Minervy, better things might have been expected. But +after a solemn engagement to take charge of Melicent's kitchen on +Wednesday, the dusky matron suddenly awoke to the need of "holpin' +Mose hoe out dat co'n in the stiff lan." + +Therese, seeing that the girl was really eager to play in the brief +role of housekeeper had used her powers, persuasive and authoritative, +to procure servants for her, but without avail. She herself was not +without an abundance of them, from the white-haired Hiram, whose +position on the place had long been a sinecure, down to the little +brown legged tot Mandy, much given to falling asleep in the sun, when +not chasing venturesome poultry off forbidden ground, or stirring +gentle breezes with an enormous palm leaf fan about her mistress +during that lady's after dinner nap. + +When pressed to give a reason for this apparent disinclination of the +negroes to work for the Hosmers, Nathan, who was at the moment being +interviewed on the front veranda by Therese and Melicent, spoke out. + +"Dey 'low 'roun' yere, dat you's mean to de black folks, ma'am: dat +what dey says--I don' know me." + +"Mean," cried Melicent, amazed, "in what way, pray?" + +"Oh, all sort o' ways," he admitted, with a certain shy brazenness; +determined to go through with the ordeal. + +"Dey 'low you wants to cut de little gals' plaits off, an' sich--I +don' know me." + +"Do you suppose, Nathan," said Therese attempting but poorly to hide +her amusement at Melicent's look of dismay, "that Miss Hosmer would +bother herself with darkies' plaits?" + +"Dat's w'at I tink m'sef. Anyways, I'll sen' Ar'minty 'roun' +to-morrow, sho." + +Melicent was not without the guilty remembrance of having one day +playfully seized one of the small Mandy's bristling plaits, daintily +between finger and thumb, threatening to cut them all away with the +scissors which she carried. Yet she could not but believe that there +was some deeper motive underlying this systematic reluctance of the +negroes to give their work in exchange for the very good pay which she +offered. Therese soon enlightened her with the information that the +negroes were very averse to working for Northern people whose speech, +manners, and attitude towards themselves were unfamiliar. She was +given the consoling assurance of not being the only victim of this +boycott, as Therese recalled many examples of strangers whom she knew +to have met with a like cavalier treatment at the darkies' hands. + +Needless to say, Araminty never appeared. + +Hosmer and Melicent were induced to accept Mrs. Lafirme's generous +hospitality; and one of that lady's many supernumeraries was detailed +each morning to "do up" Miss Melicent's rooms, but not without the +previous understanding that the work formed part of Miss T'rese's +system. + +Nothing which had happened during the year of his residence at +Place-du-Bois had furnished Hosmer such amusement as these +misadventures of his sister Melicent, he having had no like experience +with his mill hands. + +It is not unlikely that his good humor was partly due to the +acceptable arrangement which assured him the daily society of Therese, +whose presence was growing into a need with him. + + + + +V + +In the Pine Woods. + + +When Gregoire said to Melicent that there was no better woman in the +world than his Aunt Therese, "W'en you do like she wants," the +statement was so incomplete as to leave one in uncomfortable doubt of +the expediency of venturing within the influence of so exacting a +nature. True, Therese required certain conduct from others, but she +was willing to further its accomplishment by personal efforts, even +sacrifices--that could leave no doubt of the pure unselfishness of her +motive. There was hardly a soul at Place-du-Bois who had not felt the +force of her will and yielded to its gentle influence. + +The picture of Jocint as she had last seen him, stayed with her, till +it gave form to a troubled desire moving her to see him again and +speak with him. He had always been an unruly subject, inclined to a +surreptitious defiance of authority. Repeatedly had he been given work +on the plantation and as many times dismissed for various causes. +Therese would have long since removed him had it not been for his old +father Morico, whose long life spent on the place had established a +claim upon her tolerance. + +In the late afternoon, when the shadows of the magnolias were +stretching in grotesque lengths across the lawn, Therese stood waiting +for Uncle Hiram to bring her sleek bay Beauregard around to the front. +The dark close fitting habit which she wore lent brilliancy to her +soft blonde coloring; and there was no mark of years about her face or +figure, save the settling of a thoughtful shadow upon the eyes, which +joys and sorrows that were past and gone had left there. + +As she rode by the cottage, Melicent came out on the porch to wave a +laughing good-bye. The girl was engaged in effacing the simplicity of +her rooms with certain bizarre decorations that seemed the promptings +of a disordered imagination. Yards of fantastic calico had been +brought up from the store, which Gregoire with hammer and tacks was +amiably forming into impossible designs at the prompting of the girl. +The little darkies had been enlisted to bring their contributions of +palm branches, pine cones, ferns, and bright hued bird wings--and a +row of those small recruits stood on the porch, gaping in wide-mouthed +admiration at a sight that stirred within their breasts such remnant +of savage instinct as past generations had left there in dormant +survival. + +One of the small audience permitted her attention to be drawn for a +moment from the gorgeous in-door spectacle, to follow the movements of +her mistress. + +"Jis' look Miss T'rese how she go a lopin' down de lane. Dere she +go--dere she go--now she gone," and she again became contemplative. + +Therese, after crossing the railroad, for a space kept to the brow of +the hill where stretched a well defined road, which by almost +imperceptible degrees led deeper and always higher into the woods. +Presently, leaving this road and turning into a bridle path where an +unpracticed eye would have discovered no sign of travel, she rode on +until reaching a small clearing among the pines, in the center of +which stood a very old and weather beaten cabin. + +Here she dismounted, before Morico knew of her presence, for he sat +with his back partly turned to the open door. As she entered and +greeted him, he arose from his chair, all trembling with excitement at +her visit; the long white locks, straggling and unkept, falling about +his brown visage that had grown old and weather beaten with his cabin. +Sinking down into his seat--the hide covered chair that had been worn +smooth by years of usefulness--he gazed well pleased at Therese, who +seated herself beside him. + +"Ah, this is quite the handsomest you have made yet, Morico," she said +addressing him in French, and taking up the fan that he was curiously +fashioning of turkey feathers. + +"I am taking extra pains with it," he answered, looking complacently +at his handiwork and smoothing down the glossy feathers with the ends +of his withered old fingers. "I thought the American lady down at the +house might want to buy it." + +Therese could safely assure him of Melicent's willingness to seize on +the trophy. + +Then she asked why Jocint had not been to the house with news of him. +"I have had chickens and eggs for you, and no way of sending them." + +At mention of his son's name, the old man's face clouded with +displeasure and his hand trembled so that he was at some pains to +place the feather which he was at the moment adding to the widening +fan. + +"Jocint is a bad son, madame, when even you have been able to do +nothing with him. The trouble that boy has given me no one knows; but +let him not think I am too old to give him a sound drubbing." + +Jocint meanwhile had returned from the mill and seeing Therese's horse +fastened before his door, was at first inclined to skulk back into the +woods; but an impulse of defiance moved him to enter, and gave to his +ugly countenance a look that was far from agreeable as he mumbled a +greeting to Therese. His father he did not address. The old man looked +from son to visitor with feeble expectancy of some good to come from +her presence there. + +Jocint's straight and coarse black hair hung in a heavy mop over his +low retreating forehead, almost meeting the ill-defined line of +eyebrow that straggled above small dusky black eyes, that with the +rest of his physique was an inheritance from his Indian mother. + +Approaching the safe or _garde manger_, which was the most prominent +piece of furniture in the room, he cut a wedge from the round loaf of +heavy soggy corn bread that he found there, added a layer of fat pork, +and proceeded to devour the unpalatable morsel with hungry relish. + +"That is but poor fare for your old father, Jocint," said Therese, +looking steadily at the youth. + +"Well, I got no chance me, fu' go fine nuttin in de 'ood" (woods), he +answered purposely in English, to annoy his father who did not +understand the language. + +"But you are earning enough to buy him something better; and you know +there is always plenty at the house that I am willing to spare him." + +"I got no chance me fu' go to de 'ouse neider," he replied +deliberately, after washing down the scant repast with a long draught +from the tin bucket which he had replenished at the cistern before +entering. He swallowed the water regardless of the "wiggles" whose +presence was plainly visible. + +"What does he say?" asked Morico scanning Therese's face appealingly. + +"He only says that work at the mill keeps him a good deal occupied," +she said with attempted carelessness. + +As she finished speaking, Jocint put on his battered felt hat, and +strode out the back door; his gun on his shoulder and a yellow cur +following close at his heels. + +Therese remained a while longer with the old man, hearing +sympathetically the long drawn story of his troubles, and cheering him +as no one else in the world was able to do, then she went away. + +Jocint was not the only one who had seen Beauregard fastened at +Morico's door. Hosmer was making a tour of inspection that afternoon +through the woods, and when he came suddenly upon Therese some moments +after she had quitted the cabin, the meeting was not so wholly +accidental as that lady fancied it was. + +If there could be a situation in which Hosmer felt more than in +another at ease in Therese's company, it was the one in which he found +himself. There was no need to seek occupation for his hands, those +members being sufficiently engaged with the management of his horse. +His eyes found legitimate direction in following the various details +which a rider is presumed to observe; and his manner freed from the +necessity of self direction took upon itself an ease which was +occasional enough to mark it as noteworthy. + +She told him of her visit. At mention of Jocint's name he reddened: +then followed the acknowledgment that the youth in question had caused +him to lose his temper and forget his dignity during the afternoon. + +"In what way?" asked Therese. "It would be better to dismiss him than +to rail at him. He takes reproof badly and is extremely treacherous." + +"Mill hands are not plentiful, or I should send him off at once. Oh, +he is an unbearable fellow. The men told me of a habit he has of +letting the logs roll off the carriage, causing a good deal of +annoyance and delay in replacing them. I was willing enough to believe +it might be accidental, until I caught him today in the very act. I am +thankful not to have knocked him down." + +Hosmer felt exhilarated. The excitement of his encounter with Jocint +had not yet died away; this softly delicious atmosphere; the subtle +aroma of the pines; his unlooked for meeting with Therese--all +combined to stir him with unusual emotions. + +"What a splendid creature Beauregard is," he said, smoothing the +animal's glossy mane with the end of his riding whip. The horses were +walking slowly in step, and close together. + +"Of course he is," said Therese proudly, patting the arched neck of +her favorite. "Beauregard is a blooded animal, remember. He quite +throws poor Nelson in the shade," looking pityingly at Hosmer's +heavily built iron-grey. + +"Don't cast any slurs on Nelson, Mrs. Lafirme. He's done me service +that's worthy of praise--worthy of better treatment than he gets." + +"I know. He deserves the best, poor fellow. When you go away you +should turn him out to pasture, and forbid any one to use him." + +"It would be a good idea; but--I'm not so certain about going away." + +"Oh I beg your pardon. I fancied your movements were directed by some +unchangeable laws." + +"Like the planets in their orbits? No, there is no absolute need of my +going; the business which would have called me away can be done as +readily by letter. If I heed my inclination it certainly holds me +here." + +"I don't understand that. It's natural enough that I should be fond of +the country; but you--I don't believe you've been away for three +months, have you? and city life certainly has its attractions." + +"It's beastly," he answered decidedly. "I greatly prefer the +country--this country; though I can imagine a condition under which it +would be less agreeable; insupportable, in fact." + +He was looking fixedly at Therese, who let her eyes rest for an +instant in the unaccustomed light of his, while she asked "and the +condition?" + +"If you were to go away. Oh! it would take the soul out of my life." + +It was now her turn to look in all directions save the one in which +his glance invited her. At a slight and imperceptible motion of the +bridle, well understood by Beauregard, the horse sprang forward into a +quick canter, leaving Nelson and his rider to follow as they could. + +Hosmer overtook her when she stopped to let her horse drink at the +side of the hill where the sparkling spring water came trickling from +the moist rocks, and emptied into the long out-scooped trunk of a +cypress, that served as trough. The two horses plunged their heads +deep in the clear water; the proud Beauregard quivering with +satisfaction, as arching his neck and shaking off the clinging +moisture, he waited for his more deliberate companion. + +"Doesn't it give one a sympathetic pleasure," said Therese, "to see +the relish with which they drink?" + +"I never thought of it," replied Hosmer, cynically. His face was +unusually flushed, and diffidence was plainly seizing him again. + +Therese was now completely mistress of herself, and during the +remainder of the ride she talked incessantly, giving him no chance for +more than the briefest answers. + + + + +VI + +Melicent Talks. + + +"David Hosmer, you are the most supremely unsatisfactory man +existing." + +Hosmer had come in from his ride, and seating himself in the large +wicker chair that stood in the center of the room, became at once +absorbed in reflections. Being addressed, he looked up at his sister, +who sat sidewards on the edge of a table slightly removed, swaying a +dainty slippered foot to and fro in evident impatience. + +"What crime have I committed now, Melicent, against your code?" he +asked, not fully aroused from his reverie. + +"You've committed nothing; your sin is one of omission. I absolutely +believe you go through the world with your eyes, to all practical +purposes, closed. Don't you notice anything; any change?" + +"To be sure I do," said Hosmer, relying on a knowledge lent him by +previous similar experiences, and taking in the clinging artistic +drapery that enfolded her tall spare figure, "you've a new gown on. I +didn't think to mention it, but I noticed it all the same." + +This admission of a discernment that he had failed to make evident, +aroused Melicent's uncontrolled mirth. + +"A new gown!" and she laughed heartily. "A threadbare remnant! A thing +that holds by shreds and tatters." + +She went behind her brother's chair, taking his face between her +hands, and turning it upward, kissed him on the forehead. With his +head in such position, he could not fail to observe the brilliant +folds of muslin that were arranged across the ceiling to simulate the +canopy of a tent. Still holding his face, she moved it sidewards, so +that his eyes, knowing now what office was expected of them, followed +the line of decorations about the room. + +"It's immense, Mel; perfectly immense. When did you do it all?" + +"This afternoon, with Gregoire's help," she answered, looking proudly +at her work. "And my poor hands are in such condition! But really, +Dave," she continued, seating herself on the side of his chair, with +an arm about his neck, and he leaning his head back on the improvised +cushion, "I wonder that you ever got on in business, observing things +as little as you do." + +"Oh, that's different." + +"Well, I don't believe you see half that you ought to," adding +naively, "How did you and Mrs. Lafirme happen to come home together +this evening?" + +The bright lamp-light made the flush quite evident that arose to his +face under her near gaze. + +"We met in the woods; she was coming from Morico's." + +"David, do you know that woman is an angel. She's simply the most +perfect creature I ever knew." + +Melicent's emphasis of speech was a thing so recurrent, so singularly +her own, as to startle an unaccustomed hearer. + +"That opinion might carry some weight, Mel, if I hadn't heard it +scores of times from you, and of as many different women." + +"Indeed you have not. Mrs. Lafirme is exceptional. Really, when she +stands at the end of the veranda, giving orders to those darkies, her +face a little flushed, she's positively a queen." + +"As far as queenliness may be compatible with the angelic state," +replied Hosmer, but not ill pleased with Melicent's exaggerated praise +of Therese. + +Neither had heard a noiseless step approaching, and they only became +aware of an added human presence, when Mandy's small voice was heard +to issue from Mandy's small body which stood in the mingled light and +shadow of the door-way. + +"Aunt B'lindy 'low supper on de table gittin' cole." + +"Come here, Mandy," cried Melicent, springing after the child. But +Mandy was flying back through the darkness. She was afraid of +Melicent. + +Laughing heartily, the girl disappeared into her bedroom, to make some +needed additions to her toilet; and Hosmer, waiting for her, returned +to his interrupted reflections. The words which he had spoken during a +moment of emotion to Therese, out in the piny woods, had served a +double purpose with him. They had shown him more plainly than he had +quite been certain of, the depth of his feeling for her; and also had +they settled his determination. He was not versed in the reading of a +woman's nature, and he found himself at a loss to interpret Therese's +actions. He recalled how she had looked away from him when he had +spoken the few tender words that were yet whirling in his memory; how +she had impetuously ridden ahead,--leaving him to follow alone; and +her incessant speech that had forced him into silence. All of which +might or might not be symptoms in his favor. He remembered her kind +solicitude for his comfort and happiness during the past year; but he +as readily recalled that he had not been the only recipient of such +favors. His reflections led to no certainty, except that he loved her +and meant to tell her so. + +Therese's door being closed, and moreover locked, Aunt Belindy, the +stout negress who had superintended the laying of supper, felt free to +give low speech to her wrath as she went back and forth between +dining-room and kitchen. + +"Suppa gittin' dat cole 'tain' gwine be fittin' fu' de dogs te' tech. +Believe half de time w'ite folks ain't got no feelin's, no how. If dey +speck I'se gwine stan' up heah on my two feet all night, dey's foolin' +dey sef. I ain't gwine do it. Git out dat doo' you Mandy! you want me +dash dis heah coffee pot at you--blockin' up de doo's dat away? W'ar +dat good fu' nuttin Betsy? Look yonda, how she done flung dem dere +knife an forks on de table. Jis let Miss T'rese kotch'er. Good God +A'mighty, Miss T'rese mus' done gone asleep. G'long dar an' see." + +There was no one on the plantation who would have felt at liberty to +enter Therese's bedroom without permission, the door being closed; yet +she had taken the needless precaution of bringing lock and bolt to the +double security of her moment of solitude. The first announcement of +supper had found her still in her riding habit, with head thrown back +upon the cushion of her lounging chair, and her mind steeped in a +semi-stupor that it would be injustice to her brighter moments to call +reflection. + +Therese was a warm-hearted woman, and a woman of clear mental vision; +a combination not found so often together as to make it ordinary. +Being a woman of warm heart, she had loved her husband with the +devotion which good husbands deserve; but being a clear-headed woman, +she was not disposed to rebel against the changes which Time brings, +when so disposed, to the human sensibilities. She was not steeped in +that agony of remorse which many might consider becoming in a widow of +five years' standing at the discovery that her heart which had fitted +well the holding of a treasure, was not narrowed to the holding of a +memory,--the treasure being gone. + +Mandy's feeble knock at the door was answered by her mistress in +person who had now banished all traces of her ride and its resultant +cogitations. + +The two women, with Hosmer and Gregoire, sat out on the veranda after +supper as their custom was during these warm summer evenings. There +was no attempt at sustained conversation; they talked by snatches to +and at one another, of the day's small events; Melicent and Gregoire +having by far the most to say. The girl was half reclining in the +hammock which she kept in a slow, unceasing motion by the impetus of +her slender foot; he sitting some distance removed on the steps. +Hosmer was noticeably silent; even Jocint as a theme failing to rouse +him to more than a few words of dismissal. His will and tenacity were +controlling him to one bent. He had made up his mind that he had +something to say to Mrs. Lafirme, and he was impatient at any enforced +delay in the telling. + +Gregoire slept now in the office of the mill, as a measure of +precaution. To-night, Hosmer had received certain late telegrams that +necessitated a return to the mill, and his iron-grey was standing +outside in the lane with Gregoire's horse, awaiting the pleasure of +his rider. When Gregoire quitted the group to go and throw the saddles +across the patient animals, Melicent, who contemplated an additional +hour's chat with Therese, crossed over to the cottage to procure a +light wrap for her sensitive shoulders against the chill night air. +Hosmer, who had started to the assistance of Gregoire, seeing that +Therese had remained alone, standing at the top of the stairs, +approached her. Remaining a few steps below her, and looking up into +her face, he held out his hand to say good-night, which was an unusual +proceeding, for they had not shaken hands since his return to +Place-du-Bois three months before. She gave him her soft hand to hold +and as the warm, moist palm met his, it acted like a charged electric +battery turning its subtle force upon his sensitive nerves. + +"Will you let me talk to you to-morrow?" he asked. + +"Yes, perhaps; if I have time." + +"Oh, you will make the time. I can't let the day go by without telling +you many things that you ought to have known long ago." The battery +was still doing its work. "And I can't let the night go by without +telling you that I love you." + +Gregoire called out that the horses were ready. Melicent was +approaching in her diaphanous envelope, and Hosmer reluctantly let +drop Therese's hand and left her. + +As the men rode away, the two women stood silently following their +diminishing outlines into the darkness and listening to the creaking +of the saddles and the dull regular thud of the horses' feet upon the +soft earth, until the sounds grew inaudible, when they turned to the +inner shelter of the veranda. Melicent once more possessed herself of +the hammock in which she now reclined fully, and Therese sat near +enough beside her to intertwine her fingers between the tense cords. + +"What a great difference in age there must be between you and your +brother," she said, breaking the silence. + +"Yes--though he is younger and I older than you perhaps think. He was +fifteen and the only child when I was born. I am twenty-four, so he of +course is thirty-nine." + +"I certainly thought him older." + +"Just imagine, Mrs. Lafirme, I was only ten when both my parents died. +We had no kindred living in the West, and I positively rebelled +against being separated from David; so you see he's had the care of me +for a good many years." + +"He appears very fond of you." + +"Oh, not only that, but you've no idea how splendidly he's done for me +in every way. Looked after my interest and all that, so that I'm +perfectly independent. Poor Dave," she continued, heaving a profound +sigh, "he's had more than his share of trouble, if ever a man had. I +wonder when his day of compensation will come." + +"Don't you think," ventured Therese, "that we make too much of our +individual trials. We are all so prone to believe our own burden +heavier than our neighbor's." + +"Perhaps--but there can be no question about the weight of David's. +I'm not a bit selfish about him though; poor fellow, I only wish he'd +marry again." + +Melicent's last words stung Therese like an insult. Her native pride +rebelled against the reticence of this man who had shared her +confidence while keeping her in ignorance of so important a feature of +his own life. But her dignity would not permit a show of disturbance; +she only asked:-- + +"How long has his wife been dead?" + +"Oh," cried Melicent, in dismay. "I thought you knew of course; +why--she isn't dead at all--they were divorced two years ago." + +The girl felt intuitively that she had yielded to an indiscretion of +speech. She could not know David's will in the matter, but since he +had all along left Mrs. Lafirme in ignorance of his domestic trials, +she concluded it was not for her to enlighten that lady further. Her +next remark was to call Therese's attention to the unusual number of +glow-worms that were flashing through the darkness, and to ask the +sign of it, adding "every thing seems to be the sign of something down +here." + +"Aunt Belindy might tell you," replied Therese, "I only know that I +feel the signs of being very sleepy after that ride through the woods +to-day. Don't mind if I say good night?" + +"Certainly not. Good night, dear Mrs. Lafirme. Let me stay here till +David comes back; I should die of fright, to go to the cottage alone." + + + + +VII + +Painful Disclosures. + + +Therese possessed an independence of thought exceptional enough when +considered in relation to her life and its surrounding conditions. But +as a woman who lived in close contact with her fellow-beings she was +little given to the consideration of abstract ideas, except in so far +as they touched the individual man. If ever asked to give her opinion +of divorce, she might have replied that the question being one which +did not immediately concern her, its remoteness had removed it from +the range of her inquiry. She felt vaguely that in many cases it might +be a blessing; conceding that it must not infrequently be a necessity, +to be appealed to however only in an extremity beyond which endurance +could scarcely hold. With the prejudices of her Catholic education +coloring her sentiment, she instinctively shrank when the theme +confronted her as one having even a remote reference to her own clean +existence. There was no question with her of dwelling upon the matter; +it was simply a thing to be summarily dismissed and as far as possible +effaced from her remembrance. + +Therese had not reached the age of thirty-five without learning that +life presents many insurmountable obstacles which must be accepted, +whether with the callousness of philosophy, the revolt of weakness or +the dignity of self-respect. The following morning, the only sign +which she gave of her mental disturbance, was an appearance that might +have succeeded a night of unrefreshing sleep. + +Hosmer had decided that his interview with Mrs. Lafirme should not be +left further to the caprice of accident. An hour or more before noon +he rode up from the mill knowing it to be a time when he would likely +find her alone. Not seeing her he proceeded to make inquiry of the +servants; first appealing to Betsy. + +"I don' know whar Miss T'rese," with a rising inflection on the +"whar." "I yain't seed her sence mornin', time she sont Unc' Hi'um +yonda to old Morico wid de light bread an' truck," replied the verbose +Betsy. "Aunt B'lindy, you know whar Miss T'rese?" + +"How you want me know? standin' up everlastin' in de kitchen a bakin' +light-bread fu' lazy trash det betta be in de fiel' wurkin' a crap +like people, stid o' 'pendin' on yeda folks." + +Mandy, who had been a silent listener, divining that she had perhaps +better make known certain information that was exclusively her own +piped out:-- + +"Miss T'rese shet up in de parla; 'low she want we all lef 'er +'lone." + +Having as it were forced an entrance into the stronghold where Therese +had supposed herself secure from intrusion, Hosmer at once seated +himself beside her. + +This was a room kept for the most part closed during the summer days +when the family lived chiefly on the verandas or in the wide open hall +There lingered about it the foreign scent of cool clean matting, +mingled with a faint odor of rose which came from a curious Japanese +jar that stood on the ample hearth. Through the green half-closed +shutters the air came in gentle ripples, sweeping the filmy curtains +back and forth in irregular undulations. A few tasteful pictures hung +upon the walls, alternating with family portraits, for the most part +stiff and unhandsome, except in the case of such as were of so remote +date that age gave them a claim upon the interest and admiration of a +far removed generation. + +It was not entirely clear to the darkies whether this room were not a +sort of holy sanctuary, where one should scarce be permitted to +breathe, except under compulsion of a driving necessity. + +"Mrs. Lafirme," began Hosmer, "Melicent tells me that she made you +acquainted last night with the matter which I wished to talk to you +about to-day." + +"Yes," Therese replied, closing the book which she had made a pretense +of reading, and laying it down upon the window-sill near which she +sat; adding very simply, "Why did you not tell me long ago, Mr. +Hosmer?" + +"God knows," he replied; the sharp conviction breaking upon him, that +this disclosure had some how changed the aspect of life for him. +"Natural reluctance to speak of a thing so painful--native +reticence--I don't know what. I hope you forgive me; that you will let +it make no difference in whatever regard you may have for me." + +"I had better tell you at once that there must be no repetition of--of +what you told me last night." + +Hosmer had feared it. He made no protest in words; his revolt was +inward and showed itself only in an added pallor and increased +rigidity of face lines. He arose and went to a near window, peering +for a while aimlessly out between the partly open slats. + +"I hadn't thought of your being a Catholic," he said, finally turning +towards her with folded arms. + +"Because you have never seen any outward signs of it. But I can't +leave you under a false impression: religion doesn't influence my +reason in this." + +"Do you think then that a man who has had such misfortune, should be +debarred the happiness which a second marriage could give him?" + +"No, nor a woman either, if it suit her moral principle, which I hold +to be something peculiarly one's own." + +"That seems to me to be a prejudice," he replied. "Prejudices may be +set aside by an effort of the will," catching at a glimmer of hope. + +"There are some prejudices which a woman can't afford to part with, +Mr. Hosmer," she said a little haughtily, "even at the price of +happiness. Please say no more about it, think no more of it." + +He seated himself again, facing her; and looking at him all her +sympathetic nature was moved at sight of his evident trouble. + +"Tell me about it. I would like to know every thing in your life," she +said, feelingly. + +"It's very good of you," he said, holding a hand for a moment over his +closed eyes. Then looking up abruptly, "It was a painful enough +experience, but I never dreamed that it could have had this last blow +in reserve for me." + +"When did you marry?" she asked, wishing to start him with the story +which she fancied he would feel better for the telling. + +"Ten years ago. I am a poor hand to analyze character: my own or +another's. My reasons for doing certain things have never been quite +clear to me; or I have never schooled myself to inquiry into my own +motives for action. I have been always thoroughly the business man. I +don't make a boast of it, but I have no reason to be ashamed of the +admission. Socially, I have mingled little with my fellow-beings, +especially with women, whose society has had little attraction for me; +perhaps, because I have never been thrown much into it, and I was +nearly thirty when I first met my wife." + +"Was it in St. Louis?" Therese asked. + +"Yes. I had been inveigled into going on a river excursion," he said, +plunging into the story, "Heaven knows how. Perhaps I was feeling +unwell--I really can't remember. But at all events I met a friend who +introduced me early in the day to a young girl--Fanny Larimore. She +was a pretty little thing, not more than twenty, all pink and white +and merry blue eyes and stylish clothes. Whatever it was, there was +something about her that kept me at her side all day. Every word and +movement of hers had an exaggerated importance for me. I fancied such +things had never been said or done quite in the same way before." + +"You were in love," sighed Therese. Why the sigh she could not have +told. + +"I presume so. Well, after that, I found myself thinking of her at the +most inopportune moments. I went to see her again and again--my first +impression deepened, and in two weeks I had asked her to marry me. I +can safely say, we knew nothing of each other's character. After +marriage, matters went well enough for a while." Hosmer here arose, +and walked the length of the room. + +"Mrs. Lafirme," he said, "can't you understand that it must be a +painful thing for a man to disparage one woman to another: the woman +who has been his wife to the woman he loves? Spare me the rest." + +"Please have no reservations with me; I shall not misjudge you in any +case," an inexplicable something was moving her to know what remained +to be told. + +"It wasn't long before she attempted to draw me into what she called +society," Hosmer continued. "I am little versed in defining shades of +distinction between classes, but I had seen from the beginning that +Fanny's associates were not of the best social rank by any means. I +had vaguely expected her to turn from them, I suppose, when she +married. Naturally, I resisted anything so distasteful as being +dragged through rounds of amusement that had no sort of attraction +whatever for me. Besides, my business connections were extending, and +they claimed the greater part of my time and thoughts. + +"A year after our marriage our boy was born." Here Hosmer ceased +speaking for a while, seemingly under pressure of a crowding of +painful memories. + +"The child whose picture you have at the office?" asked Therese. + +"Yes," and he resumed with plain effort: "It seemed for a while that +the baby would give its mother what distraction she sought so +persistently away from home; but its influence did not last and she +soon grew as restless as before. Finally there was nothing that united +us except the child. I can't really say that we were united through +him, but our love for the boy was the one feeling that we had in +common. When he was three years old, he died. Melicent had come to +live with us after leaving school. She was a high-spirited girl full +of conceits as she is now, and in her exaggerated way became filled +with horror of what she called the mesalliance I had made. After a +month she went away to live with friends. I didn't oppose her. I saw +little of my wife, being often away from home; but as feebly observant +as I was, I had now and again marked a peculiarity of manner about her +that vaguely troubled me. She seemed to avoid me and we grew more and +more divided. + +"One day I returned home rather early. Melicent was with me. We found +Fanny in the dining-room lying on the sofa. As we entered, she looked +at us wildly and in striving to get up grasped aimlessly at the back +of a chair. I felt on a sudden as if there were some awful calamity +threatening my existence. I suppose, I looked helplessly at Melicent, +managing to ask her what was the matter with my wife. Melicent's black +eyes were flashing indignation. 'Can't you see she's been drinking. +God help you,' she said. Mrs. Lafirme, you know now the reason which +drove me away from home and kept me away. I never permitted my wife to +want for the comforts of life during my absence; but she sued for +divorce some years ago and it was granted, with alimony which I +doubled. You know the miserable story now. Pardon me for dragging it +to such a length. I don't see why I should have told it after all." + +Therese had remained perfectly silent; rigid at times, listening to +Hosmer often with closed eyes. + +He waited for her to speak, but she said nothing for a while till +finally: "Your--your wife is still quite young--do her parents live +with her?" + +"Oh no, she has none. I suppose she lives alone." + +"And those habits; you don't know if she continues them?" + +"I dare say she does. I know nothing of her, except that she receipts +for the amount paid her each month." + +The look of painful thought deepened on Therese's face but her +questions having been answered, she again became silent. + +Hosmer's eyes were imploring her for a look, but she would not answer +them. + +"Haven't you a word to say to me?" he entreated. + +"No, I have nothing to say, except what would give you pain." + +"I can bear anything from you," he replied, at a loss to guess her +meaning. + +"The kindest thing I can say, Mr. Hosmer, is, that I hope you have +acted blindly. I hate to believe that the man I care for, would +deliberately act the part of a cruel egotist." + +"I don't understand you." + +"I have learned one thing through your story, which appears very plain +to me," she replied. "You married a woman of weak character. You +furnished her with every means to increase that weakness, and shut her +out absolutely from your life and yourself from hers. You left her +then as practically without moral support as you have certainly done +now, in deserting her. It was the act of a coward." Therese spoke the +last words with intensity. + +"Do you think that a man owes nothing to himself?" Hosmer asked, in +resistance to her accusation. + +"Yes. A man owes to his manhood, to face the consequences of his own +actions." + +Hosmer had remained seated. He did not even with glance follow Therese +who had arisen and was moving restlessly about the room. He had so +long seen himself as a martyr; his mind had become so habituated to +the picture, that he could not of a sudden look at a different one, +believing that it could be the true one. Nor was he eager to accept a +view of the situation that would place him in his own eyes in a +contemptible light. He tried to think that Therese must be wrong; but +even admitting a doubt of her being right, her words carried an +element of truth that he was not able to shut out from his conscience. +He felt her to be a woman with moral perceptions keener than his own +and his love, which in the past twenty-four hours had grown to +overwhelm him, moved him now to a blind submission. + +"What would you have me do, Mrs. Lafirme?" + +"I would have you do what is right," she said eagerly, approaching +him. + +"O, don't present me any questions of right and wrong; can't you see +that I'm blind?" he said, self accusingly. "What ever I do, must be +because you want it; because I love you." + +She was standing beside him and he took her hand. + +"To do a thing out of love for you, would be the only comfort and +strength left me." + +"Don't say that," she entreated. "Love isn't everything in life; there +is something higher." + +"God in heaven, there shouldn't be!" he exclaimed, passionately +pressing her hand to his forehead, his cheek, his lips. + +"Oh, don't make it harder for me," Therese said softly, attempting to +withdraw her hand. + +It was her first sign of weakness, and he seized on it for his +advantage. He arose quickly--unhesitatingly--and took her in his arms. + +For a moment that was very brief, there was danger that the task of +renunciation would not only be made harder, but impossible, for both; +for it was in utter blindness to everything but love for each other, +that their lips met. + +The great plantation bell was clanging out the hour of noon; the hour +for sweet and restful enjoyment; but to Hosmer, the sound was like the +voice of a derisive demon, mocking his anguish of spirit, as he +mounted his horse, and rode back to the mill. + + + + +VIII + +Treats of Melicent. + + +Melicent knew that there were exchanges of confidence going on between +her brother and Mrs. Lafirme, from which she was excluded. She had +noted certain lengthy conferences held in remote corners of the +verandas. The two had deliberately withdrawn one moonlight evening to +pace to and fro the length of gravel walk that stretched from door +front to lane; and Melicent had fancied that they rather lingered when +under the deep shadow of the two great live-oaks that overarched the +gate. But that of course was fancy; a young girl's weakness to think +the world must go as she would want it to. + +She was quite sure of having heard Mrs. Lafirme say "I will help you." +Could it be that David had fallen into financial straights and wanted +assistance from Therese? No, that was improbable and furthermore, +distasteful, so Melicent would not burden herself with the suspicion. +It was far more agreeable to believe that affairs were shaping +themselves according to her wishes regarding her brother and her +friend. Yet her mystification was in no wise made clearer, when David +left them to go to St. Louis. + +Melicent was not ready or willing to leave with him. She had not had +her "visit out" as she informed him, when he proposed it to her. To +remain in the cottage during his absence was out of the question, so +she removed herself and all her pretty belongings over to the house, +taking possession of one of the many spare rooms. The act of removal +furnished her much entertainment of a mild sort, into which, however, +she successfully infused something of her own intensity by making the +occasion one to bring a large detachment of the plantation force into +her capricious service. + +Melicent was going out, and she stood before her mirror to make sure +that she looked properly. She was black from head to foot. From the +great ostrich plume that nodded over her wide-brimmed hat, to the +pointed toe of the patent leather boot that peeped from under her +gown--a filmy gauzy thing setting loosely to her slender shapely +figure. She laughed at the somberness of her reflection, which she at +once set about relieving with a great bunch of geraniums--big and +scarlet and long-stemmed, that she thrust slantwise through her belt. + +Melicent, always charming, was very pretty when she laughed. She +thought so herself and laughed a second time into the depths of her +dark handsome eyes. One corner of the large mouth turned saucily +upward, and the lips holding their own crimson and all that the cheeks +were lacking, parted only a little over the gleaming whiteness of her +teeth. As she looked at herself critically, she thought that a few +more pounds of flesh would have well become her. It had been only the +other day that her slimness was altogether to her liking; but at +present she was in love with plumpness as typified in Mrs. Lafirme. +However, on the whole, she was not ill pleased with her appearance, +and gathering up her gloves and parasol, she quitted the room. + +It was "broad day," one of the requirements which Gregoire had named +as essential for taking Melicent to visit old McFarlane's grave. But +the sun was not "shining mighty bright," the second condition, and +whose absence they were willing enough to overlook, seeing that the +month was September. + +They had climbed quite to the top of the hill, and stood on the very +brink of the deep toilsome railroad cut all fringed with matted grass +and young pines, that had but lately sprung there. Up and down the +track, as far as they could see on either side the steel rails +glittered on into gradual dimness. There were patches of the field +before them, white with bursting cotton which scores of negroes, men, +women and children were dexterously picking and thrusting into great +bags that hung from their shoulders and dragged beside them on the +ground; no machine having yet been found to surpass the sufficiency of +five human fingers for wrenching the cotton from its tenacious hold. +Elsewhere, there were squads "pulling fodder" from the dry corn +stalks; hot and distasteful work enough. In the nearest field, where +the cotton was young and green, with no show of ripening, the overseer +rode slowly between the rows, sprinkling plentifully the dry powder of +paris green from two muslin bags attached to the ends of a short pole +that lay before him across the saddle. + +Gregoire's presence would be needed later in the day, when the cotton +was hauled to gin to be weighed; when the mules were brought to +stable, to see them properly fed and cared for, and the gearing all +put in place. In the meanwhile he was deliciously idle with Melicent. + +They retreated into the woods, soon losing sight of everything but the +trees that surrounded them and the underbrush, that was scant and +scattered over the turf which the height of the trees permitted to +grow green and luxuriant. + +There, on the far slope of the hill they found McFarlane's grave, +which they knew to be such only by the battered and weather-worn cross +of wood, that lurched disreputably to one side--there being no hand in +all the world that cared enough to make it straight--and from which +all lettering had long since been washed away. This cross was all that +marked the abiding place of that mist-like form, so often seen at dark +to stalk down the hill with threatening stride, or of moonlight nights +to cross the lake in a pirogue, whose substance though visible was +nought; with sound of dipping oars that made no ripple on the lake's +smooth surface. On stormy nights, some more gifted with spiritual +insight than their neighbors, and with hearing better sharpened to +delicate intonations of the supernatural, had not only seen the mist +figure mounted and flying across the hills, but had heard the panting +of the blood-hounds, as the invisible pack swept by in hot pursuit of +the slave so long ago at rest. + +But it was "broad day," and here was nothing sinister to cause +Melicent the least little thrill of awe. No owl, no bat, no ill-omened +creature hovering near; only a mocking bird high up in the branches of +a tall pine tree, gushing forth his shrill staccatoes as blithely as +though he sang paeans to a translated soul in paradise. + +"Poor old McFarlane," said Melicent, "I'll pay a little tribute to his +memory; I dare say his spirit has listened to nothing but abuse of +himself there in the other world, since it left his body here on the +hill;" and she took one of the long-stemmed blood-red flowers and laid +it beside the toppling cross. + +"I reckon he's in a place w'ere flowers don't git much waterin', if +they got any there." + +"Shame to talk so cruelly; I don't believe in such places." + +"You don't believe in hell?" he asked in blank surprise. + +"Certainly not. I'm a Unitarian." + +"Well, that's new to me," was his only comment. + +"Do you believe in spirits, Gregoire? I don't--in day time." + +"Neva mine 'bout spirits," he answered, taking her arm and leading her +off, "let's git away f'om yere." + +They soon found a smooth and gentle slope where Melicent sat herself +comfortably down, her back against the broad support of a tree trunk, +and Gregoire lay prone upon the ground with--his head in Melicent's +lap. + +When Melicent first met Gregoire, his peculiarities of speech, so +unfamiliar to her, seemed to remove him at once from the possibility +of her consideration. She was not then awake to certain fine +psychological differences distinguishing man from man; precluding the +possibility of naming and classifying him in the moral as one might in +the animal kingdom. But short-comings of language, which finally +seemed not to detract from a definite inheritance of good breeding, +touched his personality as a physical deformation might, adding to it +certainly no charm, yet from its pathological aspect not without a +species of fascination, for a certain order of misregulated mind. + +She bore with him, and then she liked him. Finally, whilst indulging +in a little introspection; making a diagnosis of various symptoms, +indicative by no means of a deep-seated malady, she decided that she +was in love with Gregoire. But the admission embraced the +understanding with herself, that nothing could come of it. She +accepted it as a phase of that relentless fate which in pessimistic +moments she was inclined to believe pursued her. + +It could not be thought of, that she should marry a man whose +eccentricity of speech would certainly not adapt itself to the +requirements of polite society. + +He had kissed her one day. Whatever there was about the kiss--possibly +an over exuberance--it was not to her liking, and she forbade that he +ever repeat it, under pain of losing her affection. Indeed, on the few +occasions when Melicent had been engaged, kissing had been excluded as +superfluous to the relationship, except in the case of the young +lieutenant out at Fort Leavenworth who read Tennyson to her, as an +angel might be supposed to read, and who in moments of rapturous +self-forgetfulness, was permitted to kiss her under the ear: a +proceeding not positively distasteful to Melicent, except in so much +as it tickled her. + +Gregoire's hair was soft, not so dark as her own, and possessed an +inclination to curl about her slender fingers. + +"Gregoire," she said, "you told me once that the Santien boys were a +hard lot; what did you mean by that?" + +"Oh no," he answered, laughing good-humoredly up into her eyes, "you +did'n year me right. W'at I said was that we had a hard name in the +country. I don' see w'y eitha, excep' we all'ays done putty much like +we wanted. But my! a man can live like a saint yere at Place-du-Bois, +they ain't no temptations o' no kine." + +"There's little merit in your right doing, if you have no temptations +to withstand," delivering the time worn aphorism with the air and tone +of a pretty sage, giving utterance to an inspired truth. + +Melicent felt that she did not fully know Gregoire; that he had always +been more or less under restraint with her, and she was troubled by +something other than curiosity to get at the truth concerning him. One +day when she was arranging a vase of flowers at a table on the back +porch, Aunt Belindy, who was scouring knives at the same table, had +followed Gregoire with her glance, when he walked away after +exchanging a few words with Melicent. + +"God! but dats a diffunt man sence you come heah." + +"Different?" questioned the girl eagerly, and casting a quick sideward +look at Aunt Belindy. + +"Lord yas honey, 'f you warn't heah dat same Mista Gregor 'd be in +Centaville ev'y Sunday, a raisin' Cain. Humph--I knows 'im." + +Melicent would not permit herself to ask more, but picked up her vase +of flowers and walked with it into the house; her comprehension of +Gregoire in no wise advanced by the newly acquired knowledge that he +was liable to "raise Cain" during her absence--a proceeding which she +could not too hastily condemn, considering her imperfect apprehension +of what it might imply. + +Meanwhile she would not allow her doubts to interfere with the +kindness which she lavished on him, seeing that he loved her to +desperation. Was he not at this very moment looking up into her eyes, +and talking of his misery and her cruelty? turning his face downward +in her lap--as she knew to cry--for had she not already seen him lie +on the ground in an agony of tears, when she had told him he should +never kiss her again? + +And so they lingered in the woods, these two curious lovers, till the +shadows grew so deep about old McFarlane's grave that they passed it +by with hurried step and averted glance. + + + + +IX + +Face to Face. + + +After a day of close and intense September heat, it had rained during +the night. And now the morning had followed chill and crisp, yet with +possibilities of a genial sunshine breaking through the mist that had +risen at dawn from the great sluggish river and spread itself through +the mazes of the city. + +The change was one to send invigorating thrills through the blood, and +to quicken the step; to make one like the push and jostle of the +multitude that thronged the streets; to make one in love with +intoxicating life, and impatient with the grudging dispensation that +had given to mankind no wings wherewith to fly. + +But with no reacting warmth in his heart, the change had only made +Hosmer shiver and draw his coat closer about his chest, as he pushed +his way through the hurrying crowd. + +The St. Louis Exposition was in progress with all its many allurements +that had been heralded for months through the journals of the State. + +Hence, the unusual press of people on the streets this bright +September morning. Home people, whose air of ownership to the +surroundings classified them at once, moving unobservantly about their +affairs. Women and children from the near and rich country towns, in +for the Exposition and their fall shopping; wearing gowns of ultra +fashionable tendencies; leaving in their toilets nothing to +expediency; taking no chances of so much as a ribbon or a loop set in +disaccordance with the book. + +There were whole families from across the bridge, hurrying towards the +Exposition. Fathers and mothers, babies and grandmothers, with baskets +of lunch and bundles of provisional necessities, in for the day. + +Nothing would escape their observation nor elude their criticism, from +the creations in color lining the walls of the art gallery, to the +most intricate mechanism of inventive genius in the basement. All +would pass inspection, with drawing of comparison between the present, +the past year and the "year before," likely in a nasal drawl with the +R's brought sharply out, leaving no doubt as to their utterance. + +The newly married couple walking serenely through the crowd, young, +smiling, up-country, hand-in-hand; well pleased with themselves, with +their new attire and newer jewelry, would likely have answered +Hosmer's "beg pardon" with amiability if he had knocked them down. But +he had only thrust them rather violently to one side in his eagerness +to board the cable car that was dashing by, with no seeming +willingness to stay its mad flight. He still possessed the agility in +his unpracticed limbs to swing himself on the grip, where he took a +front seat, well buttoned up as to top-coat, and glad of the bodily +rest that his half hour's ride would bring him. + +The locality in which he descended presented some noticeable changes +since he had last been there. Formerly, it had been rather a quiet +street, with a leisurely horse car depositing its passengers two +blocks away to the north from it; awaking somewhat of afternoons when +hordes of children held possession. But now the cable had come to +disturb its long repose, adding in the office, nothing to its +attractiveness. + +There was the drug store still at the corner, with the same +proprietor, tilted back in his chair as of old, and as of old reading +his newspaper with only the change which a newly acquired pair of +spectacles gave to his appearance. The "drug store boy" had unfolded +into manhood, plainly indicated by the mustache that in adding +adornment and dignity to his person, had lifted him above the menial +office of window washing. A task relegated to a mustacheless urchin +with a leaning towards the surreptitious abstraction of caramels and +chewing gum in the intervals of such manual engagements as did not +require the co-operation of a strategic mind. + +Where formerly had been the vacant lot "across the street," the Sunday +afternoon elysium of the youthful base ball fiend from Biddle Street, +now stood a row of brand new pressed-brick "flats." Marvelous must +have been the architectural ingenuity which had contrived to unite so +many dwellings into so small a space. Before each spread a length of +closely clipped grass plot, and every miniature front door wore its +fantastic window furnishing; each set of decorations having seemingly +fired the next with efforts of surpassing elaboration. + +The house at which Hosmer rang--a plain two-storied red brick, +standing close to the street--was very old-fashioned in face of its +modern opposite neighbors, and the recently metamorphosed dwelling +next door, that with added porches and appendages to tax man's faculty +of conjecture, was no longer recognizable for what it had been. Even +the bell which he pulled was old-fashioned and its tingle might be +heard throughout the house long after the servant had opened the door, +if she were only reasonably alert to the summons. Its reverberations +were but dying away when Hosmer asked if Mrs. Larimore were in. Mrs. +Larimore was in; an admission which seemed to hold in reserve a +defiant "And what if she is, sir." + +Hosmer was relieved to find the little parlor into which he was +ushered, with its adjoining dining-room, much changed. The carpets +which he and Fanny had gone out together to buy during the early days +of their housekeeping, were replaced by rugs that lay upon the bare, +well polished floors. The wall paper was different; so were the +hangings. The furniture had been newly re-covered. Only the small +household gods were as of old: things--trifles--that had never much +occupied or impressed him, and that now, amid their altered +surroundings stirred no sentiment in him of either pleased or sad +remembrance. + +It had not been his wish to take his wife unawares, and he had +previously written her of his intended coming, yet without giving her +a clue for the reason of it. + +There was an element of the bull-dog in Hosmer. Having made up his +mind, he indulged in no regrets, in no nursing of if's and and's, but +stood like a brave soldier to his post, not a post of danger, +true--but one well supplied with discomfiting possibilities. + +And what had Homeyer said of it? He had railed of course as usual, at +the submission of a human destiny to the exacting and ignorant rule of +what he termed moral conventionalities. He had startled and angered +Hosmer with his denunciation of Therese's sophistical guidance. +Rather--he proposed--let Hosmer and Therese marry, and if Fanny were +to be redeemed--though he pooh-poohed the notion as untenable with +certain views of what he called the rights to existence: the existence +of wrongs--sorrows--diseases--death--let them all go to make up the +conglomerate whole--and let the individual man hold on to his +personality. But if she must be redeemed--granting this point to their +littleness, let the redemption come by different ways than those of +sacrifice: let it be an outcome from the capability of their united +happiness. + +Hosmer did not listen to his friend Homeyer. Love was his god now, and +Therese was Love's prophet. + +So he was sitting in this little parlor waiting for Fanny to come. + +She came after an interval that had been given over to the indulgence +of a little feminine nervousness. Through the open doors Hosmer could +hear her coming down the back stairs; could hear that she halted +mid-way. Then she passed through the dining-room, and he arose and +went to meet her, holding out his hand, which she was not at once +ready to accept, being flustered and unprepared for his manner in +whichever way it might direct itself. + +They sat opposite each other and remained for a while silent; he with +astonishment at sight of the "merry blue eyes" faded and sunken into +deep, dark round sockets; at the net-work of little lines all traced +about the mouth and eyes, and spreading over the once rounded cheeks +that were now hollow and evidently pale or sallow, beneath a layer of +rouge that had been laid on with an unsparing hand. Yet was she still +pretty, or pleasing, especially to a strong nature that would find an +appeal in the pathetic weakness of her face. There was no guessing at +what her figure might be, it was disguised under a very fashionable +dress, and a worsted shawl covered her shoulders, which occasionally +quivered as with an inward chill. She spoke first, twisting the end of +this shawl. + +"What did you come for, David? why did you come now?" with peevish +resistance to the disturbance of his coming. + +"I know I have come without warrant," he said, answering her +implication. "I have been led to see--no matter how--that I made +mistakes in the past, and what I want to do now is to right them, if +you will let me." + +This was very unexpected to her, and it startled her, but neither with +pleasure nor pain; only with an uneasiness which showed itself in her +face. + +"Have you been ill?" he asked suddenly as the details of change in her +appearance commenced to unfold themselves to him. + +"Oh no, not since last winter, when I had pneumonia so bad. They +thought I was going to die. Dr. Franklin said I would 'a died if Belle +Worthington hadn't 'a took such good care of me. But I don't see what +you mean coming now. It'll be the same thing over again: I don't see +what's the use, David." + +"We won't talk about the use, Fanny. I want to take care of you for +the rest of your life--or mine--as I promised to do ten years ago; and +I want you to let me do it." + +"It would be the same thing over again," she reiterated, helplessly. + +"It will not be the same," he answered positively. "I will not be the +same, and that will make all the difference needful." + +"I don't see what you want to do it for, David. Why we'd haf to get +married over again and all that, wouldn't we?" + +"Certainly," he answered with a faint smile. "I'm living in the South +now, in Louisiana, managing a sawmill down there." + +"Oh, I don't like the South. I went down to Memphis, let's see, it was +last spring, with Belle and Lou Dawson, after I'd been sick; and I +don't see how a person can live down there." + +"You would like the place where I'm living. It's a fine large +plantation, and the lady who owns it would be the best of friends to +you. She knew why I was coming, and told me to say she would help to +make your life a happy one if she could." + +"It's her told you to come," she replied in quick resentment. "I don't +see what business it is of hers." + +Fanny Larimore's strength of determination was not one to hold against +Hosmer's will set to a purpose, during the hour or more that they +talked, he proposing, she finally acquiescing. And when he left her, +it was with a gathering peace in her heart to feel that his nearness +was something that would belong to her again; but differently as he +assured her. And she believed him, knowing that he would stand to his +promise. + +Her life was sometimes very blank in the intervals of street +perambulations and matinees and reading of morbid literature. That +elation which she had felt over her marriage with Hosmer ten years +before, had soon died away, together with her weak love for him, when +she began to dread him and defy him. But now that he said he was ready +to take care of her and be good to her, she felt great comfort in her +knowledge of his honesty. + + + + +X + +Fanny's Friends. + + +It was on the day following Hosmer's visit, that Mrs. Lorenzo +Worthington, familiarly known to her friends as Belle Worthington, was +occupied in constructing a careful and extremely elaborate street +toilet before her dressing bureau which stood near the front window of +one of the "flats" opposite Mrs. Larimore's. The Nottingham curtain +screened her effectually from the view of passers-by without hindering +her frequent observance of what transpired in the street. + +The lower portion of this lady's figure was draped, or better, +seemingly supported, by an abundance of stiffly starched white +petticoats that rustled audibly at her slightest movement. Her neck +was bare, as were the well shaped arms that for the past five minutes +had been poised in mid-air, in the arrangement of a front of +exquisitely soft blonde curls, which she had taken from her "top +drawer" and was adjusting, with the aid of a multitude of tiny +invisible hair-pins, to her own very smoothly brushed hair. Yellow +hair it was, with a suspicious darkness about the roots, and a +streakiness about the back, that to an observant eye would have more +than hinted that art had assisted nature in coloring Mrs. +Worthington's locks. + +Dressed, and evidently waiting with forced patience for the +termination of these overhead maneuvers of her friend, sat Lou,--Mrs. +Jack Dawson,--a woman whom most people called handsome. If she were +handsome, no one could have told why, for her beauty was a thing which +could not be defined. She was tall and thin, with hair, eyes, and +complexion of a brownish neutral tint, and bore in face and figure, a +stamp of defiance which probably accounted for a certain eccentricity +in eschewing hair dyes and cosmetics. Her face was full of little +irregularities; a hardly perceptible cast in one eye; the nose drawn a +bit to one side, and the mouth twitched decidedly to the other when +she talked or laughed. It was this misproportion which gave a piquancy +to her expression and which in charming people, no doubt made them +believe her handsome. + +Mrs. Worthington's coiffure being completed, she regaled herself with +a deliberate and comprehensive glance into the street, and the outcome +of her observation was the sudden exclamation. + +"Well I'll be switched! come here quick Lou. If there ain't Fanny +Larimore getting on the car with Dave Hosmer!" + +Mrs. Dawson approached the window, but without haste; and in no wise +sharing her friend's excitement, gave utterance to her calm opinion. + +"They've made it up, I'll bet you what you want." + +Surprise seemed for the moment to have deprived Mrs. Worthington of +further ability to proceed with her toilet, for she had fallen into a +chair as limply as her starched condition would permit, her face full +of speculation. + +"See here, Belle Worthington, if we've got to be at the 'Lympic at two +o'clock, you'd better be getting a move on yourself." + +"Yes, I know; but I declare, you might knock me down with a feather." + +A highly overwrought figure of speech on the part of Mrs. Worthington, +seeing that the feather which would have prostrated her must have met +a resistance of some one hundred and seventy-five pounds of solid +avoirdupois. + +"After all she said about him, too!" seeking to draw her friend into +some participation in her own dumbfoundedness. + +"Well, you ought to know Fanny Larimore's a fool, don't you?" + +"Well, but I just can't get over it; that's all there is about it." +And Mrs. Worthington went about completing the adornment of her person +in a state of voiceless stupefaction. + +In full garb, she presented the figure of a splendid woman; trim and +tight in a black silk gown of expensive quality, heavy with jets which +hung and shone, and jangled from every available point of her person. +Not a thread of her yellow hair was misplaced. She shone with +cleanliness, and her broad expressionless face and meaningless blue +eyes were set to a good-humored readiness for laughter, which would be +wholesome if not musical. She exhaled a fragrance of patchouly or +jockey-club, or something odorous and "strong" that clung to every +article of her apparel, even to the yellow kid gloves which she would +now be forced to put on during her ride in the car. Mrs. Dawson, +attired with equal richness and style, showed more of individuality in +her toilet. + +As they quitted the house she observed to her friend: + +"I wish you'd let up on that smell; it's enough to sicken a body." + +"I know you don't like it, Lou," was Mrs. Worthington's apologetic and +half disconcerted reply, "and I was careful as could be. Give you my +word, I didn't think you could notice it." + +"Notice it? Gee!" responded Mrs. Dawson. + +These were two ladies of elegant leisure, the conditions of whose +lives, and the amiability of whose husbands, had enabled them to +develop into finished and professional time-killers. + +Their intimacy with each other, as also their close acquaintance with +Fanny Larimore, dated from a couple of years after that lady's +marriage, when they had met as occupants of the same big up-town +boarding house. The intercourse had never since been permitted to die +out. Once, when the two former ladies were on a visit to Mrs. +Larimore, seeing the flats in course of construction, they were at +once assailed with the desire to abandon their hitherto nomadic life, +and settle to the responsibilities of housekeeping; a scheme which +they carried into effect as soon as the houses became habitable. + +There was a Mr. Lorenzo Worthington; a gentleman employed for many +years past in the custom house. Whether he had been overlooked, which +his small unobtrusive, narrow-chested person made possible--or whether +his many-sided usefulness had rendered him in a manner indispensable +to his employers, does not appear; but he had remained at his post +during the various changes of administration that had gone by since +his first appointment. + +During intervals of his work--intervals often occurring of afternoon +hours, when he had been given night work--he was fond of sitting at +the sunny kitchen window, with his long thin nose, and shortsighted +eyes plunged between the pages of one of his precious books: a small +hoard of which he had collected at some cost and more self-denial. + +One of the grievances of his life was the necessity under which he +found himself of protecting his treasure from the Philistine abuse and +contempt of his wife. When they moved into the flat, Mrs. Worthington, +during her husband's absence, had ranged them all, systematically +enough, on the top shelf of the kitchen closet to "get them out of the +way." But at this he had protested, and taken a positive stand, to +which his wife had so far yielded as to permit that they be placed on +the top shelf of the bedroom closet; averring that to have them laying +around was a thing that she would not do, for they spoilt the looks of +any room. + +He had not foreseen the possibility of their usefulness being a +temptation to his wife in so handy a receptacle. + +Seeking once a volume of Ruskin's Miscellanies, he discovered that it +had been employed to support the dismantled leg of a dressing bureau. +On another occasion, a volume of Schopenhauer, which he had been at +much difficulty and expense to procure, Emerson's Essays, and two +other volumes much prized, he found had served that lady as weights to +hold down a piece of dry goods which she had sponged and spread to dry +on an available section of roof top. + +He was glad enough to transport them all back to the safer refuge of +the kitchen closet, and pay the hired girl a secret stipend to guard +them. + +Mr. Worthington regarded women as being of peculiar and unsuitable +conformation to the various conditions of life amid which they are +placed; with strong moral proclivities, for the most part subservient +to a weak and inadequate mentality. + +It was not his office to remodel them; his role was simply to endure +with patience the vagaries of an order of human beings, who after all, +offered an interesting study to a man of speculative habit, apart from +their usefulness as propagators of the species. + +As regards this last qualification, Mrs. Worthington had done less +than her fair share, having but one child, a daughter of twelve, whose +training and education had been assumed by an aunt of her father's, a +nun of some standing in the Sacred Heart Convent. + +Quite a different type of man was Jack Dawson, Lou's husband. Short, +round, young, blonde, good looking and bald--as what St. Louis man +past thirty is not? he rejoiced in the agreeable calling of a +traveling salesman. + +On the occasions when he was at home; once in two weeks--sometimes +seldomer--never oftener--the small flat was turned inside out and +upside down. He filled it with noise and merriment. If a theater party +were not on hand, it was a spin out to Forest park behind a fast team, +closing with a wine supper at a road-side restaurant. Or a card party +would be hastily gathered to which such neighbors as were congenial +were bid in hot haste; deficiencies being supplied from his large +circle of acquaintances who happened not to be on the road, and who at +the eleventh hour were rung up by telephone. On such occasions Jack's +voice would be heard loud in anecdote, introduced in some such wise as +"When I was in Houston, Texas, the other day," or "Tell you what it +is, sir, those fellers over in Albuquerque are up to a thing or two." + +One of his standing witticisms was to inquire in a stage whisper of +Belle or Lou--whether the little gal over the way had taken the pledge +yet. + +This gentleman and his wife were on the most amiable of terms +together, barring the small grievance that he sometimes lost money at +poker. But as losing was exceptional with him, and as he did not make +it a matter of conscience to keep her at all times posted as to the +fluctuations of his luck, this grievance had small occasion to show +itself. + +What he thought of his wife, might best be told in his own language: +that Lou was up to the mark and game every time; feminine +characteristics which he apparently held in high esteem. + +The two ladies in question had almost reached the terminus of their +ride, when Mrs. Worthington remarked incidentally to her friend, "It +was nothing in the God's world but pure sass brought those two fellers +to see you last night, Lou." + +Mrs. Dawson bit her lip and the cast in her eye became more +accentuated, as it was apt to do when she was ruffled. + +"I notice you didn't treat 'em any too cool yourself," she retorted. + +"Oh, they weren't my company, or I'd a give 'em a piece of my mind +pretty quick. You know they're married, and they know you're married, +and they hadn't a bit o' business there." + +"They're perfect gentlemen, and I don't see what business 'tis of +yours, anyway." + +"Oh that's a horse of another color," replied Mrs. Worthington, +bridling and relapsing into injured silence for the period of ten +seconds, when she resumed, "I hope they ain't going to poke themselves +at the matinee." + +"Likely they will 's long as they gave us the tickets." + +One of the gentlemen was at the matinee: Mr. Bert Rodney, but he +certainly had not "poked" himself there. He never did any thing vulgar +or in bad taste. He had only "dropped in!" Exquisite in dress and +manner, a swell of the upper circles, versed as was no one better in +the code of gentlemanly etiquette--he was for the moment awaiting +disconsolately the return of his wife and daughter from Narragansett. + +He took a vacant seat behind the two ladies, and bending forward began +to talk to them in his low and fascinating drawl. + +Mrs. Worthington, who often failed to accomplish her fierce designs, +was as gracious towards him as if she had harbored no desire to give +him a piece of her mind; but she was resolute in her refusal to make +one of a proposed supper party. + +A quiet sideward look from Mrs. Dawson, told Mr. Rodney as plainly as +words, that in the event of his _partie-carree_ failing him, he might +count upon her for a _tete-a-tete_. + + + + +XI + +The Self-Assumed Burden. + + +The wedding was over. Hosmer and Fanny had been married in the small +library of their Unitarian minister whom they had found intent upon +the shaping of his Sunday sermon. + +Out of deference, he had been briefly told the outward circumstances +of the case, which he knew already; for these two had been formerly +members of his congregation, and gossip had not been reluctant in +telling their story. Hosmer, of course, had drifted away from his +knowledge, and in late years, he had seen little of Fanny, who when +moved to attend church at all usually went to the Redemptorist's Rock +Church with her friend Belle Worthington. This lady was a good +Catholic to the necessary extent of hearing a mass on Sundays, +abstaining from meat on Fridays and Ember days, and making her +"Easters." Which concessions were not without their attendant +discomforts, counterbalanced, however, by the soothing assurance which +they gave her of keeping on the safe side. + +The minister had been much impressed with the significance of this +re-marriage which he was called upon to perform, and had offered some +few and well chosen expressions of salutary advice as to its future +guidance. The sexton and housekeeper had been called in as witnesses. +Then Hosmer had taken Fanny back home in a cab as she requested, +because of her eyes that were red and swollen. + +Inside the little hall-way he took her in his arms and kissed her, +calling her "my child." He could not have told why, except that it +expressed the responsibility he accepted of bearing all things that a +father must bear from the child to whom he has given life. + +"I should like to go out for an hour, Fanny; but if you would rather +not, I shall stay." + +"No, David, I want to be alone," she said, turning into the little +parlor, with eyes big and heavy from weariness and inward clashing +emotions. + +Along the length of Lindell avenue from Grand avenue west to Forest +park, reaches for two miles on either side of the wide and well kept +gravel drive a smooth stone walk, bordered its full extent with a +double row of trees which were young and still uncertain, when Hosmer +walked between them. + +Had it been Sunday, he would have found himself making one of a +fashionable throng of promenaders; it being at that time a fad with +society people to walk to Forest park and back of a Sunday afternoon. +Driving was then considered a respectable diversion only on the six +work days of the week. + +But it was not Sunday and this inviting promenade was almost deserted. +An occasional laborer would walk clumsily by; apathetic; swinging his +tin bucket and bearing some implement of toil with the yellow clay yet +clinging to it. Or it might be a brace of strong-minded girls walking +with long and springing stride, which was then fashionable; looking +not to the right nor left; indulging in no exchange of friendly and +girlish chatter, but grimly intent upon the purpose of their walk. + +A steady line of vehicles was pushing on towards the park at the +moderate speed which the law required. On both sides the wide +boulevard tasteful dwellings, many completed, but most of them in +course of construction, were in constant view. Hosmer noted every +thing, but absently; and yet he was not pre-occupied with thought. He +felt himself to be hurrying away from something that was fast +overtaking him, and his faculties for the moment were centered in the +mere act of motion. It is said that motion is pleasurable to man. No +doubt, in connection with a healthy body and free mind, movement +brings to the normal human being a certain degree of enjoyment. But +where the healthful conditions are only physical, rapid motion changes +from a source of pleasure to one of mere expediency. + +So long as Hosmer could walk he kept a certain pressing consciousness +at bay. He would have liked to run if he had dared. Since he had +entered the park there were constant trains of cars speeding somewhere +overhead; he could hear them at near intervals clashing over the stone +bridge. And there was not a train which passed that he did not long to +be at the front of it to measure and let out its speed. What a mad +flight he would have given it, to make men hold their breath with +terror! How he would have driven it till its end was death and +chaos!--so much the better. + +There suddenly formed in Hosmer's mind a sentence--sharp and distinct. +We are all conscious of such quick mental visions whether of words or +pictures, coming sometimes from a hidden and untraceable source, +making us quiver with awe at this mysterious power of mind manifesting +itself with the vividness of visible matter. + +"It was the act of a coward." + +Those were the words which checked him, and forbade him to go farther: +which compelled him to turn about and face the reality of his +convictions. + +It is no unusual sight, that of a man lying full length in the soft +tender grass of some retired spot of Forest park--with his face hidden +in his folded arms. To the few who may see him, if they speculate at +all about him he sleeps or he rests his body after a day's fatigue. +"Am I never to be the brave man?" thought Hosmer, "always the coward, +flying even from my own thoughts?" + +How hard to him was this unaccustomed task of dealing with moral +difficulties, which all through his life before, however lightly they +had come, he had shirked and avoided! He realized now, that there was +to be no more of that. If he did not wish his life to end in +disgraceful shipwreck, he must take command and direction of it upon +himself. + +He had felt himself capable of stolid endurance since love had +declared itself his guide and helper. But now--only to-day--something +beside had crept into his heart. Not something to be endured, but a +thing to be strangled and thrust away. It was the demon of hate; so +new, so awful, so loathsome, he doubted that he could look it in the +face and live. + +Here was the problem of his new existence. + +The woman who had formerly made his life colorless and empty he had +quietly turned his back upon, carrying with him a pity that was not +untender. But the woman who had unwittingly robbed him of all +possibility of earthly happiness--he hated her. The woman who for the +remainder of a life-time was to be in all the world the nearest thing +to him, he hated her. He hated this woman of whom he must be careful, +to whom he must be tender, and loyal and generous. And to give no sign +or word but of kindness; to do no action that was not considerate, was +the task which destiny had thrust upon his honor. + +He did not ask himself if it were possible of accomplishment. He had +flung hesitancy away, to make room for the all-powerful "Must be." + +He walked slowly back to his home. There was no need to run now; +nothing pursued him. Should he quicken his pace or drag himself ever +so slowly, it could henceforth make no difference. The burden from +which he had fled was now banded upon him and not to be loosed, unless +he fling himself with it into forgetfulness. + + + + +XII + +Severing Old Ties. + + +Returning from the matinee, Belle and her friend Lou Dawson, before +entering their house, crossed over to Fanny's. Mrs. Worthington tried +the door and finding it fastened, rang the bell, then commenced to +beat a tattoo upon the pane with her knuckles; an ingenuous manner +which she had of announcing her identity. Fanny opened to them +herself, and the three walked into the parlor. + +"I haven't seen you for a coon's age, Fanny," commenced Belle, "where +on earth have you been keeping yourself?" + +"You saw me yesterday breakfast time, when you came to borrow the +wrapper pattern," returned Fanny, in serious resentment to her +friend's exaggeration. + +"And much good the old wrapper pattern did me: a mile too small every +way, no matter how much I let out the seams. But see here--" + +"Belle's the biggest idiot about her size: there's no convincing her +she's not a sylph." + +"_Thank_ you, Mrs. Dawson." + +"Well, it's a fact. Didn't you think Furgeson's scales were all wrong +the other day because you weighed a hundred and eighty pounds?" + +"O that's the day I had that heavy rep on." + +"Heavy nothing. We were coming over last night, Fanny, but we had +company," continued Mrs. Dawson. + +"Who d'you have?" asked Fanny mechanically and glad of the respite. + +"Bert Rodney and Mr. Grant. They're so anxious to meet you. I'd 'a +sent over for you, but Belle--" + +"See here, Fanny, what the mischief was Dave Hosmer doing here to-day, +and going down town with you and all that sort o' thing?" + +Fanny flushed uneasily. "Have you seen the evening paper?" she asked. + +"How d'you want us to see the paper? we just come from the matinee." + +"David came yesterday," Fanny said working nervously at the window +shade. "He'd wrote me a note the postman brought right after you left +with the pattern. When you saw us getting on the car, we were going +down to Dr. Martin's, and we've got married again." + +Mrs. Dawson uttered a long, low whistle by way of comment. Mrs. +Worthington gave vent to her usual "Well I'll be switched," which she +was capable of making expressive of every shade of astonishment, from +the lightest to the most pronounced; at the same time unfastening the +bridle of her bonnet which plainly hindered her free respiration after +such a shock. + +"Say that Fanny isn't sly, after that, Belle." + +"Sly? My God, she's a fool! If ever a woman had a snap! and to go to +work and let a man get around her like that." + +Mrs. Worthington seemed powerless to express herself in anything but +disconnected exclamations. + +"What are you going to do, Fanny?" asked Lou, who having aired all the +astonishment which she cared to show, in her whistle, was collected +enough to want her natural curiosity satisfied. + +"David's living down South. I guess we'll go down there pretty soon. +Soon's he can get things fixed up here." + +"Where--down South?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Somewheres in Louisiana." + +"It's to be hoped in New Orleans," spoke Belle didactically, "that's +the only decent place in Louisiana where a person could live." + +"No, 'tain't in New Orleans. He's got a saw mill somewheres down +there." + +"Heavens and earth! a saw mill?" shrieked Belle. Lou was looking +calmly resigned to the startling news. + +"Oh, I ain't going to live in a saw mill. I wisht you'd all let me +alone, any way," she returned pettishly. "There's a lady keeps a +plantation, and that's where he lives." + +"Well of all the rigmaroles! a lady, and a saw mill and a plantation. +It's my opinion that man could make you believe black's white, Fanny +Larimore." + +As Hosmer approached his house, he felt mechanically in his pocket for +his latch key; so small a trick having come back to him with the old +habit of misery. Of course he found no key. His ring startled Fanny, +who at once sprang from her seat to open the door for him; but having +taken a few steps, she hesitated and irresolutely re-seated herself. +It was only his second ring that the servant unamiably condescended to +answer. + +"So you're going to take Fanny away from us, Mr. Hosmer," said Belle, +when he had greeted them and seated himself beside Mrs. Dawson on the +small sofa that stood between the door and window. Fanny sat at the +adjoining window, and Mrs. Worthington in the center of the room; +which was indeed so small a room that any one of them might have +reached out and almost touched the hand of the others. + +"Yes, Fanny has agreed to go South with me," he answered briefly. +"You're looking well, Mrs. Worthington." + +"Oh, Law yes, I'm never sick. As I tell Mr. Worthington, he'll never +get rid of me, unless he hires somebody to murder me. But I tell you +what, you came pretty near not having any Fanny to take away with you. +She was the sickest woman! Did you tell him about it, Fanny? Come to +think of it, I guess the climate down there'll be the very thing to +bring her round." + +Mrs. Dawson without offering apology interrupted her friend to inquire +of Hosmer if his life in the South were not of the most interesting, +and begging that he detail them something of it; with a look to +indicate that she felt the deepest concern in anything that touched +him. + +A masculine presence had always the effect of rousing Mrs. Dawson into +an animation which was like the glow of a slumbering ember, when a +strong pressure of air is brought to bear upon it. + +Hosmer had always considered her an amiable woman, with rather +delicate perceptions; frivolous, but without the vulgarisms of Mrs. +Worthington, and consequently a less objectionable friend for Fanny. +He answered, looking down into her eyes, which were full of +attentiveness. + +"My life in the South is not one that you would think interesting. I +live in the country where there are no distractions such as you ladies +call amusements--and I work pretty hard. But it's the sort of life +that one grows attached to and finds himself longing for again if he +have occasion to change it." + +"Yes, it must be very satisfying," she answered; for the moment +perfectly sincere. + +"Oh very!" exclaimed Mrs. Worthington, with a loud and aggressive +laugh. "It would just suit you to a T, Lou, but how it's going to +satisfy Fanny! Well, I've got nothing to say about it, thanks be; it +don't concern me." + +"If Fanny finds that she doesn't like it after a fair trial, she has +the privilege of saying so, and we shall come back again," he said +looking at his wife whose elevation of eyebrow, and droop of mouth +gave her the expression of martyred resignation, which St. Lawrence +might have worn, when invited to make himself comfortable on the +gridiron--so had Mrs. Worthington's words impressed her with the force +of their prophetic meaning. + +Mrs. Dawson politely hoped that Hosmer would not leave before Jack +came home; it would distress Jack beyond everything to return and find +that he had missed an old friend whom he thought so much of. + +Hosmer could not say precisely when they would leave. He was in +present negotiation with a person who wanted to rent the house, +furnished; and just as soon as he could arrange a few business +details, and Fanny could gather such belongings as she wished to take +with her they would go. + +"You seem mighty struck on Dave Hosmer, all of a sudden," remarked +Mrs. Worthington to her friend, as the two crossed over the street. "A +feller without any more feelings than a stick; it's what I always said +about him." + +"Oh, I always did like Hosmer," replied Mrs. Dawson. "But I thought he +had more sense than to tie himself to that little gump again, after +he'd had the luck to get rid of her." + +A few days later Jack came home. His return was made palpable to the +entire neighborhood; for no cab ever announced itself with quite the +dash and clatter and bang of door that Jack's cabs did. + +The driver had staggered behind him under the weight of the huge +yellow valise, and had been liberally paid for the service. + +Immediately the windows were thrown wide open, and the lace curtains +drawn aside until no smallest vestige of them remained visible from +the street. A condition of things which Mrs. Worthington upstairs +bitterly resented, and naturally, spoiling as it necessarily did, the +general _coup d'oeil_ of the flat to passers-by. But Mrs. Dawson had +won her husband's esteem by just such acts as this one of amiable +permission to ventilate the house according to methods of his own and +essentially masculine; regardless of dust that might be flying, or sun +that might be shining with disastrous results to the parlor carpet. + +Clouds of tobacco smoke were seen to issue from the open windows. +Those neighbors whose openings commanded a view of the Dawson's +alley-gate might have noted the hired girl starting for the grocery +with unusual animation of step, and returning with her basket well +stocked with beer and soda bottles--a provision made against a need +for "dutch-cocktails," likely to assail Jack during his hours of +domesticity. + +In the evening the same hired girl, breathless from the multiplicity +of errands which she had accomplished during the day, appeared at the +Hosmers with a message that Mrs. Dawson wanted them to "come over." + +They were preparing to leave on the morrow, but concluded that they +could spare a few moments in which to bid adieu to their friends. + +Jack met them at the very threshold, with warm and hearty +hand-shaking, and loud protest when he learned that they had not come +to spend the evening and that they were going away next day. + +"Great Scott! you're not leaving to-morrow? And I ain't going to have +a chance to get even with Mrs. Hosmer on that last deal? By Jove, she +knows how to do it," he said, addressing Hosmer and holding Fanny +familiarly by the elbow. "Drew to the middle, sir, and hang me, if she +didn't fill. Takes a woman to do that sort o' thing; and me a laying +for her with three aces. Hello there, girls! here's Hosmer and Fanny," +in response to which summons his wife and Mrs. Worthington issued from +the depths of the dining-room, where they had been engaged in +preparing certain refreshments for the expected guests. + +"See here, Lou, we'll have to fix it up some way to go and see them +off to-morrow. If you'd manage to lay over till Thursday I could join +you as far as Little Rock. But no, that's a fact," he added +reflectively, "I've got to be in Cincinnati on Thursday." + +They had all entered the parlor, and Mrs. Worthington suggested that +Hosmer go up and make a visit to her husband, whom he would find up +there "poring over those everlasting books." + +"I don't know what's got into Mr. Worthington lately," she said, "he's +getting that religious. If it ain't the Bible he's poring over, well +it's something or other just as bad." + +The brightly burning light guided Hosmer to the kitchen, where he +found Lorenzo Worthington seated beside his student lamp at the table, +which was covered with a neat red cloth. On the gas-stove was spread a +similar cloth and the floor was covered with a shining oil-cloth. + +Mr. Worthington was startled, having already forgotten that his wife +had told him of Hosmer's return to St. Louis. + +"Why, Mr. Hosmer, is this you? come, come into the parlor, this is no +place," shaking Hosmer's hand and motioning towards the parlor. + +"No, it's very nice and cozy here, and I have only a moment to stay," +said Hosmer, seating himself beside the table on which the other had +laid his book, with his spectacles between the pages to mark his +place. Mr. Worthington then did a little hemming and hawing +preparatory to saying something fitting the occasion; not wishing to +be hasty in offering the old established form of congratulation, in a +case whose peculiarity afforded him no precedential guide. Hosmer came +to his relief by observing quite naturally that he and his wife had +come over to say good-bye, before leaving for the South, adding "no +doubt Mrs. Worthington has told you." + +"Yes, yes, and I'm sure we're very sorry to lose you; that is, Mrs. +Larimore--I should say Mrs. Hosmer. Isabella will certainly regret her +departure, I see them always together, you know." + +"You cling to your old habit, I see, Mr. Worthington," said Hosmer, +indicating his meaning by a motion of the hand towards the book on the +table. + +"Yes, to a certain extent. Always within the forced limits, you +understand. At this moment I am much interested in tracing the history +of various religions which are known to us; those which have died out, +as well as existing religions. It is curious, indeed, to note the +circumstances of their birth, their progress and inevitable death; +seeming to follow the course of nations in such respect. And the +similitude which stamps them all, is also a feature worthy of study. +You would perhaps be surprised, sir, to discover the points of +resemblance which indicate in them a common origin. To observe the +slight differences, indeed technical differences, distinguishing the +Islam from the Hebrew, or both from the Christian religion. The creeds +are obviously ramifications from the one deep-rooted trunk which we +call religion. Have you ever thought of this, Mr. Hosmer?" + +"No, I admit that I've not gone into it. Homeyer would have me think +that all religions are but mythological creations invented to satisfy +a species of sentimentality--a morbid craving in man for the unknown +and undemonstrable." + +"That is where he is wrong; where I must be permitted to differ from +him. As you would find, my dear sir, by following carefully the +history of mankind, that the religious sentiment is implanted, a true +and legitimate attribute of the human soul--with peremptory right to +its existence. Whatever may be faulty in the creeds--that makes no +difference, the foundation is there and not to be dislodged. Homeyer, +as I understand him from your former not infrequent references, is an +Iconoclast, who would tear down and leave devastation behind him; +building up nothing. He would deprive a clinging humanity of the +supports about which she twines herself, and leave her helpless and +sprawling upon the earth." + +"No, no, he believes in a natural adjustment," interrupted Hosmer. "In +an innate reserve force of accommodation. What we commonly call laws +in nature, he styles accidents--in society, only arbitrary methods of +expediency, which, when they outlive their usefulness to an advancing +and exacting civilization, should be set aside. He is a little +impatient to always wait for the inevitable natural adjustment." + +"Ah, my dear Mr. Hosmer, the world is certainly to-day not prepared to +stand the lopping off and wrenching away of old traditions. She must +take her stand against such enemies of the conventional. Take religion +away from the life of man--" + +"Well, I knew it--I was just as sure as preaching," burst out Mrs. +Worthington, as she threw open the door and confronted the two +men--resplendent in "baby blue" and much steel ornamentation. "As I +tell Mr. Worthington, he ought to turn Christian Brother or something +and be done with it." + +"No, no, my dear; Mr. Hosmer and I have merely been interchanging a +few disjointed ideas." + +"I'll be bound they were disjointed. I guess Fanny wants you, Mr. +Hosmer. If you listen to Mr. Worthington he'll keep you here till +daylight with his ideas." + +Hosmer followed Mrs. Worthington down-stairs and into Mrs. Dawson's. +As he entered the parlor he heard Fanny laughing gaily, and saw that +she stood near the sideboard in the dining-room, just clicking her +glass of punch to Jack Dawson's, who was making a gay speech on the +occasion of her new marriage. + +They did not leave when they had intended. Need the misery of that one +day be told? + +But on the evening of the following day, Fanny peered with pale, +haggard face from the closed window of the Pullman car as it moved +slowly out of Union depot, to see Lou and Jack Dawson smiling and +waving good-bye, Belle wiping her eyes and Mr. Worthington looking +blankly along the line of windows, unable to see them without his +spectacles, which he had left between the pages of his Schopenhauer on +the kitchen table at home. + + + + +PART II + + + + +I + +Fanny's First Night at Place-du-Bois. + + +The journey South had not been without attractions for Fanny. She had +that consciousness so pleasing to the feminine mind of being well +dressed; for her husband had been exceedingly liberal in furnishing +her the means to satisfy her fancy in that regard. Moreover the change +holding out a promise of novelty, irritated her to a feeble +expectancy. The air, that came to her in puffs through the car window, +was deliciously soft and mild; steeped with the rich languor of the +Indian summer, that had already touched the tree tops, the sloping +hill-side, and the very air, with russet and gold. + +Hosmer sat beside her, curiously inattentive to his newspaper; +observant of her small needs, and anticipating her timid half +expressed wishes. Was there some mysterious power that had so soon +taught the man such methods to a woman's heart, or was he not rather +on guard and schooling himself for the role which was to be acted out +to the end? But as the day was approaching its close, Fanny became +tired and languid; a certain mistrust was creeping into her heart with +the nearing darkness. It had grown sultry and close, and the view from +the car window was no longer cheerful, as they whirled through +forests, gloomy with trailing moss, or sped over an unfamiliar country +whose features were strange and held no promise of a welcome for her. + +They were nearing Place-du-Bois, and Hosmer's spirits had risen almost +to the point of gaiety as he began to recognize the faces of those who +loitered about the stations at which they stopped. At the Centerville +station, five miles before reaching their own, he had even gone out on +the platform to shake hands with the rather mystified agent who had +not known of his absence. And he had waved a salute to the little +French priest of Centerville who stood out in the open beside his +horse, booted, spurred and all equipped for bad weather, waiting for +certain consignments which were to come with the train, and who +answered Hosmer's greeting with a sober and uncompromising sweep of +the hand. When the whistle sounded for Place-du-Bois, it was nearly +dark. Hosmer hurried Fanny on to the platform, where stood Henry, his +clerk. There were a great many negroes loitering about, some of whom +offered him a cordial "how'dy Mr. Hosma," and pushing through was +Gregoire, meeting them with the ease of a courtier, and acknowledging +Hosmer's introduction of his wife, with a friendly hand shake. + +"Aunt Therese sent the buggy down fur you," he said, "we had rain this +mornin' and the road's putty heavy. Come this way. Mine out fur that +ba'el, Mrs. Hosma, it's got molasses in. Hiurm bring that buggy ova +yere." + +"What's the news, Gregoire?" asked Hosmer, as they waited for Hiram to +turn the horses about. + +"Jus' about the same's ev'a. Miss Melicent wasn't ver' well a few days +back; but she's some betta. I reckon you're all plum wore out," he +added, taking in Fanny's listless attitude, and thinking her very +pretty as far as he could discover in the dim light. + +They drove directly to the cottage, and on the porch Therese was +waiting for them. She took Fanny's two hands and pressed them warmly +between her own; then led her into the house with an arm passed about +her waist. She shook hands with Hosmer, and stood for a while in +cheerful conversation, before leaving them. + +The cottage was fully equipped for their reception, with Minervy in +possession of the kitchen and the formerly reluctant Suze as +housemaid: though Therese had been silent as to the methods which she +had employed to prevail with these unwilling damsels. + +Hosmer then went out to look after their baggage, and when he +returned, Fanny sat with her head pillowed on the sofa, sobbing +bitterly. He knelt beside her, putting his arm around her, and asked +the cause of her distress. + +"Oh it's so lonesome, and dreadful, I don't believe I can stand it," +she answered haltingly through her tears. + +And here was he thinking it was so home-like and comforting, and +tasting the first joy that he had known since he had gone away. + +"It's all strange and new to you, Fanny; try to bear up for a day or +two. Come now, don't be a baby--take courage. It will all seem quite +different by and by, when the sun shines." + +A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a young colored +boy carrying an armful of wood. + +"Miss T'rese sont me kin'le fiar fu' Miss Hosma; 'low he tu'nin' +cole," he said depositing his load on the hearth; and Fanny, drying +her eyes, turned to watch him at his work. + +He went very deliberately about it, tearing off thin slathers from the +fat pine, and arranging them into a light frame-work, beneath a +topping of kindling and logs that he placed on the massive brass +andirons. He crawled about on hands and knees, picking up the stray +bits of chips and moss that had fallen from his arms when he came in. +Then sitting back on his heels he looked meditatively into the blaze +which he had kindled and scratched his nose with a splinter of pine +wood. When Hosmer presently left the room, he rolled his big black +eyes towards Fanny, without turning his head, and remarked in a tone +plainly inviting conversation "yo' all come f'om way yonda?" + +He was intensely black, and if Fanny had been a woman with the +slightest sense of humor, she could not but have been amused at the +picture which he presented in the revealing fire-light with his elfish +and ape like body much too small to fill out the tattered and +ill-fitting garments that hung about it. But she only wondered at him +and his rags, and at his motive for addressing her. + +"We're come from St. Louis," she replied, taking him with a +seriousness which in no wise daunted him. + +"Yo' all brung de rain," he went on sociably, leaving off the +scratching of his nose, to pass his black yellow-palmed hand slowly +through the now raging fire, a feat which filled her with +consternation. After prevailing upon him to desist from this +salamander like exhibition, she was moved to ask if he were not very +poor to be thus shabbily clad. + +"No 'um," he laughed, "I got some sto' close yonda home. Dis yere coat +w'at Mista Gregor gi'me," looking critically down at its length, which +swept the floor as he remained on his knees. "He done all to'e tu +pieces time he gi' him tu me, whar he scuffle wid Jocint yonda tu de +mill. Mammy 'low she gwine mek him de same like new w'en she kin kotch +de time." + +The entrance of Minervy bearing a tray temptingly arranged with a +dainty supper, served to silence the boy, who at seeing her, threw +himself upon all fours and appeared to be busy with the fire. The +woman, a big raw-boned field hand, set her burden awkwardly down on a +table, and after staring comprehensively around, addressed the boy in +a low rich voice, "Dar ain't no mo' call to bodda wid dat fiar, you +Sampson; how come Miss T'rese sont you lazy piece in yere tu buil' +fiar?" + +"Don' know how come," he replied, vanishing with an air of the utmost +self-depreciation. + +Hosmer and Fanny took tea together before the cheerful fire and he +told her something of methods on the plantation, and made her further +acquainted with the various people whom she had thus far encountered. +She listened apathetically; taking little interest in what he said, +and asking few questions. She did express a little bewilderment at the +servant problem. Mrs. Lafirme, during their short conversation, had +deplored her inability to procure more than two servants for her; and +Fanny could not understand why it should require so many to do the +work which at home was accomplished by one. But she was tired--very +tired, and early sought her bed, and Hosmer went in quest of his +sister whom he had not yet seen. + +Melicent had been told of his marriage some days previously, and had +been thrown into such a state of nerves by the intelligence, as to +seriously alarm those who surrounded her and whose experience with +hysterical girls had been inadequate. + +Poor Gregoire had betaken himself with the speed of the wind to the +store to procure bromide, valerian, and whatever else should be +thought available in prevailing with a malady of this distressing +nature. But she was "some betta," as he told Hosmer, who found her +walking in the darkness of one of the long verandas, all enveloped in +filmy white wool. He was a little prepared for a cool reception from +her, and ten minutes before she might have received him with a studied +indifference. But her mood had veered about and touched the point +which moved her to fall upon his neck, and in a manner, condole with +him; seasoning her sympathy with a few tears. + +"Whatever possessed you, David? I have been thinking, and thinking, +and I can see no reason which should have driven you to do this thing. +Of course I can't meet her; you surely don't expect it?" + +He took her arm and joined her in her slow walk. + +"Yes, I do expect it, Melicent, and if you have the least regard for +me, I expect more. I want you to be good to her, and patient, and show +yourself her friend. No one can do such things more amiably than you, +when you try." + +"But David, I had hoped for something so different." + +"You couldn't have expected me to marry Mrs. Lafirme, a Catholic," he +said, making no pretense of misunderstanding her. + +"I think that woman would have given up religion--anything for you." + +"Then you don't know her, little sister." + +It must have been far in the night when Fanny awoke suddenly. She +could not have told whether she had been awakened by the long, wailing +cry of a traveler across the narrow river, vainly trying to rouse the +ferryman; or the creaking of a heavy wagon that labored slowly by in +the road and moved Hector to noisy enquiry. Was it not rather the +pattering rain that the wind was driving against the window panes? The +lamp burned dimly upon the high old-fashioned mantel-piece and her +husband had thoughtfully placed an improvised screen before it, to +protect her against its disturbance. He himself was not beside her, +nor was he in the room. She slid from her bed and moved softly on her +bare feet over to the open sitting-room door. + +The fire had all burned away. Only the embers lay in a glowing heap, +and while she looked, the last stick that lay across the andirons, +broke through its tapering center and fell amongst them, stirring a +fitful light by which she discovered her husband seated and bowed like +a man who has been stricken. Uncomprehending, she stood a moment +speechless, then crept back noiselessly to bed. + + + + +II + +"Neva to See You!" + + +Therese judged it best to leave Fanny a good deal to herself during +her first days on the plantation, without relinquishing a certain +watchful supervision of her comfort, and looking in on her for a few +moments each day. The rain which had come with them continued fitfully +and Fanny remained in doors, clad in a warm handsome gown, her small +slippered feet cushioned before the fire, and reading the latest novel +of one of those prolific female writers who turn out their unwholesome +intellectual sweets so tirelessly, to be devoured by the girls and +women of the age. + +Melicent, who always did the unexpected, crossed over early on the +morning after Fanny's arrival; penetrated to her sleeping room and +embraced her effusively, even as she lay in bed, calling her "poor +dear Fanny" and cautioning her against getting up on such a morning. + +The tears which had come to Fanny on arriving, and which had dried on +her cheek when she turned to gaze into the cheer of the great wood +fire, did not return. Everybody seemed to be making much of her, which +was a new experience in her life; she having always felt herself as of +little consequence, and in a manner, overlooked. The negroes were +overawed at the splendor of her toilettes and showed a respect for her +in proportion to the money value which these toilettes reflected. Each +morning Gregoire left at her door his compliments with a huge bouquet +of brilliant and many colored crysanthemums, and enquiry if he could +serve her in any way. And Hosmer's time, that was not given to work, +was passed at her side; not in brooding or pre-occupied silence, but +in talk that invited her to friendly response. + +With Therese, she was at first shy and diffident, and over watchful of +herself. She did not forget that Hosmer had told her "The lady knows +why I have come" and she resented that knowledge which Therese +possessed of her past intimate married life. + +Melicent's attentions did not last in their ultra-effusiveness, but +she found Fanny less objectionable since removed from her St. Louis +surroundings; and the evident consideration with which she had been +accepted at Place-du-Bois seemed to throw about her a halo of +sufficient distinction to impel the girl to view her from a new and +different stand-point. + +But the charm of plantation life was letting go its hold upon +Melicent. Gregoire's adoration alone, and her feeble response to it +were all that kept her. + +"I neva felt anything like this befo'," he said, as they stood +together and their hands touched in reaching for a splendid rose that +hung invitingly from its tall latticed support out in mid lawn. The +sun had come again and dried the last drop of lingering moisture on +grass and shrubbery. + +"W'en I'm away f'om you, even fur five minutes, 't seems like I mus' +hurry quick, quick, to git back again; an' w'en I'm with you, +everything 'pears all right, even if you don't talk to me or look at +me. Th' otha day, down at the gin," he continued, "I was figurin' on +some weights an' wasn't thinkin' about you at all, an' all at once I +remember'd the one time I'd kissed you. Goodness! I couldn't see the +figures any mo', my head swum and the pencil mos' fell out o' my han'. +I neva felt anything like it: hones', Miss Melicent, I thought I was +goin' to faint fur a minute." + +"That's very unwise, Gregoire," she said, taking the roses that he +handed her to add to the already large bunch. "You must learn to think +of me calmly: our love must be something like a sacred memory--a sweet +recollection to help us through life when we are apart." + +"I don't know how I'm goin' to stan' it. Neva to see you! neva--my +God!" he gasped, paling and crushing between his nervous fingers the +flower she would have taken from him. + +"There is nothing in this world that one cannot grow accustomed to, +dear," spoke the pretty philosopher, picking up her skirts daintily +with one hand and passing the other through his arm--the hand which +held the flowers, whose peculiar perfume ever afterwards made Gregoire +shiver through a moment of pain that touched very close upon rapture. + +He was more occupied than he liked during those busy days of +harvesting and ginning, that left him only brief and snatched +intervals of Melicent's society. If he could have rested in the +comfort of being sure of her, such moments of separation would have +had their compensation in reflective anticipation. But with his +undisciplined desires and hot-blooded eagerness, her half-hearted +acknowledgments and inadequate concessions, closed her about with a +chilling barrier that staggered him with its problematic nature. +Feeling himself her equal in the aristocracy of blood, and her master +in the knowledge and strength of loving, he resented those half +understood reasons which removed him from the possibility of being +anything to her. And more, he was angry with himself for acquiescing +in that self understood agreement. But it was only in her absence that +these thoughts disturbed him. When he was with her, his whole being +rejoiced in her existence and there was no room for doubt or dread. + +He felt himself regenerated through love, and as having no part in +that other Gregoire whom he only thought of to dismiss with +unrecognition. + +The time came when he could ill conceal his passion from others. +Therese became conscious of it, through an unguarded glance. The +unhappiness of the situation was plain to her; but to what degree she +could not guess. It was certainly so deplorable that it would have +been worth while to have averted it. Yet, she felt great faith in the +power of time and absence to heal such wounds even to the extent of +leaving no tell-tale scar. + +"Gregoire, my boy," she said to him, speaking in French, and laying +her hand on his, when they were alone together. "I hope that your +heart is not too deep in this folly." + +He reddened and asked, "What do you mean, aunt?" + +"I mean, that unfortunately, you are in love with Melicent. I do not +know how much longer she will remain here, but taking any possibility +for granted, let me advise you to leave the place for a while; go back +to your home, or take a little trip to the city." + +"No, I could not." + +"Force yourself to it." + +"And lose days, perhaps weeks, of being near her? No, no, I could not +do that, aunt. There will be plenty time for that in the rest of my +life," he said, trying to speak calmly and forcing his voice to a +harshness which the nearness of tears made needful. + +"Does she know? Have you told her?" + +"Oh yes, she knows how much I love her." + +"And she does not love you," said Therese, seeming rather to assert +than to question. + +"No, she does not. No matter what she says--she does not. I can feel +that here," he answered, striking his breast. "Oh aunt, it is terrible +to think of her going away; forever, perhaps; of never seeing her. I +could not stand it." And he stood the strain no longer, but sobbed and +wept with his aunt's consoling arms around him. + +Therese, knowing that Melicent would not tarry much longer with them, +thought it not needful to approach her on the subject. Had it been +otherwise, she would not have hesitated to beg the girl to desist from +this unprofitable amusement of tormenting a human heart. + + + + +III + +A Talk Under the Cedar Tree. + + +Day by day, Fanny threw off somewhat of the homesickness which had +weighted her at coming. Not by any determined effort of the will, nor +by any resolve to make the best of things. Outside influences meeting +half-way the workings of unconscious inward forces, were the agents +that by degrees were gently ridding her of the acute pressure of +dissatisfaction, which up to the present, she had stolidly borne +without any personal effort to cast it off. + +Therese affected her forcibly. This woman so wholesome, so fair and +strong; so un-American as to be not ashamed to show tenderness and +sympathy with eye and lip, moved Fanny like a new and pleasing +experience. When Therese touched her caressingly, or gently stroked +her limp hand, she started guiltily, and looked furtively around to +make sure that none had witnessed an exhibition of tenderness that +made her flush, and the first time found her unresponsive. A second +time, she awkwardly returned the hand pressure, and later, these +mildly sensuous exchanges prefaced the outpouring of all Fanny's woes, +great and small. + +"I don't say that I always done what was right, Mrs. Laferm, but I +guess David's told you just what suited him about me. You got to +remember there's always two sides to a story." + +She had been to the poultry yard with Therese, who had introduced her +to its feathery tenants, making her acquainted with stately Brahmas +and sleek Plymouth-Rocks and hardy little "Creole chickens"--not much +to look at, but very palatable when converted into _fricassee_. + +Returning, they seated themselves on the bench that encircled a +massive cedar--spreading and conical. Hector, who had trotted +attendance upon them during their visit of inspection, cast himself +heavily down at his mistress' feet and after glancing knowingly up +into her face, looked placidly forth at Sampson, gathering garden +greens on the other side of a low dividing fence. + +"You see if David'd always been like he is now, I don't know but +things'd been different. Do you suppose he ever went any wheres with +me, or even so much as talked to me when he came home? There was +always that everlasting newspaper in his pocket, and he'd haul it out +the first thing. Then I used to read the paper too sometimes, and when +I'd go to talk to him about what I read, he'd never even looked at the +same things. Goodness knows what he read in the paper, I never could +find out; but here'd be the edges all covered over with figuring. I +believe it's the only thing he ever thought or dreamt about; that +eternal figuring on every bit of paper he could lay hold of, till I +was tired picking them up all over the house. Belle Worthington used +to say it'd of took an angel to stand him. I mean his throwing papers +around that way. For as far as his never talking went, she couldn't +find any fault with that; Mr. Worthington was just as bad, if he +wasn't worse. But Belle's not like me; I don't believe she'd let poor +Mr. Worthington talk in the house if he wanted to." + +She gradually drifted away from her starting point, and like most +people who have usually little to say, became very voluble, when once +she passed into the humor of talking. Therese let her talk unchecked. +It seemed to do her good to chatter about Belle and Lou, and Jack +Dawson, and about her home life, of which she unknowingly made such a +pitiable picture to her listener. + +"I guess David never let on to you about himself," she said moodily, +having come back to the sore that rankled: the dread that Therese had +laid all the blame of the rupture on her shoulders. + +"You're mistaken, Mrs. Hosmer. It was a knowledge of his own +short-comings that prompted your husband to go back and ask your +forgiveness. You must grant, there's nothing in his conduct now that +you could reproach him with. And," she added, laying her hand gently +on Fanny's arm, "I know you'll be strong, and do your share in this +reconciliation--do what you can to please him." + +Fanny flushed uneasily under Therese's appealing glance. + +"I'm willing to do anything that David wants," she replied, "I made up +my mind to that from the start. He's a mighty good husband now, Mrs. +Laferm. Don't mind what I said about him. I was afraid you thought +that--" + +"Never mind," returned Therese kindly, "I know all about it. Don't +worry any farther over what I may think. I believe in you and in him, +and I know you'll both be brave and do what's right." + +"There isn't anything so very hard for David to do," she said, +depressed with a sense of her inadequate strength to do the task which +she had set herself. "He's got no faults to give up. David never did +have any faults. He's a true, honest man; and I was a coward to say +those things about him." + +Melicent and Gregoire were coming across the lawn to join the two, and +Fanny, seeing them approach, suddenly chilled and wrapt herself about +in her mantle of reserve. + +"I guess I better go," she said, offering to rise, but Therese held +out a detaining hand. + +"You don't want to go and sit alone in the cottage; stay here with me +till Mr. Hosmer comes back from the mill." + +Gregoire's face was a study. Melicent, who did what she wanted with +him, had chosen this afternoon, for some inscrutable reason, to make +him happy. He carried her shawl and parasol; she herself bearing a +veritable armful of flowers, leaves, red berried sprigs, a tangle of +richest color. They had been in the woods and she had bedecked him +with garlands and festoons of autumn leaves, till he looked a very +Satyr; a character which his flushed, swarthy cheeks, and glittering +animal eyes did not belie. + +They were laughing immoderately, and their whole bearing still +reflected their exuberant gaiety as they joined Therese and Fanny. + +"What a 'Mater Dolorosa' Fanny looks!" exclaimed Melicent, throwing +herself into a picturesque attitude on the bench beside Therese, and +resting her feet on Hector's broad back. + +Fanny offered no reply, but to look helplessly resigned; an expression +which Melicent knew of old, and which had always the effect of +irritating her. Not now, however, for the curve of the bench around +the great cedar tree removed her from the possibility of contemplating +Fanny's doleful visage, unless she made an effort to that end, which +she was certainly not inclined to do. + +"No, Gregoire," she said, flinging a rose into his face when he would +have seated himself beside her, "go sit by Fanny and do something to +make her laugh; only don't tickle her; David mightn't like it. And +here's Mrs. Lafirme looking almost as glum. Now, if David would only +join us with that 'pale cast of thought' that he bears about usually, +what a merry go round we'd have." + +"When Melicent looks at the world laughing, she wants it to laugh back +at her," said Therese, reflecting something of the girl's gaiety. + +"As in a looking-glass, well isn't that square?" she returned, falling +into slang, in her recklessness of spirit. + +Endeavoring to guard her treasure of flowers from Therese, who was +without ceremony making a critical selection among them of what +pleased her, Melicent slid around the bench, bringing herself close to +Gregoire and begging his protection against the Vandalism of his aunt. +She looked into his eyes for an instant as though asking him for love +instead of so slight a favor and he grasped her arm, pressing it till +she cried out from the pain: which act, on his side, served to drive +her again around to Therese. + +"Guess what we are going to do to-morrow: you and I and all of us; +Gregoire and David and Fanny and everybody?" + +"Going to Bedlam along with you?" Therese asked. + +"Mrs. Lafirme is in need of a rebuke, which I shall proceed to +administer," thrusting a crumpled handful of rose leaves down the neck +of Therese's dress, and laughing joyously in her scuffle to accomplish +the punishment. + +"No, madam; I don't go to Bedlam; I drive others there. Ask Gregoire +what we're going to do. Tell them, Gregoire." + +"They ain't much to tell. We'a goin' hoss back ridin'." + +"Not me; I can't ride," wailed Fanny. + +"You can get up Torpedo for Mrs. Hosmer, can't you, Gregoire?" asked +Therese. + +"Certainly. W'y you could ride ole Torpedo, Mrs. Hosma, if you nova +saw a hoss in yo' life. A li'l chile could manage him." + +Fanny turned to Therese for further assurance and found all that she +looked for. + +"We'll go up on the hill and see that dear old Morico, and I shall +take along a comb, and comb out that exquisite white hair of his and +then I shall focus him, seated in his low chair and making one of +those cute turkey fans." + +"Ole Morico ain't goin' to let you try no monkeyshines on him; I tell +you that befo' han'," said Gregoire, rising and coming to Melicent to +rid him of his sylvan ornamentations, for it was time for him to leave +them. When he turned away, Melicent rose and flung all her flowery +wealth into Therese's lap, and following took his arm. + +"Where are you going?" asked Therese. + +"Going to help Gregoire feed the mules," she called back looking over +her shoulder; the sinking sun lighting her handsome mischievous face. + +Therese proceeded to arrange the flowers with some regard to graceful +symmetry; and Fanny did not regain her talkative spirit that +Melicent's coming had put to flight, but sat looking silent and +listlessly into the distance. + +As Therese glanced casually up into her face she saw it warmed by a +sudden faint glow--an unusual animation, and following her gaze, she +saw that Hosmer had returned and was entering the cottage. + +"I guess I better be going," said Fanny rising, and this time Therese +no longer detained her. + + + + +IV + +Therese Crosses the River. + + +To shirk any serious duties of life would have been entirely foreign +to Therese's methods or even instincts. But there did come to her +moments of rebellion--or repulsion, against the small demands that +presented themselves with an unfailing recurrence; and from such, she +at times indulged herself with the privilege of running away. When +Fanny left her alone--a pathetic little droop took possession of the +corners of her mouth that might not have come there if she had not +been alone. She laid the flowers, only half arranged, on the bench +beside her, as a child would put aside a toy that no longer interested +it. She looked towards the house and could see the servants going back +and forth. She knew if she entered, she would be met by appeals from +one and the other. The overseer would soon be along, with his crib +keys, and stable keys; his account of the day's doings and +consultations for to-morrow's work, and for the moment, she would have +none of it. + +"Come, Hector--come, old boy," she said rising abruptly; and crossing +the lawn she soon gained the gravel path that led to the outer road. +This road brought her by a mild descent to the river bank. The water, +seldom stationary for any long period, was at present running low and +sluggishly between its red banks. + +Tied to the landing was a huge flat-boat, that was managed by the aid +of a stout cable reaching quite across the river; and beside it +nestled a small light skiff. In this Therese seated herself, and +proceeded to row across the stream, Hector plunging into the water and +swimming in advance of her. + +The banks on the opposite shore were almost perpendicular; and their +summit to be reached only by the artificial road that had been cut +into them: broad and of easy ascent. This river front was a standing +worry to Therese, for when the water was high and rapid, the banks +caved constantly, carrying away great sections from the land. Almost +every year, the fences in places had to be moved back, not only for +security, but to allow a margin for the road that on this side +followed the course of the small river. + +High up and perilously near the edge, stood a small cabin. It had once +been far removed from the river, which had now, however, eaten its way +close up to it--leaving no space for the road-way. The house was +somewhat more pretentious than others of its class, being fashioned of +planed painted boards, and having a brick chimney that stood fully +exposed at one end. A great rose tree climbed and spread generously +over one side, and the big red roses grew by hundreds amid the dark +green setting of their leaves. + +At the gate of this cabin Therese stopped, calling out, "_Grosse +tante!--oh, Grosse tante!_" + +The sound of her voice brought to the door a negress--coal black and +so enormously fat that she moved about with evident difficulty. She +was dressed in a loosely hanging purple calico garment of the mother +Hubbard type--known as a _volante_ amongst Louisiana Creoles; and on +her head was knotted and fantastically twisted a bright _tignon_. Her +glistening good-natured countenance illumined at the sight of Therese. + +"_Quo faire to pas woulez rentrer, Tite maitresse?_" and Therese +answered in the same Creole dialect: "Not now, _Grosse tante_--I shall +be back in half an hour to drink a cup of coffee with you." No English +words can convey the soft music of that speech, seemingly made for +tenderness and endearment. + +As Therese turned away from the gate, the black woman re-entered the +house, and as briskly as her cumbersome size would permit, began +preparations for her mistress' visit. Milk and butter were taken from +the safe; eggs, from the India rush basket that hung against the wall; +and flour, from the half barrel that stood in convenient readiness in +the corner: for _Tite maitresse_ was to be treated to a dish of +_croquignoles_. Coffee was always an accomplished fact at hand in the +chimney corner. + +_Grosse tante_, or more properly, Marie Louise, was a Creole--Therese's +nurse and attendant from infancy, and the only one of the family +servants who had come with her mistress from New Orleans to +Place-du-Bois at that lady's marriage with Jerome Lafirme. But her +ever increasing weight had long since removed her from the possibility +of usefulness, otherwise than in supervising her small farm yard. She +had little use for "_ces neges Americains_," as she called the +plantation hands--a restless lot forever shifting about and changing +quarters. + +It was seldom now that she crossed the river; only two occasions being +considered of sufficient importance to induce her to such effort. One +was in the event of her mistress' illness, when she would install +herself at her bedside as a fixture, not to be dislodged by any less +inducement than Therese's full recovery. The other was when a dinner +of importance was to be given: then Marie Louise consented to act as +_chef de cuisine_, for there was no more famous cook than she in the +State; her instructor having been no less a personage than old Lucien +Santien--a _gourmet_ famed for his ultra Parisian tastes. + +Seated at the base of a great China-berry on whose gnarled protruding +roots she rested an arm languidly, Therese looked out over the river +and gave herself up to doubts and misgivings. She first took exception +with herself for that constant interference in the concerns of other +people. Might not this propensity be carried too far at times? Did the +good accruing counterbalance the personal discomfort into which she +was often driven by her own agency? What reason had she to know that a +policy of non-interference in the affairs of others might not after +all be the judicious one? As much as she tried to vaguely generalize, +she found her reasoning applying itself to her relation with Hosmer. + +The look which she had surprised in Fanny's face had been a painful +revelation to her. Yet could she have expected other, and should she +have hoped for less, than that Fanny should love her husband and he in +turn should come to love his wife? + +Had she married Hosmer herself! Here she smiled to think of the storm +of indignation that such a marriage would have roused in the parish. +Yet, even facing the impossibility of such contingency, it pleased her +to indulge in a short dream of what might have been. + +If it were her right instead of another's to watch for his coming and +rejoice at it! Hers to call him husband and lavish on him the love +that awoke so strongly when she permitted herself, as she was doing +now, to invoke it! She felt what capability lay within her of rousing +the man to new interests in life. She pictured the dawn of an +unsuspected happiness coming to him: broadening; illuminating; growing +in him to answer to her own big-heartedness. + +Were Fanny, and her own prejudices, worth the sacrifice which she and +Hosmer had made? This was the doubt that bade fair to unsettle her; +that called for a sharp, strong out-putting of the will before she +could bring herself to face the situation without its accessions of +personalities. Such communing with herself could not be condemned as a +weakness with Therese, for the effect which it left upon her strong +nature was one of added courage and determination. + +When she reached Marie Louise's cabin again, twilight, which is so +brief in the South, was giving place to the night. + +Within the cabin, the lamp had already been lighted, and Marie Louise +was growing restless at Therese's long delay. + +"Ah _Grosse tante_, I'm so tired," she said, falling into a chair near +the door; not relishing the warmth of the room after her quick walk, +and wishing to delay as long as possible the necessity of sitting at +table. At another time she might have found the dish of golden brown +_croquignoles_ very tempting with its accessory of fragrant coffee; +but not to-day. + +"Why do you run about so much, _Tite maitresse_? You are always going +this way and that way; on horseback, on foot--through the house. Make +those lazy niggers work more. You spoil them. I tell you if it was old +mistress that had to deal with them, they would see something +different." + +She had taken all the pins from Therese's hair which fell in a +gleaming, heavy mass; and with her big soft hands she was stroking her +head as gently as if those hands had been of the whitest and most +delicate. + +"I know that look in your eyes, it means headache. It's time for me to +make you some more _eau sedative_--I am sure you haven't any more; +you've given it away as you give away every thing." + +"_Grosse tante_," said Therese seated at table and sipping her coffee; +_Grosse tante_ also drinking her cup--but seated apart, "I am going to +insist on having your cabin moved back; it is silly to be so stubborn +about such a small matter. Some day you will find yourself out in the +middle of the river--and what am I going to do then?--no one to nurse +me when I am sick--no one to scold me--nobody to love me." + +"Don't say that, _Tite maitresse_, all the world loves you--it isn't +only Marie Louise. But no. You must remember the last time poor +Monsieur Jerome moved me, and said with a laugh that I can never +forget, 'well, _Grosse tante_, I know we have got you far enough this +time out of danger,' away back in Dumont's field you recollect? I said +then, Marie Louise will move no more; she's too old. If the good God +does not want to take care of me, then it's time for me to go." + +"Ah but, _Grosse tante_, remember--God does not want all the trouble +on his own shoulders," Therese answered humoring the woman, in her +conception of the Deity. "He wants us to do our share, too." + +"Well, I have done my share. Nothing is going to harm Marie Louise. I +thought about all that, do not fret. So the last time Pere Antoine +passed in the road--going down to see that poor Pierre Pardou at the +Mouth--I called him in, and he blessed the whole house inside and out, +with holy water--notice how the roses have bloomed since then--and +gave me medals of the holy Virgin to hang about. Look over the door, +_Tite maitresse_, how it shines, like a silver star." + +"If you will not have your cabin removed, _Grosse tante_, then come +live with me. Old Hatton has wanted work at Place-du-Bois, the longest +time. We will have him build you a room wherever you choose, a pretty +little house like those in the city." + +"_Non--non, Tite maitresse, Marie Louise 'pre crever icite ave tous +son butin, si faut_" (no, no, _Tite maitresse_, Marie Louise will die +here with all her belongings if it must be). + +The servants were instructed that when their mistress was not at home +at a given hour, her absence should cause no delay in the household +arrangements. She did not choose that her humor or her movements be +hampered by a necessity of regularity which she owed to no one. When +she reached home supper had long been over. + +Nearing the house she heard the scraping of Nathan's violin, the noise +of shuffling feet and unconstrained laughter. These festive sounds +came from the back veranda. She entered the dining-room, and from its +obscurity looked out on a curious scene. The veranda was lighted by a +lamp suspended from one of its pillars. In a corner sat Nathan; +serious, dignified, scraping out a monotonous but rhythmic minor +strain to which two young negroes from the lower quarters--famous +dancers--were keeping time in marvelous shuffling and pigeon-wings; +twisting their supple joints into astonishing contortions and the +sweat rolling from their black visages. A crowd of darkies stood at a +respectful distance an appreciative and encouraging audience. And +seated on the broad rail of the veranda were Melicent and Gregoire, +patting Juba and singing a loud accompaniment to the breakdown. + +Was this the Gregoire who had only yesterday wept such bitter tears on +his aunt's bosom? + +Therese turning away from the scene, the doubt assailed her whether it +were after all worth while to strive against the sorrows of life that +can be so readily put aside. + + + + +V + +One Afternoon. + + +Whatever may have been Torpedo's characteristics in days gone by, at +this advanced period in his history he possessed none so striking as a +stoical inaptitude for being moved. Another of his distinguishing +traits was a propensity for grazing which he was prone to indulge at +inopportune moments. Such points taken in conjunction with a gait +closely resembling that of the camel in the desert, might give much +cause to wonder at Therese's motive in recommending him as a suitable +mount for the unfortunate Fanny, were it not for his wide-spread +reputation of angelic inoffensiveness. + +The ride which Melicent had arranged and in which she held out such +promises of a "lark" proved after all but a desultory affair. For with +Fanny making but a sorry equestrian debut and Hosmer creeping along at +her side; Therese unable to hold Beauregard within conventional +limits, and Melicent and Gregoire vanishing utterly from the scene, +sociability was a feature entirely lacking to the excursion. + +"David, I can't go another step: I just can't, so that settles it." + +The look of unhappiness in Fanny's face and attitude, would have moved +the proverbial stone. + +"I think if you change horses with me, Fanny, you'll find it more +comfortable, and we'll turn about and go home." + +"I wouldn't get on that horse's back, David Hosmer, if I had to die +right here in the woods, I wouldn't." + +"Do you think you could manage to walk back that distance then? I can +lead the horses," he suggested as a _pis aller_. + +"I guess I'll haf to; but goodness knows if I'll ever get there +alive." + +They were far up on the hill, which spot they had reached by painfully +slow and labored stages, each refraining from mention of a discomfort +that might interfere with the supposed enjoyment of the other, till +Fanny's note of protest. + +Hosmer cast about him for some expedient that might lighten the +unpleasantness of the situation, when a happy thought occurred to him. + +"If you'll try to bear up, a few yards further, you can dismount at +old Morico's cabin and I'll hurry back and get the buggy. It can be +driven this far anyway: and it's only a short walk from here through +the woods." + +So Hosmer set her down before Morico's door: her long riding skirt, +borrowed for the occasion, twisting awkwardly around her legs, and +every joint in her body aching. + +Partly by pantomimic signs interwoven with a few French words which he +had picked up within the last year, Hosmer succeeded in making himself +understood to the old man, and rode away leaving Fanny in his care. + +Morico fussily preceded her into the house and placed a great clumsy +home-made rocker at her disposal, into which she cast herself with +every appearance of bodily distress. He then busied himself in tidying +up the room out of deference to his guest; gathering up the scissors, +waxen thread and turkey feathers which had fallen from his lap in his +disturbance, and laying them on the table. He knocked the ashes from +his corn-cob pipe which he now rested on a projection of the brick +chimney that extended into the room and that served as mantel-piece. +All the while he cast snatched glances at Fanny, who sat pale and +tired. Her appearance seemed to move him to make an effort towards +relieving it. He took a key from his pocket and unlocking a side of +the _garde manger_, drew forth a small flask of whisky. Fanny had +closed her eyes and was not aware of his action, till she heard him at +her elbow saying in his feeble quavering voice:-- + +"_Tenez madame; goutez un peu: ca va vous faire du bien,_" and opening +her eyes she saw that he held a glass half filled with strong "toddy" +for her acceptance. + +She thrust out her hand to ward it away as though it had been a +reptile that menaced her with its sting. + +Morico looked nonplussed and a little abashed: but he had much faith +in the healing qualities of his remedy and urged it on her anew. She +trembled a little, and looked away with rather excited eyes. + +"_Je vous assure madame, ca ne peut pas vous faire du mal._" + +Fanny took the glass from his hand, and rising went and placed it on +the table, then walked to the open door and looked eagerly out, as +though hoping for the impossibility of her husband's return. + +She did not seat herself again, but walked restlessly about the room, +intently examining its meager details. The circuit of inspection +bringing her again to the table, she picked up Morico's turkey fan, +looking at it long and critically. When she laid it down, it was to +seize the glass of "toddy" which she unhesitatingly put to her lips +and drained at a draught. All uneasiness and fatigue seemed to leave +her on the instant as though by magic. She went back to her chair and +reseated herself composedly. Her eyes now rested on her old host with +a certain quizzical curiosity strange to them. + +He was plainly demoralized by her presence, and still made pretense of +occupying himself with the arrangement of the room. + +Presently she said to him: "Your remedy did me more good than I'd +expected," but not understanding her, he only smiled and looked at her +blankly. + +She laughed good-humoredly back at him, then went to the table and +poured from the flask which he had left standing there, liquor to the +depth of two fingers, this time drinking it more deliberately. After +that she tried to talk to Morico and thought it very amusing that he +could not understand her. + +Presently Jocint came home and accepted her presence there very +indifferently. He went to the _garde manger_ to stay his hunger, much +as he had done on the occasion of Therese's visit; talked in grum +abrupt utterances to his father, and disappeared into the adjoining +room where Fanny could hear him and occasionally see him polishing and +oiling his cherished rifle. + +Morico, more accustomed to foreign sounds in the woods than she, was +the first to detect the approach of Gregoire, whom he went out +hurriedly to meet, glad of the relief from the supposed necessity of +entertaining his puzzling visitor. When he was fairly out of the room, +she arose quickly, approached the table and reaching for the flask of +liquor, thrust it hastily into her pocket, then went to join him. At +the moment that Gregoire came up, Jocint issued from a side door and +stood looking at the group. + +"Well, Mrs. Hosma, yere I am. I reckon you was tired waitin'. The +buggy's yonda in the road." + +He shook hands cordially with Morico saying something to him in French +which made the old man laugh heartily. + +"Why didn't David come? I thought he said he was coming; that's the +way he does," said Fanny complainingly. + +"That's a po' compliment to me, Mrs. Hosrma. Can't you stan' my +company for that li'le distance?" returned Gregoire gallantly. "Mr. +Hosma had a good deal to do w'en he got back, that's w'y he sent me. +An' we betta hurry up if we expec' to git any suppa' to-night. Like as +not you'll fine your kitchen cleaned out." + +Fanny looked her inquiry for his meaning. + +"Why, don't you know this is 'Tous-saint' eve--w'en the dead git out +o' their graves an' walk about? You wouldn't ketch a nigga out o' his +cabin to-night afta dark to save his soul. They all gittin' ready now +to hustle back to the quartas." + +"That's nonsense," said Fanny, drawing on her gloves, "you ought to +have more sense than to repeat such things." + +Gregoire laughed, looking surprised at her unusual energy of speech +and manner. Then he turned to Jocint, whose presence he had thus far +ignored, and asked in a peremptory tone: + +"W'at did Woodson say 'bout watchin' at the mill to-night? Did you ask +him like I tole you?" + +"Yaas, me ax um: ee' low ee an' goin'. Say how Sylveste d'wan' watch +lak alluz. Say ee an' goin'. Me don' blem 'im neida, don' ketch me +out de 'ouse night lak dat fu no man." + +"_Sacre imbecile_," muttered Gregoire, between his teeth, and +vouchsafed him no other answer, but nodded to Morico and turned away. +Fanny followed with a freedom of movement quite unlike that of her +coming. + +Morico went into the house and coming back hastily to the door called +to Jocint: + +"Bring back that flask of whisky that you took off the table." + +"You're a liar: you know I have no use for whisky. That's one of your +damned tricks to make me buy you more." And he seated himself on an +over-turned tub and with his small black eyes half closed, looked +moodily out into the solemn darkening woods. The old man showed no +resentment at the harshness and disrespect of his son's speech, being +evidently used to such. He passed his hand slowly over his white long +hair and turned bewildered into the house. + +"Is it just this same old thing year in and year out, Gregoire? Don't +any one ever get up a dance, or a card party or anything?" + +"Jus' as you say; the same old thing f'om one yea's en' to the otha. I +used to think it was putty lonesome myse'f w'en I firs' come yere. +Then you see they's no neighbo's right roun' yere. In Natchitoches +now; that's the place to have a right down good time. But see yere; I +didn' know you was fon' o' dancin' an' such things." + +"Why, of course, I just dearly love to dance. But it's as much as my +life's worth to say that before David; he's such a stick; but I guess +you know that by this time," with a laugh, as he had never heard from +her before--so unconstrained; at the same time drawing nearer to him +and looking merrily into his face. + +"The little lady's been having a 'toddy' at Morico's, that makes her +lively," thought Gregoire. But the knowledge did not abash him in the +least. He accommodated himself at once to the situation with that +adaptability common to the American youth, whether of the South, +North, East or West. + +"Where abouts did you leave David when you come away?" she asked with +a studied indifference. + +"Hol' on there, Buckskin--w'ere you takin' us? W'y, I lef' him at the +sto' mailin' lettas." + +"Had the others all got back? Mrs. Laferm? Melicent? did they all stop +at the store, too?" + +"Who? Aunt Threrese? no, she was up at the house w'en I lef'--I reckon +Miss Melicent was there too. Talkin' 'bout fun,--it's to git into one +o' them big spring wagons on a moonlight night, like they do in +Centaville sometimes; jus' packed down with young folks--and start out +fur a dance up the coast. They ain't nothin' to beat it as fah as fun +goes." + +"It must be just jolly. I guess you're a pretty good dancer, +Gregoire?" + +"Well--'taint fur me to say. But they ain't many can out dance me: not +in Natchitoches pa'ish, anyway. I can say that much." + +If such a thing could have been, Fanny would have startled Gregoire +more than once during the drive home. Before its close she had +obtained a promise from him to take her up to Natchitoches for the +very next entertainment,--averring that she didn't care what David +said. If he wanted to bury himself that was his own look out. And if +Mrs. Laferm took people to be angels that they could live in a place +like that, and give up everything and not have any kind of enjoyment +out of life, why, she was mistaken and that's all there was to it. To +all of which freely expressed views Gregoire emphatically assented. + +Hosmer had very soon disembarrassed himself of Torpedo, knowing that +the animal would unerringly find his way to the corn crib by supper +time. He continued his own way now untrammelled, and at an agreeable +speed which soon brought him to the spring at the road side. Here he +found Therese, half seated against a projection of rock, in her hand a +bunch of ferns which she had evidently dismounted to gather, and +holding Beauregard's bridle while he munched at the cool wet tufts of +grass that grew everywhere. + +As Hosmer rode up at a rapid pace, he swung himself from his horse +almost before the animal came to a full stop. He removed his hat, +mopped his forehead, stamped about a little to relax his limbs and +turned to answer the enquiry with which Therese met him. + +"Left her at Morico's. I'll have to send the buggy back for her." + +"I can't forgive myself for such a blunder," said Therese regretfully, +"indeed I had no idea of that miserable beast's character. I never was +on him you know--only the little darkies, and they never complained: +they'd as well ride cows as not." + +"Oh, it's mainly from her being unaccustomed to riding, I believe." + +This was the first time that Hosmer and Therese had met alone since +his return from St. Louis. They looked at each other with full +consciousness of what lay in the other's mind. Therese felt that +however adroitly another woman might have managed the situation, for +herself, it would have been a piece of affectation to completely +ignore it at this moment. + +"Mr. Hosmer, perhaps I ought to have said something before this, to +you--about what you've done." + +"Oh, yes, congratulated me--complimented me," he replied with a +pretense at a laugh. + +"Well, the latter, perhaps. I think we all like to have our good and +right actions recognized for their worth." + +He flushed, looked at her with a smile, then laughed out-right--this +time it was no pretense. + +"So I've been a good boy; have done as my mistress bade me and now I'm +to receive a condescending little pat on the head--and of course must +say thank you. Do you know, Mrs. Lafirme--and I don't see why a woman +like you oughtn't to know it--it's one of those things to drive a man +mad, the sweet complaisance with which women accept situations, or +inflict situations that it takes the utmost of a man's strength to +endure." + +"Well, Mr. Hosmer," said Therese plainly discomposed, "you must +concede you decided it was the right thing to do." + +"I didn't do it because I thought it was right, but because you +thought it was right. But that makes no difference." + +"Then remember your wife is going to do the right thing herself--she +admitted as much to me." + +"Don't you fool yourself, as Melicent says, about what Mrs. Hosmer +means to do. I take no account of it. But you take it so easily; so as +a matter of course. That's what exasperates me. That you, you, you, +shouldn't have a suspicion of the torture of it; the loathsomeness of +it. But how could you--how could any woman understand it? Oh forgive +me, Therese--I wouldn't want you to. There's no brute so brutal as a +man," he cried, seeing the pain in her face and knowing he had caused +it. "But you know you promised to help me--oh I'm talking like an +idiot." + +"And I do," returned Therese, "that is, I want to, I mean to." + +"Then don't tell me again that I have done right. Only look at me +sometimes a little differently than you do at Hiram or the gate post. +Let me once in a while see a look in your face that tells me that you +understand--if it's only a little bit." + +Therese thought it best to interrupt the situation; so, pale and +silently she prepared to mount her horse. He came to her assistance of +course, and when she was seated she drew off her loose riding glove +and held out her hand to him. He pressed it gratefully, then touched +it with his lips; then turned it and kissed the half open palm. + +She did not leave him this time, but rode at his side in silence with +a frown and little line of thought between her blue eyes. + +As they were nearing the store she said diffidently: "Mr. Hosmer, I +wonder if it wouldn't be best for you to put the mill in some one +else's charge--and go away from Place-du-Bois." + +"I believe you always speak with a purpose, Mrs. Lafirme: you have +somebody's ultimate good in view, when you say that. Is it your own, +or mine or whose is it?" + +"Oh! not mine." + +"I will leave Place-du-Bois, certainly, if you wish it." + +As she looked at him she was forced to admit that she had never seen +him look as he did now. His face, usually serious, had a whole +unwritten tragedy in it. And she felt altogether sore and puzzled and +exasperated over man's problematic nature. + +"I don't think it should be left entirely to me to say. Doesn't your +own reason suggest a proper course in the matter?" + +"My reason is utterly unable to determine anything in which you are +concerned. Mrs. Lafirme," he said checking his horse and laying a +restraining hand on her bridle, "let me speak to you one moment. I +know you are a woman to whom one may speak the truth. Of course, you +remember that you prevailed upon me to go back to my wife. To you it +seemed the right thing--to me it seemed certainly hard--but no more +nor less than taking up the old unhappy routine of life, where I had +left it when I quitted her. I reasoned much like a stupid child who +thinks the colors in his kaleidoscope may fall twice into the same +design. In place of the old, I found an entirely new situation--horrid, +sickening, requiring such a strain upon my energies to live through +it, that I believe it's an absurdity to waste so much moral force for +so poor an aim--there would be more dignity in putting an end to my +life. It doesn't make it any the more bearable to feel that the cause +of this unlooked for change lies within myself--my altered feelings. +But it seems to me that I have the right to ask you not to take +yourself out of my life; your moral support; your bodily atmosphere. I +hope not to give way to the weakness of speaking of these things +again: but before you leave me, tell me, do you understand a little +better why I need you?" + +"Yes, I understand now; and I thank you for talking so openly to me. +Don't go away from Place-du-Bois: it would make me very wretched." + +She said no more and he was glad of it, for her last words held almost +the force of action for him; as though she had let him feel for an +instant her heart beat against his own with an echoing pain. + +Their ways now diverged. She went in the direction of the house and he +to the store where he found Gregoire, whom he sent for his wife. + + + + +VI + +One Night. + + +"Gregoire was right: do you know those nasty creatures have gone and +left every speck of the supper dishes unwashed? I've got half a mind +to give them both warning to-morrow morning." + +Fanny had come in from the kitchen to the sitting-room, and the above +homily was addressed to her husband who stood lighting his cigar. He +had lately taken to smoking. + +"You'd better do nothing of the kind; you wouldn't find it easy to +replace them. Put up a little with their vagaries: this sort of thing +only happens once a year." + +"How do you know it won't be something else just as ridiculous +to-morrow? And that idiot of a Minervy; what do you suppose she told +me when I insisted on her staying to wash up things? She says, last +whatever you call it, her husband wanted to act hard-headed and staid +out after dark, and when he was crossing the bayou, the spirits jerked +him off his horse and dragged him up and down in the water, till he +was nearly drowned. I don't see what you're laughing at; I guess you'd +like to make out that they're in the right." + +Hosmer was perfectly aware that Fanny had had a drink, and he rightly +guessed that Morico had given it to her. But he was at a loss to +account for the increasing symptoms of intoxication that she showed. +He tried to persuade her to go to bed; but his efforts to that end +remained unheeded, till she had eased her mind of an accumulation of +grievances, mostly fancied. He had much difficulty in preventing her +from going over to give Melicent a piece of her mind about her lofty +airs and arrogance in thinking herself better than other people. And +she was very eager to tell Therese that she meant to do as she liked, +and would stand no poking of noses in her business. It was a good +while before she fell into a heavy sleep, after shedding a few maudlin +tears over the conviction that he intended to leave her again, and +clinging to his neck with beseeching enquiry whether he loved her. + +He went out on the veranda feeling much as if he had been wrestling +with a strong adversary who had mastered him, and whom he was glad to +be freed of, even at the cost of coming inglorious from the conflict. +The night was so dark, so hushed, that if ever the dead had wished to +step from their graves and take a stroll above ground, they could not +have found a more fitting hour. Hosmer walked very long in the +soothing quiet. He would have liked to walk the night through. The +last three hours had been like an acute physical pain, that was over +for the moment, and that being over, left his mind free to return to +the delicious consciousness, that he had needed to be reminded of, +that Therese loved him after all. When his measured tread upon the +veranda finally ceased to mark the passing hours, a quiet that was +almost pulseless fell upon the plantation. Place-du-Bois slept. +Perhaps the only night in the year that some or other of the negroes +did not lurk in fence corners, or make exchange of nocturnal visits. + +But out in the hills there was no such unearthly stillness reigning. +Those restless wood-dwellers, that never sleep, were sending startling +gruesome calls to each other. Bats were flapping and whirling and +darting hither and thither; the gliding serpent making quick rustle +amid the dry, crisp leaves, and over all sounded the murmur of the +great pine trees, telling their mystic secrets to the night. + +A human creature was there too, feeling a close fellowship with these +spirits of night and darkness; with no more fear in his heart than the +unheeded serpent crossing his path. Every inch of the ground he knew. +He wanted no daylight to guide him. Had his eyes been blinded he would +no doubt have bent his body close to earth and scented his way along +like the human hound that he was. Over his shoulder hung the polished +rifle that sent dull and sudden gleamings into the dark. A large tin +pail swung from his hand. He was very careful of this pail--or its +contents, for he feared to lose a drop. And when he accidentally +struck an intervening tree and spilled some upon the ground, he +muttered a curse against his own awkwardness. + +Twice since leaving his cabin up in the clearing, he had turned to +drive back his yellow skulking dog that followed him. Each time the +brute had fled in abject terror, only to come creeping again into his +master's footsteps, when he thought himself forgotten. Here was a +companion whom neither Jocint nor his mission required. Exasperated, +he seated himself on a fallen tree and whistled softly. The dog, who +had been holding back, dashed to his side, trembling with eagerness, +and striving to twist his head around to lick the hand that patted +him. Jocint's other hand glided quickly into his pocket, from which he +drew forth a coil of thin rope that he flung deftly over the animal's +head, drawing it close and tight about the homely, shaggy throat. So +quickly was the action done, that no sound was uttered, and Jocint +continued his way untroubled by his old and faithful friend, whom he +left hanging to the limb of a tree. + +He was following the same path that he traversed daily to and from the +mill, and which soon brought him out into the level with its soft +tufted grass and clumps of squat thorn trees. There was no longer the +protecting wood to screen him; but of such there was no need, for the +darkness hung about him like the magic mantle of story. Nearing the +mill he grew cautious, creeping along with the tread of a stealthy +beast, and halting at intervals to listen for sounds that he wished +not to hear. He knew there was no one on guard tonight. A movement in +the bushes near by, made him fall quick and sprawling to earth. It was +only Gregoire's horse munching the soft grass. Jocint drew near and +laid his hand on the horse's back. It was hot and reeking with sweat. +Here was a fact to make him more wary. Horses were not found in such +condition from quietly grazing of a cool autumn night. He seated +himself upon the ground, with his hands clasped about his knees, all +doubled up in a little heap, and waited there with the patience of the +savage, letting an hour go by, whilst he made no movement. + +The hour past, he stole towards the mill, and began his work of +sprinkling the contents of his pail here and there along the dry +timbers at well calculated distances, with care that no drop should be +lost. Then, he drew together a great heap of crisp shavings and +slathers, plentifully besprinkling it with what remained in the can. +When he had struck a match against his rough trousers and placed it +carefully in the midst of this small pyramid, he found that he had +done his work but too surely. The quick flame sprang into life, +seizing at once all it could reach. Leaping over intervals; effacing +the darkness that had shrouded him; seeming to mock him as a fool and +point him out as a target for heaven and earth to hurl destruction at +if they would. Where should he hide himself? He only thought now of +how he might have done the deed differently, and with safety to +himself. He stood with great beams and loose planks surrounding him; +quaking with a premonition of evil. He wanted to fly in one direction; +then thought it best to follow the opposite; but a force outside of +himself seemed to hold him fast to one spot. When turning suddenly +about, he knew it was too late, he felt that all was lost, for there +was Gregoire, not twenty paces away--covering him with the muzzle of a +pistol and--cursed luck--his own rifle along with the empty pail in +the raging fire. + +Therese was passing a restless night. She had lain long awake, +dwelling on the insistent thoughts that the day's happenings had given +rise to. The sleep which finally came to her was troubled by +dreams--demoniac--grotesque. Hosmer was in a danger from which she was +striving with physical effort to rescue him, and when she dragged him +painfully from the peril that menaced him, she turned to see that it +was Fanny whom she had saved--laughing at her derisively, and Hosmer +had been left to perish. The dream was agonizing; like an appalling +nightmare. She awoke in a fever of distress, and raised herself in bed +to shake off the unnatural impression which such a dream can leave. +The curtains were drawn aside from the window that faced her bed, and +looking out she saw a long tongue of flame, reaching far up into the +sky--away over the tree tops and the whole Southern horizon a glow. +She knew at once that the mill was burning, and it was the affair of a +moment with her to spring from her bed and don slippers and wrapper. +She knocked on Melicent's door to acquaint her with the startling +news; then hurried out into the back yard and rang the plantation +bell. + +Next she was at the cottage rousing Hosmer. But the alarm of the bell +had already awakened him, and he was dressed and out on the porch +almost as soon as Therese had called. Melicent joined them, highly +agitated, and prepared to contribute her share towards any scene that +might be going forward. But she found little encouragement for heroics +with Hosmer. In saddling his horse rather hastily he was as unmoved as +though preparing for an uneventful morning canter. He stood at the +foot of the stairs preparing to mount when Gregoire rode up as if +pursued by furies; checking his horse with a quick, violent wrench +that set it quivering in its taut limbs. + +"Well," said Hosmer, "I guess it's done for. How did it happen? who +did it?" + +"Jocint's work," answered Gregoire bitingly. + +"The damned scoundrel," muttered Hosmer, "where is he?" + +"Don' botha 'bout Jocint; he ain't goin' to set no mo' mill afire," +saying which, he turned his horse and the two rode furiously away. + +Melicent grasped Therese's arm convulsively. + +"What does he mean?" she asked in a frightened whisper. + +"I--I don't know," Therese faltered. She had clasped her hands +spasmodically together, at Gregoire's words, trembling with horror of +what must be their meaning. + +"May be he arrested him," suggested the girl. + +"I hope so. Come; let's go to bed: there's no use staying out here in +the cold and dark." + +Hosmer had left the sitting-room door open, and Therese entered. She +approached Fanny's door and knocked twice: not brusquely, but +sufficiently loud to be heard from within, by any one who was awake. +No answer came, and she went away, knowing that Fanny slept. + +The unusual sound of the bell, ringing two hours past midnight--that +very deadest hour of the night--had roused the whole plantation. On +all sides squads of men and a few venturesome women were hurrying +towards the fire; the dread of supernatural encounters overcome for +the moment by such strong reality and by the confidence lent them in +each other's company. + +There were many already gathered around the mill, when Gregoire and +Hosmer reached it. All effort to save anything had been abandoned as +useless. The books and valuables had been removed from the office. The +few householders--mill-hands--whose homes were close by, had carried +their scant belongings to places of safety, but everything else was +given over to the devouring flames. + +The heat from this big raging fire was intense, and had driven most of +the gaping spectators gradually back--almost into the woods. But +there, to one side, where the fire was rapidly gaining, and making +itself already uncomfortably felt, stood a small awe-stricken group +talking in whispers; their ignorance and superstition making them +irresolute to lay a hand upon the dead Jocint. His body lay amongst +the heavy timbers, across a huge beam, with arms outstretched and head +hanging down upon the ground. The glazed eyes were staring up into the +red sky, and on his swarthy visage was yet the horror which had come +there, when he looked in the face of death. + +"In God's name, what are you doing?" cried Hosmer. "Can't some of you +carry that boy's body to a place of safety?" + +Gregoire had followed, and was looking down indifferently at the dead. +"Come, len' a han' there; this is gittin' too durn hot," he said, +stooping to raise the lifeless form. Hosmer was preparing to help him. +But there was some one staggering through the crowd; pushing men to +right and left. With now a hand upon the breast of both Hosmer and +Gregoire, and thrusting them with such force and violence, as to lay +them prone amongst the timbers. It was the father. It was old Morico. +He had awakened in the night and missed his boy. He had seen the fire; +indeed close enough that he could hear its roaring; and he knew +everything. The whole story was plain to him as if it had been told by +a revealing angel. The strength of his youth had come back to speed +him over the ground. + +"Murderers!" he cried looking about him with hate in his face. He did +not know who had done it; no one knew yet, and he saw in every man he +looked upon the possible slayer of his child. + +So here he stood over the prostrate figure; his old gray jeans hanging +loosely about him; wild eyed--with bare head clasped between his +claw-like hands, which the white disheveled hair swept over. Hosmer +approached again, offering gently to help him carry his son away. + +"Stand back," he hurled at him. But he had understood the offer. His +boy must not be left to burn like a log of wood. He bent down and +strove to lift the heavy body, but the effort was beyond his strength. +Seeing this he stooped again and this time grasped it beneath the +arms; then slowly, draggingly, with halting step, began to move +backward. + +The fire claimed no more attention. All eyes were fastened upon this +weird picture; a sight which moved the most callous to offer again and +again assistance, that was each time spurned with an added defiance. + +Hosmer stood looking on, with folded arms; moved by the grandeur and +majesty of the scene. The devouring element, loosed in its awful +recklessness there in the heart of this lonely forest. The motley +group of black and white standing out in the great red light, +powerless to do more than wait and watch. But more was he stirred to +the depths of his being, by the sight of this human tragedy enacted +before his eyes. + +Once, the old man stops in his backward journey. Will he give over? +has his strength deserted him? is the thought that seizes every +on-looker. But no--with renewed effort he begins again his slow +retreat, till at last a sigh of relief comes from the whole watching +multitude. Morico with his burden has reached a spot of safety. What +will he do next? They watch in breathless suspense. But Morico does +nothing. He only stands immovable as a carved image. Suddenly there is +a cry that reaches far above the roar of fire and crash of falling +timbers: "_Mon fils! mon garcon!_" and the old man totters and falls +backward to earth, still clinging to the lifeless body of his son. All +hasten towards him. Hosmer reaches him first. And when he gently lifts +the dead Jocint, the father this time makes no hinderance, for he too +has gone beyond the knowledge of all earthly happenings. + + + + +VII + +Melicent Leaves Place-du-Bois. + + +There had been no witness to the killing of Jocint; but there were few +who did not recognize Gregoire's hand in the affair. When met with the +accusation, he denied it, or acknowledged it, or evaded the charge +with a jest, as he felt for the moment inclined. It was a deed +characteristic of any one of the Santien boys, and if not altogether +laudable--Jocint having been at the time of the shooting unarmed--yet +was it thought in a measure justified by the heinousness of his +offense, and beyond dispute, a benefit to the community. + +Hosmer reserved the expression of his opinion. The occurrence once +over, with the emotions which it had awakened, he was inclined to look +at it from one of those philosophic stand-points of his friend +Homeyer. Heredity and pathology had to be considered in relation with +the slayer's character. He saw in it one of those interesting problems +of human existence that are ever turning up for man's contemplation, +but hardly for the exercise of man's individual judgment. He was +conscious of an inward repulsion which this action of Gregoire's +awakened in him,--much the same as a feeling of disgust for an animal +whose instinct drives it to the doing of violent deeds,--yet he made +no difference in his manner towards him. + +Therese was deeply distressed over this double tragedy: feeling keenly +the unhappy ending of old Morico. But her chief sorrow came from the +callousness of Gregoire, whom she could not move even to an avowal of +regret. He could not understand that he should receive any thing but +praise for having rid the community of so offensive and dangerous a +personage as Jocint; and seemed utterly blind to the moral aspect of +his deed. + +An event at once so exciting and dramatic as this conflagration, with +the attendant deaths of Morico and his son, was much discussed amongst +the negroes. They were a good deal of one opinion in regard to Jocint +having been only properly served in getting "w'at he done ben lookin' +fu' dis long time." Gregoire was rather looked upon as a clever +instrument in the Lord's service; and the occurrence pointed a moral +which they were not likely to forget. + +The burning of the mill entailed much work upon Hosmer, to which he +turned with a zest--an absorption that for the time excluded +everything else. + +Melicent had shunned Gregoire since the shooting. She had avoided +speaking with him--even looking at him. During the turmoil which +closely followed upon the tragic event, this change in the girl had +escaped his notice. On the next day he suspected it only. But the +third day brought him the terrible conviction. He did not know that +she was making preparations to leave for St. Louis, and quite +accidentally overheard Hosmer giving an order to one of the unemployed +mill hands to call for her baggage on the following morning before +train time. + +As much as he had expected her departure, and looked painfully forward +to it, this certainty--that she was leaving on the morrow and without +a word to him--bewildered him. He abandoned at once the work that was +occupying him. + +"I didn' know Miss Melicent was goin' away to-morrow," he said in a +strange pleading voice to Hosmer. + +"Why, yes," Hosmer answered, "I thought you knew. She's been talking +about it for a couple of days." + +"No, I didn' know nothin' 'tall 'bout it," he said, turning away and +reaching for his hat, but with such nerveless hand that he almost +dropped it before placing it on his head. + +"If you're going to the house," Hosmer called after him, "tell +Melicent that Woodson won't go for her trunks before morning. She +thought she'd need to have them ready to-night." + +"Yes, if I go to the house. I don' know if I'm goin' to the house or +not," he replied, walking listlessly away. + +Hosmer looked after the young man, and thought of him for a moment: of +his soft voice and gentle manner--perplexed that he should be the same +who had expressed in confidence the single regret that he had not been +able to kill Jocint more than once. + +Gregoire went directly to the house, and approached that end of the +veranda on which Melicent's room opened. A trunk had already been +packed and fastened and stood outside, just beneath the low-silled +window that was open. Within the room, and also beneath the window, +was another trunk, before which Melicent kneeled, filling it more or +less systematically from an abundance of woman's toggery that lay in a +cumbrous heap on the floor beside her. Gregoire stopped at the window +to tell her, with a sad attempt at indifference: + +"Yo' brotha says don't hurry packin'; Woodson ain't goin' to come fur +your trunks tell mornin'." + +"All right, thank you," glancing towards him for an instant carelessly +and going on with her work. + +"I didn' know you was goin' away." + +"That's absurd: you knew all along I was going away," she returned, +with countenance as expressionless as feminine subtlety could make it. + +"W'y don't you let somebody else do that? Can't you come out yere a +w'ile?" + +"No, I prefer doing it myself; and I don't care to go out." + +What could he do? what could he say? There were no convenient depths +in his mind from which he might draw at will, apt and telling speeches +to taunt her with. His heart was swelling and choking him, at sight of +the eyes that looked anywhere, but in his own; at sight of the lips +that he had one time kissed, pressed into an icy silence. She went on +with her task of packing, unmoved. He stood a while longer, silently +watching her, his hat in his hands that were clasped behind him, and a +stupor of grief holding him vise-like. Then he walked away. He felt +somewhat as he remembered to have felt oftentimes as a boy, when ill +and suffering, his mother would put him to bed and send him a cup of +bouillon perhaps, and a little negro to sit beside him. It seemed very +cruel to him now that some one should not do something for him--that +he should be left to suffer this way. He walked across the lawn over +to the cottage, where he saw Fanny pacing slowly up and down the +porch. + +She saw him approach and stood in a patch of sunlight to wait for him. +He really had nothing to say to her as he stood grasping two of the +balustrades and looking up at her. He wanted somebody to talk to him +about Melicent. + +"Did you know Miss Melicent was goin' away?" + +Had it been Hosmer or Therese asking her the question she would have +replied simply "yes," but to Gregoire she said "yes; thank Goodness," +as frankly as though she had been speaking to Belle Worthington. "I +don't see what's kept her down here all this time, anyway." + +"You don't like her?" he asked, stupefied at the strange possibility +of any one not loving Melicent to distraction. + +"No. You wouldn't either, if you knew her as well as I do. If she +likes a person she goes on like a lunatic over them as long as it +lasts; then good-bye John! she'll throw them aside as she would an old +dress." + +"Oh, I believe she thinks a heap of Aunt Therese." + +"All right; you'll see how much she thinks of Aunt Therese. And the +people she's been engaged to! There ain't a worse flirt in the city of +St. Louis; and always some excuse or other to break it off at the last +minute. I haven't got any use for her, Lord knows. There ain't much +love lost between us." + +"Well, I reckon she knows they ain't anybody born, good enough fur +her?" he said, thinking of those engagements that she had shattered. + +"What was David doing?" Fanny asked abruptly. + +"Writin' lettas at the sto'." + +"Did he say when he was coming?" + +"No." + +"Do you guess he'll come pretty soon?" + +"No, I reckon not fur a good w'ile." + +"Is Melicent with Mrs. Laferm?" + +"No; she's packin' her things." + +"I guess I'll go sit with Mrs. Laferm, d'you think she'll mind?" + +"No, she'll be glad to have you." + +Fanny crossed over to go join Therese. She liked to be with her when +there was no danger of interruption from Melicent, and Gregoire went +wandering aimlessly about the plantation. + +He staked great hopes on what the night might bring for him. She would +melt, perhaps, to the extent of a smile or one of her old glances. He +was almost cheerful when he seated himself at table; only he and his +aunt and Melicent. He had never seen her look so handsome as now, in a +woolen gown that she had not worn before, of warm rich tint, that +brought out a certain regal splendor that he had not suspected in her. +A something that she seemed to have held in reserve till this final +moment. But she had nothing for him--nothing. All her conversation was +addressed to Therese; and she hurried away from table at the close of +the meal, under pretext of completing her arrangements for departure. + +"Doesn't she mean to speak to me?" he asked fiercely of Therese. + +"Oh, Gregoire, I see so much trouble around me; so many sad mistakes, +and I feel so powerless to right them; as if my hands were tied. I +can't help you in this; not now. But let me help you in other ways. +Will you listen to me?" + +"If you want to help me, Aunt," he said stabbing his fork into a piece +of bread before him, "go and ask her if she doesn't mean to talk to +me: if she won't come out on the gallery a minute." + +"Gregoire wants to know if you won't go out and speak to him a moment, +Melicent," said Therese entering the girl's room. "Do as you wish, of +course. But remember you are going away to-morrow; you'll likely never +see him again. A friendly word from you now, may do more good than you +imagine. I believe he's as unhappy at this moment as a creature can +be!" + +Melicent looked at her horrified. "I don't understand you at all, Mrs. +Lafirme. Think what he's done; murdered a defenseless man! How can you +have him near you--seated at your table? I don't know what nerves you +have in your bodies, you and David. There's David, hobnobbing with +him. Even that Fanny talking to him as if he were blameless. Never! If +he were dying I wouldn't go near him." + +"Haven't you a spark of humanity in you?" asked Therese, flushing +violently. + +"Oh, this is something physical," she replied, shivering, "let me +alone." + +Therese went out to Gregoire, who stood waiting on the veranda. She +only took his hand and pressed it telling him good-night, and he knew +that it was a dismissal. + +There may be lovers, who, under the circumstances, would have felt +sufficient pride to refrain from going to the depot on the following +morning, but Gregoire was not one of them. He was there. He who only a +week before had thought that nothing but her constant presence could +reconcile him with life, had narrowed down the conditions for his +life's happiness now to a glance or a kind word. He stood close to the +steps of the Pullman car that she was about to enter, and as she +passed him he held out his hand, saying "Good-bye." But he held his +hand to no purpose. She was much occupied in taking her valise from +the conductor who had hoisted her up, and who was now shouting in +stentorian tones "All aboard," though there was not a soul with the +slightest intention of boarding the train but herself. + +She leaned forward to wave good-bye to Hosmer, and Fanny, and Therese, +who were on the platform; then she was gone. + +Gregoire stood looking stupidly at the vanishing train. + +"Are you going back with us?" Hosmer asked him. Fanny and Therese had +walked ahead. + +"No," he replied, looking at Hosmer with ashen face, "I got to go fine +my hoss." + + + + +VIII + +With Loose Rein. + + +"De Lord be praised fu' de blessin's dat he showers down 'pon us," was +Uncle Hiram's graceful conclusion of his supper, after which he pushed +his empty plate aside regretfully, and addressed Aunt Belindy. +" 'Pears to me, Belindy, as you reached a pint wid dem bacon an' greens +to-night, dat you never tetched befo'. De pint o' de flavorin' is w'at +I alludes to." + +"All de same, dat ain't gwine to fetch no mo'," was the rather uncivil +reply to this neat compliment to her culinary powers. + +"Dah!" cried the youthful Betsy, who formed one of the trio gathered +together in the kitchen at Place-du-Bois. "Jis listen (to) Unc' Hiurm! +Aunt B'lindy neva tetched a han' to dem bacon an' greens. She tole me +out o' her own mouf to put'em on de fiar; she warn't gwine pesta wid +'em." + +"Warn't gwine pesta wid 'em?" administering a cuff on the ear of the +too communicative Betsy, that sent her sprawling across the table. +"T'inks I'se gwine pesta wid you--does you? Messin' roun' heah in de +kitchin' an' ain't tu'ned down a bed or drawed a bah, or done a lick +o' yo' night wurk yit." + +"I is done my night wurk, too," returned Betsy whimpering but +defiantly, as she retreated beyond reach of further blows from Aunt +Belindy's powerful right hand. + +"Dat harshness o' yourn, Belindy, is wat's a sourin' yo' tempa, an' a +turnin' of it intur gall an' wormwood. Does you know wat de Scripture +tells us of de wrathful woman?" + +"Whar I got time to go a foolin' wid Scripture? W'at I wants to know; +whar dat Pierson boy, he don't come. He ben gone time 'nough to walk +to Natch'toches an' back." + +"Ain't dat him I years yonda tu de crib?" suggestod Betsy, coming to +join Aunt Belindy in the open doorway. + +"You heahs mos' too much fu' yo' own good, you does, gal." + +But Betsy was right. For soon a tall, slim negro, young and coal +black, mounted the stairs and came into the kitchen, where he +deposited a meal bag filled with various necessities that he had +brought from Centerville. He was one of the dancers who had displayed +their skill before Melicent and Gregoire. Uncle Hiram at once accosted +him. + +"Well, Pierson, we jest a ben a wonderin' consarnin' you. W'at was de +'casion o' dat long delay?" + +"De 'casion? W'y man alive, I couldn't git a dog gone soul in de town +to wait on me." + +"Dat boy kin lie, yas," said Aunt Belindy, "God A'mighty knows ever +time I ben to Centaville dem sto' keepas ain't done a blessed t'ing +but settin' down." + +"Settin' down--Lord! dey warn't settin' down to-day; you heah me." + +"W'at dey doin' ef dey ain't settin' down, Unc' Pierson?" asked Betsy +with amiable curiosity. + +"You jis drap dat 'uncle,' you," turning wrathfully upon the girl, +"sence w'en you start dat new trick?" + +"Lef de chile 'lone, Pierson, lef 'er alone. Come heah, Betsy, an' set +by yo' Uncle Hiurm." + +From the encouraging nearness of Uncle Hiram, she ventured to ask +"w'at you 'low dey doin' ef dey ain't settin' down?" this time without +adding the offensive title. + +"Dey flyin' 'roun', Lord! dey hidin' dey sef! dey gittin' out o' de +way, I tell you. Gregor jis ben a raisin' ole Cain in Centaville." + +"I know'd it; could a' tole you dat mese'f. My Lan'! but dats a piece, +dat Gregor," Aunt Belindy enunciated between paroxysms of laughter, +seating herself with her fat arms resting on her knees, and her whole +bearing announcing pleased anticipation. + +"Dat boy neva did have no car' fur de salvation o' his soul," groaned +Uncle Hiram. + +"W'at he ben a doin' yonda?" demanded Aunt Belindy impatiently. + +"Well," said Pierson, assuming a declamatory air and position in the +middle of the large kitchen, "he lef' heah--w'at time he lef heah, +Aunt B'lindy?" + +"He done lef' fo' dinna, 'caze I seed 'im a lopin' to'ads de riva, +time I flung dat Sampson boy out o' de doo', bringin' dem greens in +heah 'dout washin' of 'em." + +"Dat's so; it war good dinna time w'en he come a lopin' in town. Dat +hoss look like he ben swimmin' in Cane Riva, he done ride him so hard. +He fling he se'f down front o' Grammont's sto' an' he come a stompin' +in, look like gwine hu't somebody. Ole Grammont tell him, 'How you +come on, Gregor? Come ova tu de house an' eat dinna wid us: de ladies +be pleas tu see you.' " + +"Humph," muttered Aunt Belindy, "dem Grammont gals be glad to see any +t'ing dat got breeches on; lef 'lone good lookin' piece like dat +Gregor." + +"Gregor, he neva sey, 'Tank you dog,' jis' fling he big dolla down on +de counta an' 'low 'don't want no dinna: gimme some w'iskey.' " + +"Yas, yas, Lord," from Aunt Belindy. + +"Ole Grammont, he push de bottle to'ads 'im, an' I 'clar to Goodness +ef he didn' mos fill dat tumbla to de brim, an' drink it down, neva +blink a eye. Den he tu'n an treat ev'y las' w'ite man stan'in' roun'; +dat ole kiarpenta man; de blacksmif; Marse Verdon. He keep on a +treatin'; Grammont, he keep a handin' out de w'iskey; Gregor he keep +on a drinkin' an a treatin'--Grammont, he keep a handin' out; don't +make no odds tu him s'long uz dat bring de money in de draw. I ben a +stan'in' out on de gallery, me, a peekin' in. An' Gregor, he cuss and +swar an' he kiarry on, an 'low he want play game poka. Den dey all +goes a trompin' in de back room an' sets down roun' de table, an' I +comes a creepin' in, me, whar I kin look frough de doo', an dar dey +sets an' plays an Gregor, he drinks w'iskey an' he wins de money. An' +arta w'ile Marse Verdon, he little eyes blinkin', he 'low', 'y' all +had a shootin' down tu Place-du-Bois, _hein_ Gregor?' Gregor, he neva +say nuttin': he jis' draw he pistol slow out o' he pocket an' lay it +down on de table; an' he look squar in Marse Verdon eyes. Man! ef you +eva seed some pussun tu'n' w'ite!" + +"Reckon dat heifa 'Milky' look black side li'le Verdon dat time," +chuckled Aunt Belindy. + +"Jis' uz w'ite uz Unc' Hiurm's shurt an' a trimblin', an' neva say no +mo' 'bout shootin'. Den ole Grammont, he kine o' hang back an' say, +'You git de jestice de peace, 'hine you, kiarrin' conceal' weepons dat +a-way, Gregor.' " + +"Dat ole Grammont, he got to git he gab in ef he gwine die fu' it," +interrupted Aunt Belindy. + +"Gregor say--'I don't 'lows to kiarr no conceal' weepons,' an he draw +nudda pistol slow out o' he udda pocket an' lay et on de table. By dat +time he gittin' all de money, he crammin' de money in he pocket; an' +dem fellas dey gits up one arta d'udda kine o' shy-like, an' sneaks +out. Den Gregor, he git up an come out o' de room, he coat 'crost he +arm, an' de pistols a stickin' out an him lookin' sassy tell ev'y body +make way, same ef he ben Jay Goul'. Ef he look one o' 'em in de eye +dey outs wid, 'Howdy, Gregor--how you come on, Gregor?' jis' uz pelite +uz a peacock, an' him neva take no trouble to yansa 'em. He jis' holla +out fu' somebody bring dat hoss tu de steps, an' him stan'in' 's big +uz life, waitin'. I gits tu de hoss fus', me, an' leads 'im up, an' he +gits top dat hoss stidy like he ain't tetch a drap, an' he fling me +big dolla." + +"Whar de dolla, Mista Pierson?" enquired Betsy. + +"De dolla in my pocket, an' et gwine stay dah. Didn' ax you fu' no +'Mista Pierson.' Whar yu' all tink he went on dat hoss?" + +"How you reckon we knows whar he wint; we wasn't dah," replied Aunt +Belindy. + +"He jis' went a lopin' twenty yards down to Chartrand's sto'. I goes +on 'hine 'im see w'at he gwine do. Dah he git down f'um de hoss an' go +a stompin' in de sto'--eve'ybody stan'in' back jis' same like fu' Jay +Goul', an' he fling bill down on de counta an' 'low, 'Fill me up a +bottle, Chartrand, I'se gwine travelin'.' Den he 'lows, 'You treats +eve'y las' man roun' heah at my 'spence, black an' w'ite--nuttin' fu' +me,' an' he fole he arms an' lean back on de counta, jis' so. +Chartrand, he look skeerd, he say 'Francois gwine wait on you.' But +Gregor, he 'low he don't wants no rusty skileton a waitin' on him w'en +he treat, 'Wait on de gemmen yo'se'f--step up gemmen.' Chartrand 'low, +'Damn ef nigga gwine drink wid w'ite man in dat sto',' all same he +kine git 'hine box tu say dat." + +"Lord, Lord, de ways o' de transgressor!" groaned Uncle Hiram. + +"You want to see dem niggas sneaking 'way," resumed Pierson, "dey +knows Gregor gwine fo'ce 'em drink; dey knows Chartrand gwine make it +hot fu' 'em art'ards ef dey does. Gregor he spie me jis' I'se tryin' +glide frough de doo' an he call out, 'Yonda a gemmen f'um +Place-du-Bois; Pierson, come heah; you'se good 'nough tu drink wid any +w'ite man, 'cept me; you come heah, take drink wid Mr. Louis +Chartrand.' + +"I 'lows don't wants no drink, much 'bleege, Marse Gregor'. 'Yis, you +wants drink,' an' 'id dat he draws he pistol. 'Mista Chartrand want +drink, too. I done owe Mista Chartrand somethin' dis long time; I'se +gwine pay 'im wid a treat,' he say. Chartrand look like he on fiar, he +so red, he so mad, he swell up same like ole bull frog." + +"Dat make no odd," chuckled Aunt Belindy, "he gwine drink wid nigga ef +Gregor say so." + +"Yes, he drink, Lord, only he cuss me slow, an' 'low he gwine break my +skull." + +"Lordy! I knows you was jis' a trimblin', Mista Pierson." + +"Warn't trimblin' no mo' 'en I'se trimblin' dis minute, an' you drap +dat 'Mista.' Den w'at you reckon? Yonda come Pere Antoine; he come an' +stan' in de doo' an' he hole up he han'; look like he ain't 'feard no +body an' he 'low: 'Gregor Sanchun, how is you dar' come in dis heah +peaceful town frowin' of it into disorda an' confusion? Ef you isn't +'feard o' man; hasn't you got no fear o' God A'mighty wat punishes?' " + +"Gregor, he look at 'im an' he say cool like, 'Howdy, Pere Antoine; +how you come on?' He got he pistol w'at he draw fu' make Chartrand +drink wid dis heah nigga,--he foolin' wid it an' a rubbin' it up and +down he pants, an' he 'low 'Dis a gemmen w'at fit to drink wid a +Sanchun--w'at'll you have?' But Pere Antoine, he go on makin' a su'mon +same like he make in chu'ch, an' Gregor, he lean he two arm back on de +counta--kine o' smilin' like, an' he say, 'Chartrand, whar dat bottle +I orda you put up?' Chartrand bring de bottle; Gregor, he put de +bottle in he coat pocket wat hang on he arm--car'ful. + +"Pere Antoine, he go on preachin', he say, 'I tell you dis young man, +you 'se on de big road w'at leads tu hell.' + +"Den Gregor straight he se'f up an' walk close to Pere Antoine an' he +say, 'Hell an' damnation dar ain't no sich a place. I reckon she know; +w'at you know side o' her. She say dar ain't no hell, an' ef you an' +de Archbishop an' de Angel Gabriel come along an' 'low dey a hell, you +all liars,' an' he say, 'Make way dah, I'se a gittin' out o' heah; dis +ain't no town fittin' to hol' a Sanchun. Make way ef you don' wants to +go to Kingdom come fo' yo' time.' + +"Well, I 'lows dey did make way. Only Pere Antoine, he look mighty +sorry an' down cas'. + +"Gregor go out dat sto' taking plenty room, an' walkin' car'ful like, +an' he swing he se'f on de hoss; den he lean down mos' flat an' stick +he spurs in dat hoss an' he go tar'in' like de win' down street, out +o' de town, a firin' he pistol up in de a'r." + +Uncle Hiram had listened to the foregoing recital with troubled +countenance, and with many a protesting groan. He now shook his old +white head, and heaved a deep sigh. "All dat gwine come hard an' heavy +on de madam. She don't desarve it--God knows, she don't desarve it." + +"How you, ole like you is, kin look fu' somethin' diffunt, Unc' +Hiurm?" observed Aunt Belindy philosophically. "Don't you know Gregor +gwine be Gregor tell he die? Dat's all dar is 'bout it." + +Betsy arose with the sudden recollection that she had let the time +pass for bringing in Miss Therese's hot water, and Pierson went to the +stove to see what Aunt Belindy had reserved for him in the shape of +supper. + + + + +IX + +The Reason Why. + + +Sampson, the young colored boy who had lighted Fanny's fire on the +first day of her arrival at Place-du-Bois, and who had made such +insinuating advances of friendliness towards her, had continued to +attract her notice and good will. He it was who lighted her fires on +such mornings as they were needed. For there had been no winter. In +mid-January, the grass was fresh and green; trees and plants were +putting forth tender shoots, as if in welcome to spring; roses were +blossoming, and it was a veritable atmosphere of Havana rather than of +central Louisiana that the dwellers at Place-du-Bois were enjoying. +But finally winter made tardy assertion of its rights. One morning +broke raw and black with an icy rain falling, and young Sampson +arriving in the early bleakness to attend to his duties at the +cottage, presented a picture of human distress to move the most +hardened to pity. Though dressed comfortably in the clothing with +which Fanny had apparelled him--he was ashen. Save for the chattering +of his teeth, his body seemed possessed of a paralytic inability to +move. He knelt before the empty fire-place as he had done on that +first day, and with deep sighs and groans went about his work. Then he +remained long before the warmth that he had kindled; even lying full +length upon the soft rug, to bask in the generous heat that permeated +and seemed to thaw his stiffened limbs. + +Next, he went quietly into the bedroom to attend to the fire there. +Hosmer and Fanny were still sleeping. He approached a decorated basket +that hung against the wall; a receptacle for old newspapers and odds +and ends. He drew something from his rather capacious coat pocket, +and, satisfying himself that Hosmer slept, thrust it in the bottom of +the basket, well covered by the nondescript accumulation that was +there. + +The house was very warm and cheerful when they arose, and after +breakfasting Hosmer felt unusually reluctant to quit his fire-side and +face the inclement day; for an unaccustomed fatigue hung upon his +limbs and his body was sore, as from the effect of bruises. But he +went, nevertheless, well encased in protective rubber; and as he +turned away from the house, Fanny hastened to the hanging basket, and +fumbling nervously in its depths, found what the complaisant Sampson +had left for her. + +The cold rain had gradually changed into a fine mist, that in +descending, spread an icy coat upon every object that it touched. When +Hosmer returned at noon, he did not leave the house again. + +During the afternoon Therese knocked at Fanny's door. She was +enveloped in a long hooded cloak, her face glowing from contact with +the sharp moist air, and myriad crystal drops clinging to her fluffy +blonde hair that looked very golden under the dark hood that covered +it. She wanted to learn how Fanny accepted this unpleasant change of +atmospheric conditions, intending to bear her company for the +remainder of the day if she found her depressed, as was often the +case. + +"Why, I didn't know you were home," she said, a little startled, to +Hosmer who opened the door to her. "I came over to show Mrs. Hosmer +something pretty that I don't suppose she ever saw before." It was a +branch from a rose-tree, bearing two open blossoms and a multitude of +buds, creamy pink, all encased in an icy transparency that gleamed +like diamonds. "Isn't it exquisite?" she said, holding the spray up +for Fanny's admiration. But she saw at a glance that the spirit of +Disorder had descended and settled upon the Hosmer household. + +The usually neat room was in a sad state of confusion. Some of the +pictures had been taken from the walls, and were leaning here and +there against chairs and tables. The mantel ornaments had been removed +and deposited at random and in groups about the room. On the hearth +was a pail of water in which swam a huge sponge; and Fanny sat beside +the center-table that was piled with her husband's wearing apparel, +holding in her lap a coat which she had evidently been passing under +inspection. Her hair had escaped from its fastenings; her collar was +hooked awry; her face was flushed and her whole bearing indicated her +condition. + +Hosmer took the frozen spray from Therese's hand, and spoke a little +about the beauty of the trees, especially the young cedars that he had +passed out in the hills on his way home. + +"It's all well and good to talk about flowers and things, Mrs. +Laferm--sit down please--but when a person's got the job that I've got +on my hands, she's something else to think about. And David here +smoking one cigar after another. He knows all I've got to do, and goes +and sends those darkies home right after dinner." + +Therese was so shocked that for a while she could say nothing; till +for Hosmer's sake she made a quick effort to appear at ease. + +"What have you to do, Mrs. Hosmer? Let me help you, I can give you the +whole afternoon," she said with an appearance of being ready for any +thing that was at hand to be done. + +Fanny turned the coat over in her lap, and looked down helplessly at a +stain on the collar, that she had been endeavoring to remove; at the +same time pushing aside with patient repetition the wisp of hair that +kept falling over her cheek. + +"Belle Worthington'll be here before we know it; her and her husband +and that Lucilla of hers. David knows how Belle Worthington is, just +as well as I do; there's no use saying he don't. If she was to see a +speck of dirt in this house or on David's clothes, or anything, why +we'd never hear the last of it. I got a letter from her," she +continued, letting the coat fall to the floor, whilst she endeavored +to find her pocket. + +"Is she coming to visit you?" asked Therese who had taken up a feather +brush, and was dusting and replacing the various ornaments that were +scattered through the room. + +"She's going down to Muddy Graw (Mardi-Gras) her and her husband and +Lucilla and she's going to stop here a while. I had that letter--I +guess I must of left it in the other room." + +"Never mind," Therese hastened to say, seeing that her whole energies +were centered on finding the letter. + +"Let me look," said Hosmer, making a movement towards the bedroom +door, but Fanny had arisen and holding out a hand to detain him she +went into the room herself, saying she knew where she'd left it. + +"Is this the reason you've kept yourself shut up here in the house so +often?" Therese asked of Hosmer, drawing near him. "Never telling me a +word of it," she went on, "it wasn't right; it wasn't kind." + +"Why should I have put any extra burden on you?" he answered, looking +down at her, and feeling a joy in her presence there, that seemed like +a guilty indulgence in face of his domestic shame. + +"Don't stay," Therese said. "Leave me here. Go to your office or over +to the house--leave me alone with her." + +Fanny returned, having found the letter, and spoke with increased +vehemence of the necessity of having the house in perfect trim against +the arrival of Belle Worthington, from whom they would never hear the +last, and so forth. + +"Well, your husband is going out, and that will give us a chance to +get things righted," said Therese encouragingly. "You know men are +always in the way at such times." + +"It's what he ought to done before; and left Suze and Minervy here," +she replied with grudging acquiescence. + +After repeated visits to the bedroom, under various pretexts, Fanny +grew utterly incapable to do more than sit and gaze stupidly at +Therese, who busied herself in bringing the confusion of the +sitting-room into some order. + +She continued to talk disjointedly of Belle Worthington and her well +known tyrannical characteristics in regard to cleanliness; finishing +by weeping mildly at the prospect of her own inability to ever reach +the high standard required by her exacting friend. + +It was far in the afternoon--verging upon night, when Therese +succeeded in persuading her that she was ill and should go to bed. She +gladly seized upon the suggestion of illness; assuring Therese that +she alone had guessed her affliction: that whatever was thought +singular in her behavior must be explained by that sickness which was +past being guessed at--then she went to bed. + +It was late when Hosmer left his office; a rough temporary shanty, put +together near the ruined mill. + +He started out slowly on his long cold ride. His physical malaise of +the morning had augmented as the day went on, and he was beginning to +admit to himself that he was "in for it." + +But the cheerless ride was lightened by a picture that had been with +him through the afternoon, and that moved him in his whole being, as +the moment approached when it might be changed to reality. He knew +Fanny's habits; knew that she would be sleeping now. Therese would not +leave her there alone in the house--of that he was sure. And he +pictured Therese at this moment seated at his fire-side. He would find +her there when he entered. His heart beat tumultuously at the thought. +It was a very weak moment with him, possibly, one in which his +unnerved condition stood for some account. But he felt that when he +saw her there, waiting for him, he would cast himself at her feet and +kiss them. He would crush her white hands against his bosom. He would +bury his face in her silken hair. She should know how strong his love +was, and he would hold her in his arms till she yield back tenderness +to his own. But--Therese met him on the steps. As he was mounting +them, she was descending; wrapped in her long cloak, her pretty head +covered by the dark hood. + +"Oh, are you going?" he asked. + +She heard the note of entreaty in his voice. + +"Yes," she answered, "I shouldn't have left her before you came; but I +knew you were here; I heard your horse's tread a moment ago. She's +asleep. Good night. Take courage and have a brave heart," she said, +pressing his hand a moment in both hers, and was gone. + +The room was as he had pictured it; order restored and the fire +blazing brightly. On the table was a pot of hot tea and a tempting +little supper laid. But he pushed it all aside and buried his face +down upon the table into his folded arms, groaning aloud. Physical +suffering; thwarted love, and at the same time a feeling of +self-condemnation, made him wish that life were ended for him. + +Fanny awoke close upon morning, not knowing what had aroused her. She +was for a little while all bewildered and unable to collect herself. +She soon learned the cause of her disturbance. Hosmer was tossing +about and his outstretched arm lay across her face, where it had +evidently been flung with some violence. She took his hand to move it +away, and it burned her like a coal of fire. As she touched him he +started and began to talk incoherently. He evidently fancied himself +dictating a letter to some insurance company, in no pleased terms--of +which Fanny caught but snatches. Then: + +"That's too much, Mrs. Lafirme; too much--too much--Don't let Gregoire +burn--take him from the fire, some one. Thirty day's credit--shipment +made on tenth," he rambled on at intervals in his troubled sleep. + +Fanny trembled with apprehension as she heard him. Surely he has brain +fever she thought, and she laid her hand gently on his burning +forehead. He covered it with his own, muttering "Therese, Therese--so +good--let me love you." + + + + +X + +Perplexing Things. + + +"Lucilla!" + +The pale, drooping girl started guiltily at her mother's sharp +exclamation, and made an effort to throw back her shoulders. Then she +bit her nails nervously, but soon desisted, remembering that that +also, as well as yielding to a relaxed tendency of the spinal column, +was a forbidden indulgence. + +"Put on your hat and go on out and get a breath of fresh air; you're +as white as milk-man's cream." + +Lucilla rose and obeyed her mother's order with the precision of a +soldier, following the directions of his commander. + +"How submissive and gentle your daughter is," remarked Therese. + +"Well, she's got to be, and she knows it. Why, I haven't got to do +more than look at that girl most times for her to understand what I +want. You didn't notice, did you, how she straightened up when I +called 'Lucilla' to her? She knows by the tone of my voice what she's +got to do." + +"Most mothers can't boast of having such power over their daughters." + +"Well, I'm not the woman to stand any shenanigans from a child of +mine. I could name you dead loads of women that are just completely +walked over by their children. It's a blessing that boy of Fanny's +died, between you and I; its what I've always said. Why, Mrs. Laferm, +she couldn't any more look after a youngster than she could after a +baby elephant. By the by, what do you guess is the matter with her, +any way?" + +"How, the matter?" Therese asked; the too ready blood flushing her +face and neck as she laid down her work and looked up at Mrs. +Worthington. + +"Why, she's acting mighty queer, that's all I can say for her." + +"I haven't been able to see her for some time," Therese returned, +going back to her sewing, "but I suppose she got a little upset and +nervous over her husband; he had a few days of very serious illness +before you came." + +"Oh, I've seen her in all sorts of states and conditions, and I've +never seen her like that before. Why, she does nothing in the God's +world but whine and sniffle, and wish she was dead; it's enough to +give a person the horrors. She can't make out she's sick; I never saw +her look better in my life. She must of gained ten pounds since she +come down here." + +"Yes," said Therese, "she was looking so well, and--and I thought +everything was going well with her too, but--" and she hesitated to go +on. + +"Oh, I know what you want to say. You can't help that. No use +bothering your brains about that--now you just take my advice," +exclaimed Mrs. Worthington brusquely. + +Then she laughed so loud and suddenly that Therese, being already +nervous, pricked her finger with her needle till the blood came; a +mishap which decided her to lay aside her work. + +"If you never saw a fish out of water, Mrs. Laferm, do take a peep at +Mr. Worthington astride that horse; it's enough to make a cat expire!" + +Mrs. Worthington was on the whole rather inclined to take her husband +seriously. As often as he might excite her disapproval, it was seldom +that he aroused her mirth. So it may be gathered that his appearance +in this unfamiliar role of horseman was of the most mirth-provoking. + +He and Hosmer were dismounting at the cottage, which decided Mrs. +Worthington to go and look after them; Fanny for the time being--in +her opinion--not having "the gumption to look after a sick kitten." + +"This is what I call solid comfort," she said looking around the well +appointed sitting-room, before quitting it. + +"You ought to be a mighty happy woman, Mrs. Laferm; only I'd think +you'd die of lonesomeness, sometimes." + +Therese laughed, and told her not to forget that she expected them all +over in the evening. + +"You can depend on me; and I'll do my best to drag Fanny over; +so-long." + +When left alone, Therese at once relapsed into the gloomy train of +reflections that had occupied her since the day she had seen with her +bodily eyes something of the wretched life that she had brought upon +the man she loved. And yet that wretchedness in its refinement of +cruelty and immorality she could not guess and was never to know. +Still, she had seen enough to cause her to ask herself with a shudder +"was I right--was I right?" + +She had always thought this lesson of right and wrong a very plain +one. So easy of interpretation that the simplest minded might solve it +if they would. And here had come for the first time in her life a +staggering doubt as to its nature. She did not suspect that she was +submitting one of those knotty problems to her unpracticed judgment +that philosophers and theologians delight in disagreeing upon, and her +inability to unravel it staggered her. She tried to convince herself +that a very insistent sting of remorse which she felt, came from +selfishness--from the pain that her own heart suffered in the +knowledge of Hosmer's unhappiness. She was not callous enough to quiet +her soul with the balm of having intended the best. She continued to +ask herself only "was I right?" and it was by the answer to that +question that she would abide, whether in the stony content of +accomplished righteousness, or in an enduring remorse that pointed to +a goal in whose labyrinthine possibilities her soul lost itself and +fainted away. + +Lucilla went out to get a breath of fresh air as her mother had +commanded, but she did not go far to seek it. Not further than the end +of the back veranda, where she stood for some time motionless, before +beginning to occupy herself in a way which Aunt Belindy, who was +watching her from the kitchen window, considered highly problematical. +The negress was wiping a dish and giving it a fine polish in her +absence of mind. When her curiosity could no longer contain itself she +called out: + +"W'ats dat you'se doin' dah, you li'le gal? Come heah an' le' me see." +Lucilla turned with the startled look which seemed to be usual with +her when addressed. + +"Le' me see," repeated Aunt Belindy pleasantly. + +Lucilla approached the window and handed the woman a small square of +stiff writing paper which was stuck with myriad tiny pin-holes; some +of which she had been making when interrupted by Aunt Belindy. + +"W'at in God A'Mighty's name you call dat 'ar?" the darkey asked +examining the paper critically, as though expecting the riddle would +solve itself before her eyes. + +"Those are my acts I've been counting," the girl replied a little +gingerly. + +"Yo' ax? I don' see nuttin' 'cep' a piece o' papah plum fill up wid +holes. W'at you call ax?" + +"Acts--acts. Don't you know what acts are?" + +"How you want me know? I neva ben to no school whar you larn all dat." + +"Why, an act is something you do that you don't want to do--or +something you don't want to do, that you do--I mean that you don't do. +Or if you want to eat something and don't. Or an aspiration; that's an +act, too." + +"Go long! W'ats dat--aspiration?" + +"Why, to say any kind of little prayer; or if you invoke our Lord, or +our Blessed Lady, or one of the saints, that's an aspiration. You can +make them just as quick as you can think--you can make hundreds and +hundreds in a day." + +"My Lan'! Dat's w'at you'se studyin' 'bout w'en you'se steppin' 'roun' +heah like a droopy pullet? An' I t'ought you was studyin' 'bout dat +beau you lef' yonda to Sent Lous." + +"You mustn't say such things to me; I'm going to be a religious." + +"How dat gwine henda you have a beau ef you'se religious?" + +"The religious never get married," turning very red, "and don't live +in the world like others." + +"Look heah, chile, you t'inks I'se fool? Religion--no religion, whar +you gwine live ef you don' live in de word? Gwine live up in de moon?" + +"You're a very ignorant person," replied Lucilla, highly offended. "A +religious devotes her life to God, and lives in the convent." + +"Den w'y you neva said 'convent'? I knows all 'bout convent. W'at you +gwine do wid dem ax w'en de papah done all fill up?" handing the +singular tablet back to her. + +"Oh," replied Lucilla, "when I have thousands and thousands I gain +twenty-five years' indulgence." + +"Is dat so?" + +"Yes," said the girl; and divining that Aunt Belindy had not +understood, "twenty-five years that I don't have to go to purgatory. +You see most people have to spend years and years in purgatory, before +they can get to Heaven." + +"How you know dat?" + +If Aunt Belindy had asked Lucilla how she knew that the sun shone, she +could not have answered with more assurance "because I know" as she +turned and walked rather scornfully away. + +"W'at dat kine o' fool talk dey larns gals up yonda tu Sent Lous? An' +huh ma a putty woman; yas, bless me; all dress up fittin' to kill. +Don' 'pear like she studyin' 'bout ax." + + + + +XI + +A Social Evening. + + +Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Duplan with their little daughter Ninette, who had +been invited to Place-du-Bois for supper, as well as for the evening, +were seated with Therese in the parlor, awaiting the arrival of the +cottage guests. They had left their rather distant plantation, Les +Chenieres, early in the afternoon, wishing as usual to make the most +of these visits, which, though infrequent, were always so much +enjoyed. + +The room was somewhat altered since that summer day when Therese had +sat in its cool shadows, hearing the story of David Hosmer's life. +Only with such difference, however, as the change of season called +for; imparting to it a rich warmth that invited to sociability and +friendly confidences. In the depths of the great chimney glowed with a +steady and dignified heat, the huge back-log, whose disposal Uncle +Hiram had superintended in person; and the leaping flames from the dry +hickories that surrounded it, lent a very genial light to the +grim-visaged Lafirmes who looked down from their elevation on the +interesting group gathered about the hearth. + +Conversation had never once flagged with these good friends; for, +aside from much neighborhood gossip to be told and listened to, there +was the always fertile topic of "crops" to be discussed in all its +bearings, that touched, in its local and restricted sense, the labor +question, cultivation, freight rates, and the city merchant. + +With Mrs. Duplan there was a good deal to be said about the unusual +mortality among "Plymouth-Rocks" owing to an alarming prevalence of +"pip," which malady, however, that lady found to be gradually yielding +to a heroic treatment introduced into her _basse-cour_ by one Coulon, +a piney wood sage of some repute as a mystic healer. + +This was a delicate refined little woman, somewhat old-fashioned and +stranded in her incapability to keep pace with the modern conduct of +life; but giving her views with a pretty self-confidence, that showed +her a ruler in her peculiar realm. + +The young Ninette had extended herself in an easy chair, in an +attitude of graceful abandonment, the earnest brown eyes looking +eagerly out from under a tangle of auburn hair, and resting with +absorbed admiration upon her father, whose words and movements she +followed with unflagging attentiveness. The fastidious little miss was +clad in a dainty gown that reached scarcely below the knees; revealing +the shapely limbs that were crossed and extended to let the well shod +feet rest upon the polished brass fender. + +Therese had given what information lay within her range, concerning +the company which was expected. But her confidences had plainly been +insufficient to prepare Mrs. Duplan for the startling effect produced +by Mrs. Worthington on that little woman in her black silk of a +by-gone fashion; so splendid was Mrs. Worthington's erect and imposing +figure, so blonde her blonde hair, so bright her striking color and so +comprehensive the sweep of her blue and scintillating gown. Yet was +Mrs. Worthington not at ease, as might be noticed in the unnatural +quaver of her high-pitched voice and the restless motion of her hands, +as she seated herself with an arm studiedly resting upon the table +near by. + +Hosmer had met the Duplans before; on the occasion of a former visit +to Place-du-Bois and again at Les Chenieres when he had gone to see +the planter on business connected with the lumber trade. + +Fanny was a stranger to them and promised to remain such; for she +acknowledged her presentation with a silent bow and retreated as far +from the group as a decent concession to sociability would permit. + +Therese with her pretty Creole tact was not long in bringing these +seemingly incongruent elements into some degree of harmony. Mr. Duplan +in his courteous and rather lordly way was presently imparting to Mrs. +Worthington certain reminiscences of a visit to St. Louis twenty-five +years before, when he and Mrs. Duplan had rather hastily traversed +that interesting town during their wedding journey. Mr. Duplan's +manner had a singular effect upon Mrs. Worthington, who became +dignified, subdued, and altogether unnatural in her endeavor to adjust +herself to it. + +Mr. Worthington seated himself beside Mrs. Duplan and was soon trying +to glean information, in his eager short-sighted way, of psychological +interest concerning the negro race; such effort rather bewildering +that good lady, who could not bring herself to view the negro as an +interesting or suitable theme to be introduced into polite +conversation. + +Hosmer sat and talked good-naturedly to the little girls, endeavoring +to dispel the shyness with which they seemed inclined to view each +other--and Therese crossed the room to join Fanny. + +"I hope you're feeling better," she ventured, "you should have let me +help you while Mr. Hosmer was ill." + +Fanny looked away, biting her lip, the sudden tears coming to her +eyes. She answered with unsteady voice, "Oh, I was able to look after +my husband myself, Mrs. Laferm." + +Therese reddened at finding herself so misunderstood. "I meant in your +housekeeping, Mrs. Hosmer; I could have relieved you of some of that +worry, whilst you were occupied with your husband." + +Fanny continued to look unhappy; her features taking on that peculiar +downward droop which Therese had come to know and mistrust. + +"Are you going to New Orleans with Mrs. Worthington?" she asked, "she +told me she meant to try and persuade you." + +"No; I'm not going. Why?" looking suspiciously in Therese's face. + +"Well," laughed Therese, "only for the sake of asking, I suppose. I +thought you'd enjoy Mardi-Gras, never having seen it." + +"I'm not going anywheres unless David goes along," she said, with an +impertinent ring in her voice, and with a conviction that she was +administering a stab and a rebuke. She had come prepared to watch her +husband and Mrs. Lafirme, her heart swelling with jealous suspicion as +she looked constantly from one to the other, endeavoring to detect +signs of an understanding between them. Failing to discover such, and +loth to be robbed of her morbid feast of misery, she set her failure +down to their pre-determined subtlety. Therese was conscious of a +change in Fanny's attitude, and felt herself unable to account for it +otherwise than by whim, which she knew played a not unimportant role +in directing the manner of a large majority of women. Moreover, it was +not a moment to lose herself in speculation concerning this woman's +capricious behavior. Her guests held the first claim upon her +attentions. Indeed, here was Mrs. Worthington even now loudly +demanding a pack of cards. "Here's a gentleman never heard of +six-handed euchre. If you've got a pack of cards, Mrs. Laferm, I guess +I can show him quick enough that it can be done." + +"Oh, I don't doubt Mrs. Worthington's ability to make any startling +and pleasing revelations," rejoined the planter good humoredly, and +gallantly following Mrs. Worthington who had risen with the view of +putting into immediate effect her scheme of initiating these slow +people into the unsuspected possibilities of euchre; a game which, +however adaptable in other ways, could certainly not be indulged in by +seven persons. After each one proffering, as is usual on such +occasions, his readiness to assume the character of on-looker, Mr. +Worthington's claim to entire indifference, if not inability--confirmed +by his wife--was accepted as the most sincere, and that gentleman was +excluded and excused. + +He watched them as they seated themselves at table, even lending +assistance, in his own awkward way, to range the chairs in place. Then +he followed the game for a while, standing behind Fanny to note the +outcome of her reckless offer of "five on hearts," with only three +trumps in hand, and every indication of little assistance from her +partners, Mr. Duplan and Belle Worthington. + +At one end of the room was a long, low, well-filled book-case. Here +had been the direction of Mr. Worthington's secret and stolen glances +the entire evening. And now towards this point he finally transported +himself by gradual movements which he believed appeared unstudied and +indifferent. He was confronted by a good deal of French--to him an +unfamiliar language. Here a long row of Balzac; then, the Waverley +Novels in faded red cloth of very old date. Racine, Moliere, Bulwer +following in more modern garb; Shakespeare in a compass that promised +very small type. His quick trained glance sweeping along the shelves, +contracted into a little frown of resentment while he sent his hand +impetuously through his scant locks, standing them quite on end. + +On the very lowest shelf were five imposing volumes in dignified black +and gold, bearing the simple inscription "Lives of the Saints--Rev. A. +Butler." Upon one of them, Mr. Worthington seized, opening it at +hazard. He had fallen upon the history of St. Monica, mother of the +great St. Austin--a woman whose habits it appears had been so closely +guarded in her childhood by a pious nurse, that even the quenching of +her natural thirst was permitted only within certain well defined +bounds. This mentor used to say "you are now for drinking water, but +when you come to be mistress of the cellar, water will be despised, +but the habit of drinking will stick by you." Highly interesting, Mr. +Worthington thought, as he brushed his hair all down again the right +way and seated himself the better to learn the fortunes of the good +St. Monica who, curiously enough, notwithstanding those early +incentives to temperance, "insensibly contracted an inclination to +wine," drinking "whole cups of it with pleasure as it came in her +way." A "dangerous intemperance" which it finally pleased Heaven to +cure through the instrumentality of a maid servant taunting her +mistress with being a "wine bibber." + +Mr. Worthington did not stop with the story of Saint Monica. He lost +himself in those details of asceticism, martyrdom, superhuman +possibilities which man is capable of attaining under peculiar +conditions of life--something he had not yet "gone into." + +The voices at the card table would certainly have disturbed a man with +less power of mind concentration. For Mrs. Worthington in this +familiar employment was herself again--_con fuoco_. Here was Mr. +Duplan in high spirits; his wife putting forth little gushes of +bird-like exaltation as the fascinations of the game revealed +themselves to her. Even Hosmer and Therese were drawn for the moment +from their usual preoccupation. Fanny alone was the ghost of the +feast. Her features never relaxed from their settled gloom. She played +at hap-hazard, listlessly throwing down the cards or letting them fall +from her hands, vaguely asking what were trumps at inopportune +moments; showing that inattentiveness so exasperating to an eager +player and which oftener than once drew a sharp rebuke from Belle +Worthington. + +"Don't you wish we could play," said Ninette to her companion from her +comfortable perch beside the fire, and looking longingly towards the +card table. + +"Oh, no," replied Lucilla briefly, gazing into the fire, with hands +folded in her lap. Thin hands, showing up very white against the dull +colored "convent uniform" that hung in plain, severe folds about her +and reached to her very ankles. + +"Oh, don't you? I play often at home when company comes. And I play +cribbage and _vingt-et-un_ with papa and win lots of money from him." + +"That's wrong." + +"No, it isn't; papa wouldn't do it if it was wrong," she answered +decidedly. "Do you go to the convent?" she asked, looking critically +at Lucilla and drawing a little nearer, so as to be confidential. +"Tell me about it," she continued, when the other had replied +affirmatively. "Is it very dreadful? you know they're going to send me +soon." + +"Oh, it's the best place in the world," corrected Lucilla as eagerly +as she could. + +"Well, mamma says she was just as happy as could be there, but you see +that's so awfully long ago. It must have changed since then." + +"The convent never changes: it's always the same. You first go to +chapel to mass early in the morning." + +"Ugh!" shuddered Ninette. + +"Then you have studies," continued Lucilla. "Then breakfast, then +recreation, then classes, and there's meditation." + +"Oh, well," interrupted Ninette, "I believe anything most would suit +you, and mamma when she was little; but if I don't like it--see here, +if I tell you something will you promise never, never, to tell?" + +"Is it any thing wrong?" + +"Oh, no, not very; it isn't a real mortal sin. Will you promise?" + +"Yes," agreed Lucilla; curiosity getting something the better of her +pious scruples. + +"Cross your heart?" + +Lucilla crossed her heart carefully, though a little reluctantly. + +"Hope you may die?" + +"Oh!" exclaimed the little convent girl aghast. + +"Oh, pshaw," laughed Ninette, "never mind. But that's what Polly +always says when she wants me to believe her: 'hope I may die, Miss +Ninette.' Well, this is it: I've been saving up money for the longest +time, oh ever so long. I've got eighteen dollars and sixty cents, and +when they send me to the convent, if I don't like it, I'm going to run +away." This last and startling revelation was told in a tragic whisper +in Lucilla's ear, for Betsy was standing before them with a tray of +chocolate and coffee that she was passing around. + +"I yeard you," proclaimed Betsy with mischievous inscrutable +countenance. + +"You didn't," said Ninette defiantly, and taking a cup of coffee. + +"Yas, I did, I yeard you," walking away. + +"See here, Betsy," cried Ninette recalling the girl, "you're not going +to tell, are you?" + +"Dun know ef I isn't gwine tell. Dun know ef I isn't gwine tell Miss +Duplan dis yere ver' minute." + +"Oh Betsy," entreated Ninette, "I'll give you this dress if you don't. +I don't want it any more." + +Betsy's eyes glowed, but she looked down unconcernedly at the pretty +gown. + +"Don't spec it fit me. An' you know Miss T'rese ain't gwine let me go +flyin' roun' wid my laigs stickin' out dat away." + +"I'll let the ruffle down, Betsy," eagerly proposed Ninette. + +"Betsy!" called Therese a little impatiently. + +"Yas, 'um--I ben waitin' fu' de cups." + +Lucilla had made many an aspiration--many an "act" the while. This +whole evening of revelry, and now this last act of wicked conspiracy +seemed to have tainted her soul with a breath of sin which she would +not feel wholly freed from, till she had cleansed her spirit in the +waters of absolution. + +The party broke up at a late hour, though the Duplans had a long +distance to go, and, moreover, had to cross the high and turbid river +to reach their carriage which had been left on the opposite bank, +owing to the difficulty of the crossing. + +Mr. Duplan took occasion of a moment aside to whisper to Hosmer with +the air of a connoisseur, "fine woman that Mrs. Worthington of yours." + +Hosmer laughed at the jesting implication, whilst disclaiming it, and +Fanny looked moodily at them both, jealously wondering at the cause of +their good humor. + +Mrs. Duplan, under the influence of a charming evening passed in such +agreeable and distinguished company, was full of amiable bustle in +leaving and had many pleasant parting words to say to each, in her +pretty broken English. + +"Oh, yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Worthington to that lady, who had taken +admiring notice of the beautiful silver "Holy Angels" medal that hung +from Lucilla's neck and rested against the dark gown. "Lucilla takes +after Mr. Worthington as far as religion goes--kind of different +though, for I must say it ain't often he darkens the doors of a +church." + +Mrs. Worthington always spoke of her husband present as of a husband +absent. A peculiarity which he patiently endured, having no talent for +repartee, that he had at one time thought of cultivating. But that +time was long past. + +The Duplans were the first to leave. Then Therese stood for a while on +the veranda in the chill night air watching the others disappear +across the lawn. Mr. and Mrs. Worthington and Lucilla had all shaken +hands with her in saying good night. Fanny followed suit limply and +grudgingly. Hosmer buttoned his coat impatiently and only lifted his +hat to Therese as he helped his wife down the stairs. + +Poor Fanny! she had already taken exception at that hand pressure +which was to come and for which she watched, and now her whole small +being was in a jealous turmoil--because there had been none. + + + + +XII + +Tidings That Sting. + + +Therese felt that the room was growing oppressive. She had been +sitting all morning alone before the fire, passing in review a great +heap of household linen that lay piled beside her on the floor, +alternating this occupation with occasional careful and tender offices +bestowed upon a wee lamb that had been brought to her some hours +before, and that now lay wounded and half lifeless upon a pile of +coffee sacks before the blaze. + +A fire was hardly needed, except to dispel the dampness that had even +made its insistent way indoors, covering walls and furniture with a +clammy film. Outside, the moisture was dripping from the glistening +magnolia leaves and from the pointed polished leaves of the live-oaks, +and the sun that had come out with intense suddenness was drawing it +steaming from the shingled roof-tops. + +When Therese, finally aware of the closeness of the room, opened the +door and went out on the veranda, she saw a man, a stranger, riding +towards the house and she stood to await his approach. He belonged to +what is rather indiscriminately known in that section of the State as +the "piney-woods" genus. A rawboned fellow, lank and long of leg; as +ungroomed with his scraggy yellow hair and beard as the scrubby little +Texas pony which he rode. His big soft felt hat had done unreasonable +service as a head-piece; and the "store clothes" that hung upon his +lean person could never in their remotest freshness have masqueraded +under the character of "all wool." He was in transit, as the bulging +saddle-bags that hung across his horse indicated, as well as the rough +brown blanket strapped behind him to the animal's back. He rode up +close to the rail of the veranda near which Therese stood, and nodded +to her without offering to raise or touch his hat. She was prepared +for the drawl with which he addressed her, and even guessed at what +his first words would be. + +"You're Mrs. Laferm I 'low?" + +Therese acknowledged her identity with a bow. + +"My name's Jimson; Rufe Jimson," he went on, settling himself on the +pony and folding his long knotty hands over the hickory switch that he +carried in guise of whip. + +"Do you wish to speak to me? won't you dismount?" Therese asked. + +"I hed my dinner down to the store," he said taking her proposal as an +invitation to dine, and turning to expectorate a mouth full of tobacco +juice before continuing. "Capital sardines them air," passing his hand +over his mouth and beard in unctuous remembrance of the oily dainties. + +"I'm just from Cornstalk, Texas, on mu way to Grant. An' them roads as +I've traversed isn't what I'd call the best in a fair and square +talk." + +His manner bore not the slightest mark of deference. He spoke to +Therese as he might have spoken to one of her black servants, or as he +would have addressed a princess of royal blood if fate had ever +brought him into such unlikely contact, so clearly was the sense of +human equality native to him. + +Therese knew her animal, and waited patiently for his business to +unfold itself. + +"I reckon thar hain't no ford hereabouts?" he asked, looking at her +with a certain challenge. + +"Oh, no; its even difficult crossing in the flat," she answered. + +"Wall, I hed calc'lated continooing on this near side. Reckon I could +make it?" challenging her again to an answer. + +"There's no road on this side," she said, turning away to fasten more +securely the escaped branches of a rose-bush that twined about a +column near which she stood. + +Whether there were a road on this side or on the other side, or no +road at all, appeared to be matter of equal indifference to Mr. +Jimson, so far as his manner showed. He continued imperturbably "I +'lowed to stop here on a little matter o' business. 'Tis some out o' +mu way; more'n I'd calc'lated. You couldn't tell the ixact distance +from here to Colfax, could you?" + +Therese rather impatiently gave him the desired information, and +begged that he would disclose his business with her. + +"Wall," he said, "onpleasant news 'll keep most times tell you're +ready fur it. Thet's my way o' lookin' at it." + +"Unpleasant news for me?" she inquired, startled from her indifference +and listlessness. + +"Rather onpleasant ez I take it. I hain't a makin' no misstatement to +persume thet Gregor Sanchun was your nephew?" + +"Yes, yes," responded Therese, now thoroughly alarmed, and approaching +as close to Mr. Rufe Jimson as the dividing rail would permit, "What +of him, please?" + +He turned again to discharge an accumulation of tobacco juice into a +thick border of violets, and resumed. + +"You see a hot-blooded young feller, ez wouldn't take no more 'an give +no odds, stranger or no stranger in the town, he couldn't ixpect civil +treatment; leastways not from Colonel Bill Klayton. Ez I said to +Tozier--" + +"Please tell me as quickly as possible what has happened," demanded +Therese with trembling eagerness; steadying herself with both hands on +the railing before her. + +"You see it all riz out o' a little altercation 'twixt him and Colonel +Klayton in the colonel's store. Some says he'd ben drinkin'; others +denies it. Howsomever they did hev words risin' out o' the colonel +addressing your nephew under the title o' 'Frenchy'; which most takes +ez a insufficient cause for rilin'." + +"He's dead?" gasped Therese, looking at the dispassionate Texan with +horrified eyes. + +"Wall, yes," an admission which he seemed not yet willing to leave +unqualified; for he went on "It don't do to alluz speak out open an' +above boards, leastways not thar in Cornstalk. But I'll 'low to you, +it's my opinion the colonel acted hasty. It's true 'nough, the young +feller hed drawed, but ez I said to Tozier, thet's no reason to +persume it was his intention to use his gun." + +So Gregoire was dead. She understood it all now. The manner of his +death was plain to her as if she had seen it, out there in some +disorderly settlement. Killed by the hand of a stranger with whom +perhaps the taking of a man's life counted as little as it had once +counted with his victim. This flood of sudden and painful intelligence +staggered her, and leaning against the column she covered her eyes +with both hands, for a while forgetting the presence of the man who +had brought the sad tidings. + +But he had never ceased his monotonous unwinding. "Thar hain't no +manner o' doubt, marm," he was saying, "thet he did hev the sympathy +o' the intire community--ez far ez they was free to express +it--barrin' a few. Fur he was a likely young chap, that warn't no two +opinions o' that. Free with his money--alluz ready to set up fur a +friend. Here's a bit o' writin' thet'll larn you more o' the +pertic'lars," drawing a letter from his pocket, "writ by the Catholic +priest, by name of O'Dowd. He 'lowed you mought want proyer meetin's +and sich." + +"Masses," corrected Therese, holding out her hand for the letter. With +the other hand she was wiping away the tears that had gathered thick +in her eyes. + +"Thar's a couple more little tricks thet he sont," continued Rufe +Jimson, apparently dislocating his joints to reach the depths of his +trouser pocket, from which he drew a battered pocket book wrapped +around with an infinity of string. From the grimy folds of this +receptacle he took a small paper parcel which he placed in her hand. +It was partly unfastened, and as she opened it fully, the pent-up +tears came blindingly--for before her lay a few curling rings of soft +brown hair, and a pair of scapulars, one of which was pierced by a +tell-tale bullet hole. + +"Won't you dismount?" she presently asked again, this time a little +more kindly. + +"No, marm," said the Texan, jerking his hitherto patient pony by the +bridle till it performed feats of which an impartial observer could +scarcely have suspected it. + +"Don't reckon I could make Colfax before dark, do you?" + +"Hardly," she said, turning away, "I'm much obliged to you, Mr. +Jimson, for having taken this trouble--if the flat is on the other +side, you need only call for it." + +"Wall, good day, marm--I wish you luck," he added, with a touch of +gallantry which her tears and sweet feminine presence had inspired. +Then turning, he loped his horse rapidly forward, leaning well back in +the saddle and his elbows sawing the air. + + + + +XIII + +Melicent Hears the News. + + +It was talked about and wept about at Place-du-Bois, that Gregoire +should be dead. It seemed to them all so unbelievable. Yet, whatever +hesitancy they had in accepting the fact of his death, was perforce +removed by the convincing proof of Father O'Dowd's letter. + +None could remember but sweetness and kindness of him. Even Nathan, +who had been one day felled to earth by a crowbar in Gregoire's hand, +had come himself to look at that deed as not altogether blamable in +light of the provocation that had called it forth. + +Fanny remembered those bouquets which had been daily offered to her +forlornness at her arrival; and the conversations in which they had +understood each other so well. The conviction that he was gone away +beyond the possibility of knowing him further, moved her to tears. +Hosmer, too, was grieved and shocked, without being able to view the +event in the light of a calamity. + +No one was left unmoved by the tidings which brought a lowering cloud +even upon the brow of Aunt Belindy, to rest there the whole day. Deep +were the mutterings she hurled at a fate that could have been so +short-sighted as to remove from earth so bright an ornament as +Gregoire. Her grief further spent much of itself upon the inoffensive +Betsy, who, for some inscrutable reason was for twenty-four hours +debarred entrance to the kitchen. + +Therese seated at her desk, devoted a morning to the writing of +letters, acquainting various members of the family with the unhappy +intelligence. She wrote first to Madame Santien, living now her lazy +life in Paris, with eyes closed to the duties that lay before her and +heart choked up with an egoism that withered even the mother +instincts. It was very difficult to withhold the reproach which she +felt inclined to deal her; hard to refrain from upbraiding a +selfishness which for a life-time had appeared to Therese as criminal. + +It was a matter less nice, less difficult, to write to the +brothers--one up on the Red River plantation living as best he could; +the other idling on the New Orleans streets. But it was after all a +short and simple story to tell. There was no lingering illness to +describe; no moment even of consciousness in which harrowing last +words were to be gathered and recorded. Only a hot senseless quarrel +to be told about; the speeding of a bullet with very sure aim, +and--quick death. + +Of course, masses must be said. Father O'Dowd was properly instructed. +Pere Antoine in Centerville was addressed on the subject. The Bishop +of Natchitoches, respectfully asked to perform this last sad office +for the departed soul. And the good old priest and friend at the New +Orleans Cathedral, was informed of her desires. Not that Therese held +very strongly to this saying of masses for the dead; but it had been a +custom holding for generations in the family and which she was not +disposed to abandon now, even if she had thought of it. + +The last letter was sent to Melicent. Therese made it purposely short +and pointed, with a bare statement of facts--a dry, unemotional +telling, that sounded heartless when she read it over; but she let it +go. + + * * * * * + +Melicent was standing in her small, quaint sitting-room, her back to +the fire, and her hands clasped behind her. How handsome was this +Melicent! Pouting now, and with eyes half covered by the dark shaded +lids, as they gazed moodily out at the wild snowflakes that were +hurrying like crazy things against the warm window pane and meeting +their end there. A loose tea-gown clung in long folds about her. A +dull colored thing, save for the two broad bands of sapphire plush +hanging straight before, from throat to toe. Melicent was plainly +dejected; not troubled, nor sad, only dejected, and very much bored; a +condition that had made her yawn several times while she looked at the +falling snow. + +She was philosophizing a little. Wondering if the world this morning +were really the unpleasant place that it appeared, or if these +conditions of unpleasantness lay not rather within her own mental +vision; a train of thought that might be supposed to have furnished +her some degree of entertainment had she continued in its pursuit. But +she chose rather to dwell on her causes of unhappiness, and thus +convince herself that that unhappiness was indeed outside of her and +around her and not by any possibility to be avoided or circumvented. +There lay now a letter in her desk from David, filled with admonitions +if not reproof which she felt to be not entirely unjust, on the +disagreeable subject of Expenses. Looking around the pretty room she +conceded to herself that here had been temptations which she could not +reasonably have been expected to withstand. The temptation to lodge +herself in this charming little flat; furnish it after her own liking; +and install that delightful little old poverty-stricken English woman +as keeper of Proprieties, with her irresistible white starched caps +and her altogether delightful way of inquiring daily after that "poor, +dear, kind Mr. Hosmer." It had all cost a little more than she had +foreseen. But the worst of it, the very worst of it was, that she had +already begun to ask herself if, for instance, it were not very +irritating to see every day, that same branching palm, posing by the +window, in that same yellow jardiniere. If those draperies that +confronted her were not becoming positively offensive in the monotony +of their solemn folds. If the cuteness and quaintness of the +poverty-stricken little English woman were not after all a source of +entertainment that she would willingly forego on occasion. The answer +to these questions was a sigh that ended in another yawn. + +Then Melicent threw herself into a low easy chair by the table, took +up her visiting book, and bending lazily with her arms resting on her +knees, began to turn over its pages. The names which she saw there +recalled to her mind an entertainment at which she had assisted on the +previous afternoon. A progressive euchre party; and the remembrance of +what she had there endured now filled her soul with horror. + +She thought of those hundred cackling women--of course women are never +cackling, it was Melicent's exaggerated way of expressing +herself--packed into those small overheated rooms, around those +twenty-five little tables; and how by no chance had she once found +herself with a congenial set. And how that Mrs. Van Wycke had cheated! +It was plain to Melicent that she had taken advantage of having fat +Miss Bloomdale for a partner, who went to euchre parties only to show +her hands and rings. And little Mrs. Brinke playing against her. +Little Mrs. Brinke! A woman who only the other day had read an +original paper entitled: "An Hour with Hegel" before her philosophy +class; who had published that dry mystical affair "Light on the +Inscrutable in Dante." How could such a one by any possibility be +supposed to observe the disgusting action of Mrs. Van Wycke in +throwing off on her partner's trump and swooping down on the last +trick with her right bower? Melicent would have thought it beneath her +to more than look her contempt as Mrs. Van Wycke rose with a +triumphant laugh to take her place at a higher table, dragging the +plastic Bloomdale with her. But she did mutter to herself now, "nasty +thief." + +"Johannah," Melicent called to her maid who sat sewing in the next +room. + +"Yes, Miss." + +"You know Mrs. Van Wycke?" + +"Mrs. Van Wycke, Miss? the lady with the pinted nose that I caught +a-feeling of the curtains?" + +"Yes, when she calls again I'm not at home. Do you understand? not at +home." + +"Yes, Miss." + +It was gratifying enough to have thus summarily disposed of Mrs. Van +Wycke; but it was a source of entertainment which was soon ended. +Melicent continued to turn over the pages of her visiting book during +which employment she came to the conclusion that these people whom she +frequented were all very tiresome. All, all of them, except Miss Drake +who had been absent in Europe for the past six months. Perhaps Mrs. +Manning too, who was so seldom at home when Melicent called. Who when +at home, usually rushed down with her bonnet on, breathless with "I +can only spare you a moment, dear. It's very sweet of you to come." +She was always just going to the "Home" where things had got into such +a muddle whilst she was away for a week. Or it was that "Hospital" +meeting where she thought certain members were secretly conniving at +her removal from the presidency which she had held for so many years. +She was always reading minutes at assemblages which Melicent knew +nothing about; or introducing distinguished guests to Guild room +meetings. Altogether Melicent saw very little of Mrs. Manning. + +"Johannah, don't you hear the bell?" + +"Yes, Miss," said Johannah, coming into the room and depositing a gown +on which she had been working, on the back of a chair. "It's that +postman," she said, as she fastened her needle to the bosom of her +dress. "And such a one as he is, thinking that people must fly when he +so much as touches the bell, and going off a writing of 'no answer to +bell,' and me with my hand on the very door-knob." + +"I notice that always happens when I'm out, Johannah; he's ringing +again." + +It was Therese's letter, and as Melicent turned it about and looked +critically at the neatly written address, it was not without a hope +that the reading of it might furnish her a moment's diversion. She did +not faint. The letter did not "fall from her nerveless clasp." She +rather held it very steadily. But she grew a shade paler and looked +long into the fire. When she had read it three times she folded it +slowly and carefully and locked it away in her desk. + +"Johannah." + +"Yes, Miss." + +"Put that gown away; I shan't need it." + +"Yes, Miss; and all the beautiful passmantry that you bought?" + +"It makes no difference, I shan't use it. What's become of that black +camel's-hair that Mrs. Gauche spoiled so last winter?" + +"It's laid away, Miss, the same in the cedar chest as the day it came +home from her hands and no more fit, that I'd be a shame meself and no +claims to a dress-maker. And there's many a lady that she never would +have seen a cent, let alone making herself pay for the spiling of it." + +"Well, well, Johannah, never mind. Get it out, we'll see what can be +done with it. I've had some painful news, and I shall wear mourning +for a long, long time." + +"Oh, Miss, it's not Mr. David! nor yet one of those sweet relations in +Utica? leastways not I hope that beautiful Miss Gertrude, with such +hair as I never see for the goldness of it and not dyed, except me +cousin that's a nun, that her mother actually cried when it was cut +off?" + +"No, Johannah; only a very dear friend." + +There were a few social engagements to be cancelled; and regrets to be +sent out, which she attended to immediately. Then she turned again to +look long into the fire. That crime for which she had scorned him, was +wiped out now by expiation. For a long time--how long she could not +yet determine--she would wrap herself in garb of mourning and move +about in sorrowing--giving evasive answer to the curious who +questioned her. Now might she live again through those summer months +with Gregoire--those golden afternoons in the pine woods--whose aroma +even now came back to her. She might look again into his loving brown +eyes; feel beneath her touch the softness of his curls. She recalled a +day when he had said, "Neva to see you--my God!" and how he had +trembled. She recalled--strangely enough and for the first time--that +one kiss, and a little tremor brought the hot color to her cheek. + +Was she in love with Gregoire now that he was dead? Perhaps. At all +events, for the next month, Melicent would not be bored. + + + + +XIV + +A Step Too Far. + + +Who of us has not known the presence of Misery? Perhaps as those +fortunate ones whom he has but touched as he passed them by. It may be +that we see but a promise of him as we look into the prophetic faces +of children; into the eyes of those we love, and the awfulness of +life's possibilities presses into our souls. Do we fly him? hearing +him gain upon us panting close at our heels, till we turn from the +desperation of uncertainty to grapple with him? In close scuffle we +may vanquish him. Fleeing, we may elude him. But what if he creep into +the sanctuary of our lives, with his subtle omnipresence, that we do +not see in all its horror till we are disarmed; thrusting the burden +of his companionship upon us to the end! However we turn he is there. +However we shrink he is there. However we come or go, or sleep or wake +he is before us. Till the keen sense grows dull with apathy at looking +on him, and he becomes like the familiar presence of sin. + +Into such callousness had Hosmer fallen. He had ceased to bruise his +soul in restless endeavor of resistance. When the awful presence bore +too closely upon him, he would close his eyes and brave himself to +endurance. Yet Fate might have dealt him worse things. + +But a man's misery is after all his own, to make of it what he will or +what he can. And shall we be fools, wanting to lighten it with our +platitudes? + +My friend, your trouble I know weighs. That you should be driven by +earthly needs to drag the pinioned spirit of your days through rut and +mire. But think of the millions who are doing the like. Or is it your +boy, that part of your own self and that other dearer self, who is +walking in evil ways? Why, I know a man whose son was hanged the other +day; hanged on the gibbet; think of it. If you be quivering while the +surgeon cuts away that right arm, remember the poor devil in the +hospital yesterday who had both his sawed off. + +Oh, have done, with your mutilated men and your sons on gibbets! What +are they to me? My hurt is greater than all, because it is my own. If +it be only that day after day I must look with warm entreaty into eyes +that are cold. Let it be but that peculiar trick of feature which I +have come to hate, seen each morning across the breakfast table. That +recurrent pin-prick: it hurts. The blow that lays the heart in twain: +it kills. Let be mine which will; it is the one that counts. + +If Misery kill a man, that ends it. But Misery seldom deals so +summarily with his victims. And while they are spared to earth, we +find them usually sustaining life after the accepted fashion. + +Hosmer was seated at table, having finished his breakfast. He had also +finished glancing over the contents of a small memorandum book, which +he replaced in his pocket. He then looked at his wife sitting opposite +him, but turned rather hastily to gaze with a certain entreaty into +the big kind eyes of the great shaggy dog who stood--the shameless +beggar--at his side. + +"I knew there was something wrong," he said abruptly, with his eyes +still fixed on the dog, and his fingers thrust into the animal's +matted wool, "Where's the mail this morning?" + +"I don't know if that stupid boy's gone for it or not. I told him. You +can't depend on any one in a place like this." + +Fanny had scarcely touched the breakfast before her, and now pushed +aside her cup still half filled with coffee. + +"Why, how's that? Sampson seems to do the right thing." + +"Yes, Sampson; but he ain't here. That boy of Minervy's been doing his +work all morning." + +Minervy's boy was even now making his appearance, carrying a good +sized bundle of papers and letters, with which he walked boldly up to +Hosmer, plainly impressed with the importance of this new role. + +"Well, colonel; so you've taken Sampson's place?" Hosmer observed, +receiving the mail from the boy's little black paws. + +"My name's Major, suh. Maje; dats my name. I ain't tuck Sampson's +place: no, suh." + +"Oh, he's having a day off--" Hosmer went on, smiling quizzingly at +the dapper little darkey, and handing him a red apple from the dish of +fruit standing in the center of the table. Maje received it with a +very unmilitary bob of acknowledgment. + +"He yonda home 'cross de riva, suh. He ben too late fu' kotch de +flat's mornin' An' he holla an' holla. He know dey warn't gwine cross +dat flat 'gin jis' fu' Sampson." + +Hosmer had commenced to open his letters. Fanny with her elbows on the +table, asked the boy--with a certain uneasiness in her voice--"Ain't +he coming at all to-day? Don't he know all the work he's got to do? +His mother ought to make him." + +"Don't reckon. Dat away Sampson: he git mad he stay mad," with which +assurance Maje vanished through the rear door, towards the region of +the kitchen, to seek more substantial condiments than the apple which +he still clutched firmly. + +One of the letters was for Fanny, which her husband handed her. When +he had finished reading his own, he seemed disposed to linger, for he +took from the fruit dish the mate to the red apple he had given Maje, +and commenced to peel it with his clasp knife. + +"What has our friend Belle Worthington to say for herself?" he +inquired good humoredly. "How does she get on with those Creoles down +there?" + +"You know as well as I do, Belle Worthington ain't going to mix with +Creoles. She can't talk French if she wanted to. She says Muddy-Graw +don't begin to compare with the Veiled Prophets. It's just what I +thought--with their 'Muddy-Graw,' " Fanny added, contemptuously. + +"Coming from such high authority, we'll consider that verdict a final +clincher," Hosmer laughed a little provokingly. + +Fanny was looking again through the several sheets of Belle +Worthington's letter. "She says if I'll agree to go back with her, +she'll pass this way again." + +"Well, why don't you? A little change wouldn't hurt." + +" 'Tain't because I want to stay here, Lord knows. A God-forsaken +place like this. I guess you'd be glad enough," she added, with voice +shaking a little at her own boldness. + +He closed his knife, placed it in his pocket, and looked at his wife, +completely puzzled. + +The power of speech had come to her, for she went on, in an unnatural +tone, however, and fumbling nervously with the dishes before her. "I'm +fool enough about some things, but I ain't quite such a fool as that." + +"What are you talking about, Fanny?" + +"That woman wouldn't ask anything better than for me to go to St. +Louis." + +Hosmer was utterly amazed. He leaned his arms on the table, clasping +his hands together and looked at his wife. + +"That woman? Belle Worthington? What _do_ you mean, any way?" + +"I don't mean Belle Worthington," she said excitedly, with two deep +red spots in her cheeks. "I'm talking about Mrs. Laferm." + +He thrust his hand into his pockets and leaned back in his chair. No +amazement now, but very pale, and with terrible concentration of +glance. + +"Well, then, don't talk about Mrs. Lafirme," he said very slowly, not +taking his eyes from her face. + +"I will talk about her, too. She ain't worth talking about," she +blurted incoherently. "It's time for somebody to talk about a woman +passing herself off for a saint, and trying to take other women's +husbands--" + +"Shut up!" cried Hosmer maddened with sudden fury, and rising +violently from his chair. + +"I won't shut up," Fanny cried excitedly back at him; rising also. +"And what's more I won't stay here and have you making love under my +very eyes to a woman that's no better than she ought to be." + +She meant to say more, but Hosmer grasped her arm with such a grasp, +that had it been her throat she would never have spoken more. The +other hand went to his pocket, with fingers clutching the clasp knife +there. + +"By heaven--I'll--kill you!" every word weighted with murder, panted +close in her terrified face. What she would have uttered died upon her +pale lips, when her frightened eyes beheld the usually calm face of +her husband distorted by a passion of which she had not dreamed. + +"David," she faltered, "let go my arm." + +Her voice broke the spell that held him, and brought him again to his +senses. His fingers slowly relaxed their tense hold. A sigh that was +something between a moan and a gasp came with his deliverance and +shook him. All the horror now was in his own face as he seized his hat +and hurried speechless away. + +Fanny remained for a little while dazed. Hers was not the fine nature +that would stay cruelly stunned after such a scene. Her immediate +terror being past, the strongest resultant emotion was one of +self-satisfaction at having spoken out her mind. + +But there was a stronger feeling yet, moving and possessing her; +crowding out every other. A pressing want that only Sampson's coming +would relieve, and which bade fair to drive her to any extremity if it +were not appeased. + + + + +XV + +A Fateful Solution. + + +Hosmer passed the day with a great pain at his heart. His hasty and +violent passion of the morning had added another weight for his spirit +to drag about, and which he could not cast off. No feeling of +resentment remained with him; only wonder at his wife's misshapen +knowledge and keen self-rebuke of his own momentary forgetfulness. +Even knowing Fanny as he did, he could not rid himself of the haunting +dread of having wounded her nature cruelly. He felt much as a man who +in a moment of anger inflicts an irreparable hurt upon some small, +weak, irresponsible creature, and must bear regret for his madness. +The only reparation that lay within his power--true, one that seemed +inadequate--was an open and manly apology and confession of wrong. He +would feel better when it was made. He would perhaps find relief in +discovering that the wound he had inflicted was not so deep--so +dangerous as he feared. + +With such end in view he came home early in the afternoon. His wife +was not there. The house was deserted. Even the servants had +disappeared. It took but a moment for him to search the various rooms +and find them one after the other, unoccupied. He went out on the +porch and looked around. The raw air chilled him. The wind was blowing +violently, bringing dashes of rain along with it from massed clouds +that hung leaden between sky and earth. Could she have gone over to +the house? It was unlikely, for he knew her to have avoided Mrs. +Lafirme of late, with a persistence that had puzzled him to seek its +cause, which had only fully revealed itself in the morning Yet, where +else could she be? An undefined terror was laying hold of him. His +sensitive nature, in exaggerating its own heartlessness, was blindly +overestimating the delicacy of hers. To what may he not have driven +her? What hitherto untouched chord may he not have started into +painful quivering? Was it for him to gauge the endurance of a woman's +spirit? Fanny was not now the wife whom he hated; his own act of the +morning had changed her into the human being, the weak creature whom +he had wronged. + +In quitting the house she must have gone unprepared for the inclement +weather, for there hung her heavy wrap in its accustomed place, with +her umbrella beside it. He seized both and buttoning his own great +coat about him, hurried away and over to Mrs. Lafirme's. He found that +lady in the sitting-room. + +"Isn't Fanny here?" he asked abruptly, with no word of greeting. + +"No," she answered looking up at him, and seeing the evident +uneasiness in his face. "Isn't she at home? Is anything wrong?" + +"Oh, everything is wrong," he returned desperately, "But the immediate +wrong is that she has disappeared--I must find her." + +Therese arose at once and called to Betsy who was occupied on the +front veranda. + +"Yas, um," the girl answered to her mistress' enquiry. "I seed ma'am +Hosma goin' to'ads de riva good hour 'go. She mus' crost w'en Nathan +tuck dat load ova. I yain't seed 'er comin' back yit." + +Hosmer left the house hastily, hardly reassured by Betsy's +information. Therese's glance--speculating and uneasy--followed his +hurrying figure till it disappeared from sight. + +The crossing was an affair of extreme difficulty, and which Nathan was +reluctant to undertake until he should have gathered a "load" that +would justify him in making it. In his estimation, Hosmer did not meet +such requirement, even taken in company with the solitary individual +who had been sitting on his horse with Egyptian patience for long +unheeded moments, the rain beating down upon his back, while he waited +the ferryman's pleasure. But Nathan's determination was not proof +against the substantial inducements which Hosmer held out to him; and +soon they were launched, all hands assisting in the toilsome passage. + +The water, in rising to an unaccustomed height, had taken on an added +and tremendous swiftness. The red turbid stream was eddying and +bulging and hurrying with terrific swiftness between its shallow +banks, striking with an immensity of power against the projection of +land on which stood Marie Louise's cabin, and rebounding in great +circling waves that spread and lost themselves in the seething +turmoil. The cable used in crossing the unwieldly flat had long been +submerged and the posts which held it wrenched from their fastenings. +The three men, each with his long heavy oar in hand began to pull up +stream, using a force that brought the swelling veins like iron +tracings upon their foreheads where the sweat had gathered as if the +day were midsummer. They made their toilsome way by slow inches, that +finally landed them breathless and exhausted on the opposite side. + +What could have been the inducement to call Fanny out on such a day +and such a venture? The answer came only too readily from Hosmer's +reproaching conscience. And now, where to seek her? There was nothing +to guide him; to indicate the course she might have taken. The rain +was falling heavily and in gusts and through it he looked about at the +small cabins standing dreary in their dismantled fields. Marie +Louise's was the nearest at hand and towards it he directed his steps. + +The big good-natured negress had seen his approach from the window, +for she opened the door to him before he had time to knock, and +entering he saw Fanny seated before the fire holding a pair of very +wet smoking feet to dry. His first sensation was one of relief at +finding her safe and housed. His next, one of uncertainty as to the +kind and degree of resentment which he felt confident must now show +itself. But this last was soon dispelled, for turning, she greeted him +with a laugh. He would have rather a blow. That laugh said so many +things--too many things. True, it removed the dread which had been +haunting him all day, but it shattered what seemed to have been now +his last illusion regarding this woman. That unsounded chord which he +feared he had touched was after all but one in harmony with the rest +of her common nature. He saw too at a glance that her dominant passion +had been leading and now controlled her. And by one of those rapid +trains of thought in which odd and detached fancies, facts, +impressions and observations form themselves into an orderly sequence +leading to a final conviction--all was made plain to him that before +had puzzled him. She need not have told him her reason for crossing +the river, he knew it. He dismissed at once the attitude with which he +had thought to approach her. Here was no forgiveness to be asked of +dulled senses. No bending in expiation of faults committed. He was +here as master. + +"Fanny, what does this mean?" he asked in cold anger; with no heat +now, no passion. + +"Yaas, me tell madame, she goin' fur ketch cole si she don' mine out. +Dat not fur play dat kine wedder, no. Teck chair, M'sieur; dry +you'se'f leet beet. Me mek you one cup coffee." + +Hosmer declined the good Marie Louise's kind proffer of coffee, but he +seated himself and waited for Fanny to speak. + +"You know if you want a thing done in this place, you've got to do it +yourself. I've heard you say it myself, time and time again about +those people at the mill," she said. + +"Could it have been so urgent as to call you out on a day like this, +and with such a perilous crossing? Couldn't you have found some one +else to come for you?" + +"Who? I'd like to know. Just tell me who? It's nothing to you if we're +without servants, but I'm not going to stand it. I ain't going to let +Samp_son_ act like that without knowing what he means," said Fanny +sharply. + +"Dat Samp_son_, he one leet dev'," proffered Marie Louise, with +laudable design of shifting blame upon the easy shoulders of Sampson, +in event of the domestic jar which she anticipated. "No use try do +nuttin' 'id Sampson, M'sieur." + +"I had to know something, one way or the other," Fanny said in a tone +which carried apology, rather by courtesy than by what she considered +due. + +Hosmer walked to the window where he looked out upon the dreary, +desolate scene, little calculated to cheer him. The river was just +below; and from this window he could gaze down upon the rushing +current as it swept around the bend further up and came striking +against this projection with a force all its own. The rain was falling +still; steadily, blindingly, with wild clatter against the shingled +roof so close above their heads. It coursed in little swift rivulets +down the furrows of the almost perpendicular banks. It mingled in a +demon dance with the dull, red water. There was something inviting to +Hosmer in the scene. He wanted to be outside there making a part of +it. He wanted to feel that rain and wind beating upon him. Within, it +was stifling, maddening; with his wife's presence there, charging the +room with an atmosphere of hate that was possessing him and beginning +to course through his veins as it had never done before. + +"Do you want to go home?" he asked bluntly, turning half around. + +"You must be crazy," she replied, with a slow, upward glance out the +window, then down at her feet that were still poised on the low stool +that Marie Louise had placed for her. + +"You'd better come." He could not have said what moved him, unless it +were recklessness and defiance. + +"I guess you're dreaming, or something, David. You go on home if you +want. Nobody asked you to come after me any way. I'm able to take care +of myself, I guess. Ain't you going to take the umbrella?" she added, +seeing him start for the door empty handed. + +"Oh, it doesn't matter about the rain," he answered without a look +back as he went out and slammed the door after him. + +"M'sieur look lak he not please," said Marie Louise, with plain regret +at the turn of affairs. "You see he no lak you go out in dat kine +wedder, me know dat." + +"Oh, bother," was Fanny's careless reply. "This suits me well enough; +I don't care how long it lasts." + +She was in Marie Louise's big rocker, balancing comfortably back and +forth with a swing that had become automatic. She felt "good," as she +would have termed it herself; her visit to Sampson's hut having not +been without results tending to that condition. The warmth of the room +was very agreeable in contrast to the bleakness of out-doors. She felt +free and moved to exercise a looseness of tongue with the amiable old +negress which was not common with her. The occurrences of the morning +were gradually withdrawing themselves into a distant perspective that +left her in the attitude of a spectator rather than that of an actor. +And she laughed and talked with Marie Louise, and rocked, and rocked +herself on into drowsiness. + +Hosmer had no intention of returning home without his wife. He only +wanted to be out under the sky; he wanted to breathe, to use his +muscles again. He would go and help cross the flat if need be; an +occupation that promised him relief in physical effort. He joined +Nathan, whom he found standing under a big live-oak, disputing with an +old colored woman who wanted to cross to get back to her family before +supper time. + +"You didn' have no call to come ova in de fus' place," he was saying +to her, "you womens is alluz runnin' back'ards and for'ards like +skeard rabbit in de co'n fiel'." + +"I don' stan' no sich talk is dat f'om you. Ef you kiant tin' to yo' +business o' totin' folks w'en dey wants, you betta quit. You done +cheat Mose out o' de job, anyways; we all knows dat." + +"Mine out, woman, you gwine git hu't. Jis' le'me see Mose han'le dat +'ar flat onct: Jis' le'me. He lan' you down to de Mouf 'fo' you knows +it." + +"Let me tell you, Nathan," said Hosmer, looking at his watch, "say you +wait a quarter of an hour and if no one else comes, we'll cross Aunt +Agnes anyway." + +"Dat 'nudda t'ing ef you wants to go back, suh." + +Aunt Agnes was grumbling now at Hosmer's proposal that promised to +keep her another quarter of an hour from her expectant family, when a +big lumbering creaking wagon drove up, with its load of baled cotton +all covered with tarpaulins. + +"Dah!" exclaimed Nathan at sight of the wagon, "ef I'd 'a listened to +yo' jawin'--what?" + +"Ef you'd listen to me, you'd 'tin' to yo' business betta 'an you +does," replied Aunt Agnes, raising a very battered umbrella over her +grotesquely apparelled figure, as she stepped from under the shelter +of the tree to take her place in the flat. + +But she still met with obstacles, for the wagon must needs go first. +When it had rolled heavily into place with much loud and needless +swearing on the part of the driver who, being a white man, considered +Hosmer's presence no hindrance, they let go the chain, and once again +pulled out. The crossing was even more difficult now, owing to the +extra weight of the wagon. + +"I guess you earn your money, Nathan," said Hosmer bending and +quivering with the efforts he put forth. + +"Yas, suh, I does; an' dis job's wuf mo' 'an I gits fu' it." + +"All de same you done lef' off wurking crap sence you start it," +mumbled Aunt Agnes. + +"You gwine git hu't, woman; I done tole you dat; don' wan' listen," +returned Nathan with halting breath. + +"Who gwine hu't me?" + +Whether from tardy gallantry or from pre-occupation with his arduous +work, Nathan offered no reply to this challenge, and his silence left +Aunt Agnes in possession of the field. + +They were in full mid-stream. Hosmer and the teamster were in the fore +end of the boat; Nathan in the rear, and Aunt Agnes standing in the +center between the wagon and the protecting railing, against which she +leaned her clasped hands that still upheld the semblance of umbrella. + +The ill-mated horses stood motionless, letting fall their dejected +heads with apathetic droop. The rain was dripping from their +glistening coats, and making a great patter as it fell upon the +tarpaulins covering the cotton bales. + +Suddenly came an exclamation: "Gret God!" from Aunt Agnes, so genuine +in its amazement and dismay, that the three men with one accord looked +quickly up at her, then at the point on which her terrified gaze was +fixed. Almost on the instant of the woman's cry, was heard a shrill, +piercing, feminine scream. + +What they saw was the section of land on which stood Marie Louise's +cabin, undermined--broken away from the main body and gradually +gliding into the water. It must have sunk with a first abrupt wrench, +for the brick chimney was shaken from its foundation, the smoke +issuing in dense clouds from its shattered sides, the house toppling +and the roof caving. For a moment Hosmer lost his senses. He could but +look, as if at some awful apparition that must soon pass from sight +and leave him again in possession of his reason. The leaning house was +half submerged when Fanny appeared at the door, like a figure in a +dream; seeming a natural part of the awfulness of it. He only gazed +on. The two negroes uttered loud lamentations. + +"Pull with the current!" cried the teamster, first to regain his +presence of mind. It had needed but this, to awaken Hosmer to the +situation. + +"Leave off," he cried at Nathan, who was wringing his hands. "Take +hold that oar or I'll throw you overboard." The trembling ashen negro +obeyed on the instant. + +"Hold fast--for God's sake--hold fast!" he shouted to Fanny, who was +clinging with swaying figure to the door post. Of Marie Louise there +was no sign. + +The caved bank now remained fixed; but Hosmer knew that at any instant +it was liable to disappear before his riveted gaze. + +How heavy the flat was! And the horses had caught the contagion of +terror and were plunging madly. + +"Whip those horses and their load into the river," called Hosmer, +"we've got to lighten at any price." + +"Them horses an' cotton's worth money," interposed the alarmed +teamster. + +"Force them into the river, I say; I'll pay you twice their value." + +"You 'low to pay fur the cotton, too?" + +"Into the river with them or I'll brain you!" he cried, maddened at +the weight and delay that were holding them back. + +The frightened animals seemed to ask nothing more than to plunge into +the troubled water; dragging their load with them. + +They were speeding rapidly towards the scene of catastrophe; but to +Hosmer they crawled--the moments were hours. "Hold on! hold fast!" he +called again and again to his wife. But even as he cried out, the +detached section of earth swayed, lurched to one side--plunged to the +other, and the whole mass was submerged--leaving the water above it in +wild agitation. + +A cry of horror went up from the spectators--all but Hosmer. He cast +aside his oar--threw off his coat and hat; worked an instant without +avail at his wet clinging boots, and with a leap was in the water, +swimming towards the spot where the cabin had gone down. The current +bore him on without much effort of his own. The flat was close up with +him; but he could think of it no longer as a means of rescue. Detached +pieces of timber from the ruined house were beginning to rise to the +surface. Then something floating softly on the water: a woman's dress, +but too far for him to reach it. + +When Fanny appeared again, Hosmer was close beside her. His left arm +was quickly thrown about her. She was insensible, and he remembered +that it was best so, for had she been in possession of her reason, she +might have struggled and impeded his movements. He held her +fast--close to him and turned to regain the shore. Another horrified +shriek went up from the occupants of the flat-boat not far away, and +Hosmer knew no more--for a great plunging beam struck him full upon +the forehead. + +When consciousness came back to him, he found that he lay extended in +the flat, which was fastened to the shore. The confused sound of many +voices mingled with a ringing din that filled his ears. A warm stream +was trickling down over his cheek. Another body lay beside him. Now +they were lifting him. Therese's face was somewhere--very near, he saw +it dimly and that it was white--and he fell again into insensibility. + + + + +XVI + +To Him Who Waits. + + +The air was filled with the spring and all its promises. Full with the +sound of it, the smell of it, the deliciousness of it. Such sweet air; +soft and strong, like the touch of a brave woman's hand. The air of an +early March day in New Orleans. It was folly to shut it out from nook +or cranny. Worse than folly the lady thought who was making futile +endeavors to open the car window near which she sat. Her face had +grown pink with the effort. She had bit firmly into her red nether +lip, making it all the redder; and then sat down from the +unaccomplished feat to look ruefully at the smirched finger tips of +her Parisian gloves. This flavor of Paris was well about her; in the +folds of her graceful wrap that set to her fine shoulders. It was +plainly a part of the little black velvet toque that rested on her +blonde hair. Even the umbrella and one small valise which she had just +laid on the seat opposite her, had Paris written plain upon them. + +These were impressions which the little grey-garbed conventional +figure, some seats removed, had been noting since the striking lady +had entered the car. Points likely to have escaped a man, who--unless +a minutely observant one,--would only have seen that she was handsome +and worthy of an admiration that he might easily fancy rising to +devotion. + +Beside herself and the little grey-garbed figure was an interesting +family group at the far end of the car. A husband, but doubly a +father, surrounded and sat upon by a small band of offspring. A +wife--presumably a mother--absorbed with the view of the outside world +and the elaborate gold chain that hung around her neck. + +The presence of a large valise, an overcoat, a cane and an umbrella +disposed on another seat, bespoke a further occupant, likely to be at +present in the smoking car. + +The train pushed out from the depot. The porter finally made tardy +haste to the assistance of the lady who had been attempting to open +the window, and when the fresh morning air came blowing in upon her +Therese leaned back in her seat with a sigh of content. + +There was a full day's journey before her. She would not reach +Place-du-Bois before dark, but she did not shrink from those hours +that were to be passed alone. She rather welcomed the quiet of them +after a visit to New Orleans full of pleasant disturbances. She was +eager to be home again. She loved Place-du-Bois with a love that was +real; that had grown deep since it was the one place in the world +which she could connect with the presence of David Hosmer. She had +often wondered--indeed was wondering now--if the memory of those +happenings to which he belonged would ever grow strange and far away +to her. It was a trick of memory with which she indulged herself on +occasion, this one of retrospection. Beginning with that June day when +she had sat in the hall and watched the course of a white sunshade +over the tops of the bending corn. + +Such idle thoughts they were with their mingling of bitter and +sweet--leading nowhere. But she clung to them and held to them as if +to a refuge which she might again and again return to. + +The picture of that one terrible day of Fanny's death, stood out in +sharp prominent lines; a touch of the old agony always coming back as +she remembered how she had believed Hosmer dead too--lying so pale and +bleeding before her. Then the parting which had held not so much of +sorrow as of awe and bewilderment in it: when sick, wounded and broken +he had gone away at once with the dead body of his wife; when the two +had clasped hands without words that dared be uttered. + +But that was a year ago. And Therese thought many things might come +about in a year. Anyhow, might not such length of time be hoped to rub +the edge off a pain that was not by its nature lasting? + +That time of acute trouble seemed to have thrown Hosmer back upon his +old diffidence. The letter he wrote her after a painful illness which +prostrated him on his arrival in St. Louis, was stiff and formal, as +men's letters are apt to be, though it had breathed an untold story of +loyalty which she had felt at the time, and still cherished. Other +letters--a few--had gone back and forth between them, till Hosmer had +gone away to the sea-shore with Melicent, to recuperate, and June +coming, Therese had sailed from New Orleans for Paris, whither she had +passed six months. + +Things had not gone well at Place-du-Bois during her absence, the +impecunious old kinsman whom she had left in charge, having a decided +preference for hunting the _Gros-Bec_ and catching trout in the lake +to supervising the methods of a troublesome body of blacks. So Therese +had had much to engage her thoughts from the morbid channel into which +those of a more idle woman might have drifted. + +She went occasionally enough to the mill. There at least she was +always sure to hear Hosmer's name--and what a charm the sound of it +had for her. And what a delight it was to her eyes when she caught +sight of an envelope lying somewhere on desk or table of the office, +addressed in his handwriting. That was a weakness which she could not +pardon herself; but which staid with her, seeing that the same +trifling cause never failed to awaken the same unmeasured delight. She +had even trumped up an excuse one day for carrying off one of Hosmer's +business letters--indeed of the dryest in substance, and which, when +half-way home, she had torn into the smallest bits and scattered to +the winds, so overcome was she by a sense of her own absurdity. + +Therese had undergone the ordeal of having her ticket scrutinized, +commented upon and properly punched by the suave conductor. The little +conventional figure had given over the contemplation of Parisian +styles and betaken herself to the absorbing pages of a novel which she +read through smoked glasses. The husband and father had peeled and +distributed his second outlay of bananas amongst his family. It was at +this moment that Therese, looking towards the door, saw Hosmer enter +the car. + +She must have felt his presence somewhere near; his being there and +coming towards her was so much a part of her thoughts. She held out +her hand to him and made place beside her, as if he had left her but a +half hour before. All the astonishment was his. But he pressed her +hand and took the seat she offered him. + +"You knew I was on the train?" he asked. + +"Oh, no, how should I?" + +Then naturally followed question and answer. + +Yes, he was going to Place-du-Bois. + +No, the mill did not require his presence; it had been very well +managed during his absence. + +Yes, she had been to New Orleans. Had had a very agreeable visit. +Beautiful weather for city dwellers. But such dryness. So disastrous +to the planters. + +Yes--quite likely there would be rain next month: there usually was in +April. But indeed there was need of more than April showers for that +stiff land--that strip along the bayou, if he remembered? Oh, he +remembered quite well, but for all that he did not know what she was +talking about. She did not know herself. Then they grew silent; not +from any feeling of the absurdity of such speech between them, for +each had but listened to the other's voice. They became silently +absorbed by the consciousness of each other's nearness. She was +looking at his hand that rested on his knee, and thinking it fuller +than she remembered it before. She was aware of some change in him +which she had not the opportunity to define; but this firmness and +fullness of the hand was part of it. She looked up into his face then, +to find the same change there, together with a new content. But what +she noted beside was the dull scar on his forehead, coming out like a +red letter when his eyes looked into her own. The sight of it was like +a hurt. She had forgotten it might be there, telling its story of pain +through the rest of his life. + +"Therese," Hosmer said finally, "won't you look at me?" + +She was looking from the window. She did not turn her head, but her +hand went out and met his that was on the seat close beside her. He +held it firmly; but soon with an impatient movement drew down the +loose wristlet of her glove and clasped his fingers around her warm +wrist. + +"Therese," he said again; but more unsteadily, "look at me." + +"Not here," she answered him, "not now, I mean." And presently she +drew her hand away from him and held it for a moment pressed firmly +over her eyes. Then she looked at him with brave loving glance. + +"It's been so long," she said, with the suspicion of a sigh. + +"Too long," he returned, "I couldn't have borne it but for you--the +thought of you always present with me; helping me to take myself out +of the past. That was why I waited--till I could come to you free. +Have you an idea, I wonder, how you have been a promise, and can be +the fulfillment of every good that life may give to a man?" + +"No, I don't know," she said a little hopelessly, taking his hand +again, "I have seen myself at fault in following what seemed the only +right. I feel as if there were no way to turn for the truth. Old +supports appear to be giving way beneath me. They were so secure +before. It commenced, you remember--oh, you know when it must have +begun. But do you think, David, that it's right we should find our +happiness out of that past of pain and sin and trouble?" + +"Therese," said Hosmer firmly, "the truth in its entirety isn't given +to man to know--such knowledge, no doubt, would be beyond human +endurance. But we make a step towards it, when we learn that there is +rottenness and evil in the world, masquerading as right and +morality--when we learn to know the living spirit from the dead +letter. I have not cared to stop in this struggle of life to question. +You, perhaps, wouldn't dare to alone. Together, dear one, we will work +it out. Be sure there is a way--we may not find it in the end, but we +will at least have tried." + + + + +XVII + +Conclusion. + + +One month after their meeting on the train, Hosmer and Therese had +gone together to Centerville where they had been made one, as the +saying goes, by the good Pere Antoine; and without more ado, had +driven back to Place-du-Bois: Mr. and Mrs. Hosmer. The event had +caused more than the proverbial nine days' talk. Indeed, now, two +months after, it was still the absorbing theme that occupied the +dwellers of the parish: and such it promised to remain till supplanted +by something of sufficient dignity and importance to usurp its place. + +But of the opinions, favorable and other, that were being exchanged +regarding them and their marriage, Hosmer and Therese heard little and +would have cared less, so absorbed were they in the overmastering +happiness that was holding them in thralldom. They could not yet bring +themselves to look at it calmly--this happiness. Even the intoxication +of it seemed a thing that promised to hold. Through love they had +sought each other, and now the fulfillment of that love had brought +more than tenfold its promise to both. It was a royal love; a generous +love and a rich one in its revelation. It was a magician that had +touched life for them and changed it into a glory. In giving them to +each other, it was moving them to the fullness of their own +capabilities. Much to do in two little months; but what cannot love +do? + +"Could it give a woman more than this?" Therese was saying softly to +herself. Her hands were clasped as in prayer and pressed together +against her bosom. Her head bowed and her lips touching the +intertwined fingers. She spoke of her own emotion; of a certain sweet +turmoil that was stirring within her, as she stood out in the soft +June twilight waiting for her husband to come. Waiting to hear the new +ring in his voice that was like a song of joy. Waiting to see that new +strength and courage in his face, of whose significance she lost +nothing. To see the new light that had come in his eyes with +happiness. All gifts which love had given her. + +"Well, at last," she said, going to the top of the steps to meet him +when he came. Her welcome was in her eyes. + +"At last," he echoed, with a sigh of relief; pressing her hand which +she held out to him and raising it to his lips. + +He did not let it go, but passed it through his arm, and together they +turned to walk up and down the veranda. + +"You didn't expect me at noon, did you?" he asked, looking down at +her. + +"No; you said you'd be likely not to come; but I hoped for you all the +same. I thought you'd manage it some way." + +"No," he answered her, laughing, "my efforts failed. I used even +strategy. Held out the temptation of your delightful Creole dishes and +all that. Nothing was of any avail. They were all business and I had +to be all business too, the whole day long. It was horribly stupid." + +She pressed his arm significantly. + +"And do you think they will put all that money into the mill, David? +Into the business?" + +"No doubt of it, dear. But they're shrewd fellows: didn't commit +themselves in any way. Yet I could see they were impressed. We rode +for hours through the woods this morning and they didn't leave a stick +of timber unscrutinized. We were out on the lake, too, and they were +like ferrets into every cranny of the mill." + +"But won't that give you more to do?" + +"No, it will give me less: division of labor, don't you see? It will +give me more time to be with you." + +"And to help with the plantation," his wife suggested. + +"No, no, Madame Therese," he laughed, "I'll not rob you of your +occupation. I'll put no bungling hand into your concerns. I know a +sound piece of timber when I see it; but I should hardly be able to +tell a sample of Sea Island cotton from the veriest low middling." + +"Oh, that's absurd, David. Do you know you're getting to talk such +nonsense since we're married; you remind me sometimes of Melicent." + +"Of Melicent? Heaven forbid! Why, I have a letter from her," he said, +feeling in his breast pocket. "The size and substance of it have +actually weighted my pocket the whole day." + +"Melicent talking weighty things? That's something new," said Therese +interested. + +"Is Melicent ever anything else than new?" he enquired. + +They went and sat together on the bench at the corner of the veranda, +where the fading Western light came over their shoulders. A quizzical +smile came into his eyes as he unfolded his sister's letter--with +Therese still holding his arm and sitting very close to him. + +"Well," he said, glancing over the first few pages--his wife +following--"she's given up her charming little flat and her quaint +little English woman: concludes I was right about the expense, etc., +etc. But here comes the gist of the matter," he said, reading from the +letter--" 'I know you won't object to the trip, David, I have my heart +so set on it. The expense will be trifling, seeing there are four of +us to divide carriage hire, restaurant and all that: and it counts. + +" 'If you only knew Mrs. Griesmann I'd feel confident of your consent. +You'd be perfectly fascinated with her. She's one of those highly +gifted women who knows everything. She's very much interested in me. +Thinks to have found that I have a quick comprehensive intellectualism +(she calls it) that has been misdirected. I think there is something +in that, David; you know yourself I never did care really for society. +She says it's impossible to ever come to a true knowledge of life as +it is--which should be every one's aim--without studying certain +fundamental truths and things.' " + +"Oh," breathed Therese, overawed. + +"But wait--but listen," said Hosmer, " 'Natural History and all +that--and we're going to take that magnificent trip through the +West--the Yosemite and so forth. It appears the flora of California is +especially interesting and we're to carry those delicious little tin +boxes strapped over our shoulders to hold specimens. Her son and +daughter are both, in their way, striking. He isn't handsome; rather +the contrary; but so serene and collected--so intensely bitter--his +mother tells me he's a pessimist. And the daughter really puts me to +shame, child as she is, with the amount of her knowledge. She labels +all her mother's specimens in Latin. Oh, I feel there's so much to be +learned. Mrs. Griesmann thinks I ought to wear glasses during the +trip. Says we often require them without knowing it ourselves--that +they are so restful. She has some theory about it. I'm trying a pair, +and see a great deal better through them than I expected to. Only they +don't hold on very well, especially when I laugh. + +" 'Who do you suppose seized on to me in Vandervoort's the other day, +but that impertinent Mrs. Belle Worthington! Positively took me by the +coat and commenced to gush about dear sister Therese. She said: "I +tell you what, my dear--" called me my dear at the highest pitch, and +that odious Mrs. Van Wycke behind us listening and pretending to +examine a lace handkerchief. "That Mrs. Lafirme's a trump," she +said--"too good for most any man. Hope you won't take offense, but I +must say, your brother David's a perfect stick--it's what I always +said." Can you conceive of such shocking impertinence?' + +"Well; Belle Worthington does possess the virtue of candor," said +Hosmer amused and folding the letter. "That's about all there is, +except a piece of scandal concerning people you don't know; that +wouldn't interest you." + +"But it would interest me," Therese insisted, with a little wifely +resentment that her husband should have a knowledge of people that +excluded her. + +"Then you shall hear it," he said, turning to the letter again. "Let's +see--'conceive--shocking impertinence--' oh, here it is. + +" 'Don't know if you have learned the horrible scandal; too dreadful +to talk about. I shall send you the paper. I always knew that Lou +Dawson was a perfidious creature--and Bert Rodney! You never did like +him, David; but he was always so much the gentleman in his +manners--you must admit that. Who could have dreamed it of him. Poor +Mrs. Rodney is after all the one to be pitied. She is utterly +prostrated. Refuses to see even her most intimate friends. It all came +of those two vile wretches thinking Jack Dawson out of town when he +wasn't; for he was right there following them around in their +perambulations. And the outcome is that Mr. Rodney has his beauty +spoiled they say forever; the shot came very near being fatal. But +poor, poor Mrs. Rodney! + +" 'Well, good-bye, you dearest David mine. How I wish you both knew +Mrs. Griesmann. Give that sweet sister Therese as many kisses as she +will stand for me. + + Melicent.' " + +This time Hosmer put the letter into his pocket, and Therese asked +with a little puzzled air: "What do you suppose is going to become of +Melicent, anyway, David?" + +"I don't know, love, unless she marries my friend Homeyer." + +"Now, David, you are trying to mystify me. I believe there's a streak +of perversity in you after all." + +"Of course there is; and here comes Mandy to say that 'suppa's gittin' +cole.' " + +"Aunt B'lindy 'low suppa on de table gittin' cole," said Mandy, +retreating at once from the fire of their merriment. + +Therese arose and held her two hands out to her husband. + +He took them but did not rise; only leaned further back on the seat +and looked up at her. + +"Oh, supper's a bore; don't you think so?" he asked. + +"No, I don't," she replied. "I'm hungry, and so are you. Come, David." + +"But look, Therese, just when the moon has climbed over the top of +that live-oak? We can't go now. And then Melicent's request; we must +think about that." + +"Oh, surely not, David," she said, drawing back. + +"Then let me tell you something," and he drew her head down and +whispered something in her pink ear that he just brushed with his +lips. It made Therese laugh and turn very rosy in the moonlight. + +Can that be Hosmer? Is this Therese? Fie, fie. It is time we were +leaving them. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At Fault, by Kate Chopin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT FAULT *** + +***** This file should be named 23810.txt or 23810.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/8/1/23810/ + +Produced by Bernard Koloski + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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