Part 11

“Try me,” she laughed. “I do not think you can know me.”

“Do I not! You are like your father. It is sometimes an advantage to have known two or three—what I may adequately describe as degenerations. You are like him—very like him. He joked his way through life. He joked away an estate as large as mine, and laughed when it was gone.”

“I thought, sir, it was lost by his partner’s rascality.”

“Well, perhaps you know better than I do.”

Susan shifted the talk. “But who is Constance like?”

“Like? She is like her mother.”

“That does not help me. I never saw my mother to remember her. You have more than once made clear to me that you were not friends, and so you must pardon me if I ask you to be very careful what you say.”

“Good gracious, Susan! I said nothing unpleasant. I will say nothing of your mother; but I will say that Constance is a fool, and is very like her. If Constance ever has children, she will be like a tigress with her cubs. There’s really a good bit more of the savage animal in women than in men.”

“Is that your own wisdom, Uncle Rufus?”

He said, at times, things which appeared to imply glimpses of insight into character which were far above his ordinary range of appreciations.

“It is; and I wish you would stop talking. I shall try to get a nap.”

Susan made no comment. His statement about her sister was extreme, but was felt by Susan to have in it a certain amount of truth. That in the life of their mother there had been any justification for the more than implied opinion of her, Susan knew to be untrue. She was glad when the talk fell away and he dropped asleep.

XIII

Trescot lost no time. He went with Coffin and fixed on the great trees of the inland boundary, and made other arrangements. Next he called on Averill to report his success. He found him in bed, and likely to be laid by for several days. Thus deprived of his senior counsel, he should have to rely on himself alone. He felt himself quite equal to the task.

In the latter part of the day, after Hood’s departure, he busied himself with personal visits to several of the persons on whose properties he had been ordered to foreclose mortgages, and left with some of them, as the agent of Mr. Hood, entire or partial releases from their debts for past interest, and a promise, in regard to others, to give them time and lower rates of interest in the future.

He had no trouble with the squatters. There were seven in all. He offered them small holdings, in fee simple, on the lands back of the bend, and, in case of failure in the suit, a reasonable compensation in money. In this he was aided by Coffin, and met with no difficulty.

Thus released, he gave himself up to the case before him, and, to arrange matters with the opposing counsel, called upon Greyhurst. The lawyer was in a very good humor. He knew of Averill’s illness, and believed that if the case went at once to trial he would find a feebler antagonist in Trescot. He said: “Sit down. A little bourbon? No? I hope you don’t mean to ask for delay on account of Averill’s illness. I really could not consent.”

“No; the time is rather short, but I can—indeed, I mean to be ready. The court will reach it about the seventh of October, I suppose.”

“Yes, on the seventh, I am sure. I hear that the general is ill. Shall you have any other counsel?”

“No; but I do not mean on that account to ask for postponement. I shall try it alone.”

“Do you still feel that all chance of settlement is out of the question?”

“Yes; I am instructed to try the case.”

“I can only regret it,” said Greyhurst.

“You were so kind at one time as to warn me in regard to the hostility Mr. Hood’s measures had caused. I was really very much obliged to you. Now, as it has no bearing on our own case, you will be glad to know that I have settled amicably most of the larger mortgage cases, and also those of the poor fellows who have squatted on Mr. Hood’s land. It has been to me—and I fancy to them—a very agreeable relief.”

Greyhurst was ill pleased. A weapon was lost to him. Trescot’s gentle ways, his quiet manner and well-bred consideration, had made for him friends, and his success in arranging the matter of the damaged cotton had obliged important people. And now this more than liberal treatment of debtors would tell in his favor, and he might find a jury quite too amiably disposed. Greyhurst did not like it. To be annoyed was, with him, sure to result in anger, and that in heedless or irritating speech. He said:

“You were very wise. The generosity comes at a time when it is politic.”

Trescot laughed. “It would have come long ago had I had my way.”

“You will find few to believe that.”

Trescot rose. “Mr. Greyhurst, we have hardly had one talk over this matter in which you have not said something disagreeable. I do not see why you do so. I have done nothing to entitle you to doubt my word. We are both old soldiers and now about to go into a legal contest. It ought to involve neither bitterness nor any need to be other than courteous.”

It was difficult to resist words conveyed with the manner which made George Trescot so much liked. Anger would have bred anger. The gentleness of the remonstrance checked an irascible man. He said:

“I spoke hastily, Mr. Trescot.”

“Thank you; I was sure you did.”

Showing none of the annoyance he still felt, he shook hands with Greyhurst as they parted, and went out, feeling how hard it had been not to make such a reply as the words, and still more the manner, of the older lawyer invited. He resolved to be equally cool and patient in the trial.

It is strangely true that at the moment his opponent was, for the thousandth time, regretting unreasonable anger, and promising himself also for the future a more resolute self-rule. The general once remarked of him that he was half broken, like an ill-trained colt. This was said to Dudley over their cards at the little club just before Averill fell ill.

“It is that strain of Indian blood,” returned Dudley; “but it must be far back. I knew his grandmother—a fine old Creole dame. They were friends of my people.”

“I wish,” said Averill, “that, if he is your friend, you would teach him to muzzle his temper. He never sees Trescot without saying what would make one of us call him out.”

“I am not his friend,” said Dudley. “The man has no friends. He has intimates and acquaintances, but he is too thin-skinned for friendship. It is a pity, too. He is not a bad fellow, and is enough of a gentleman to be sorry after his damned vanity has made him say something disagreeable.”

In the ordered life of a more complex society Greyhurst’s readiness to take offense would have caused amusement and been checked in any excessive manifestation. In the wilder West, and in St. Ann, where he had lived since the war, the individualities of men were less conventionally governed. He was felt to be a dangerous man, and as resentments were here apt to result seriously, he was either avoided or treated cautiously by his old comrades in arms.

Constance, pleased to be again alone with Trescot, complained that he was now away from her all day. He made clear that for a week he must be at his office or elsewhere than with her; but that after the trial he would go away with her for a fortnight to New Orleans. And still, as usual, he kept the evenings for her, bringing his work home where it was incomplete, and making plain to her the evidence in the land case and his line of defense.

Flattered by the appeal to her intelligence, and enjoying the novelty of the interest thus awakened, she followed his explanations with keen delight. When the law business was laid aside, and while she played, the tired man sat still with his pipe, soothed and rested as he watched her face and the house vibrated with the music of the great masters.

Now she turned from the instrument. “Oh, George, I wish there were no business, and then I could have you all the time.”

He had heard this before. He thought it sweetly unreasonable. Laughing, he returned: “I should soon cease to be worth having. It is the contrasts of life that make for its joys. I come home tired, and here are love and peace. I go away refreshed, and you are with me always. That ought to satisfy you.”

“It does not. I want you to be at the head of your profession, and I do not want you to be so long and so often away from me. Isn’t that silly, George? And I know—I know that I shall be more and more jealous as time goes on. I should like to be competent to fill your entire life.”

“That, dear, is possible in one sense; in another, it never can be.”

“I suppose not. This is Saturday, isn’t it?”

“Yes. How the week has gone by! To-morrow I shall be free all day, and Tuesday will end the strain. I have felt it in my arm as I do when I am tired.”

“I saw that you were saving it, George. Will this trial last two days?”

“Yes; perhaps three.”

“Cannot I be present?”

Why not? He anticipated success and was pleased to think she should be there, and that he, alone, was to try the case. “The general will be in court, but not as counsel. You know that I shall call him as a witness, which I could not do were he in the case. He is still far from well.”

Then, as usual, he read to his wife what she liked best, a short tale—this time a story of Hawthorne’s. She left him with his pipe, saying: “You will not work any more.”

“No; I am fully prepared. Good night.”

The Sundays were delightful to Constance because of their freedom from visitors, and especially because there was no law business partly to occupy George’s attention.

In the afternoon of this Sunday he sat on the back porch, watching the sunset as seen across the yellow waters of the great river. Now and then he followed with appreciative joy the tall figure of Constance as she moved to and fro in the garden, gathering the roses which were still abundant in this genial clime.

He called to her: “Pick me a red rose, Constance.”

“There is but one,” she called back to him.

“Then I want it.” He had a woman’s love of flowers; and now, as she returned with her basket full of roses, the white-clad figure with the wide straw hat made for him a picture which he found altogether charming. He went in with her, saying prettinesses of love-speech, and then aided her to arrange the flowers, being himself sensitive concerning their grouping, and having more refined appreciation of their color-values than had his wife. The great red rose he had desired was set in a long-stemmed glass on his table.

“This is you,” he said, “an ambassador of love. It seems to have the conscious pride of beauty. Oh, you have it, too.”

She flushed with pleasure as she cried: “George, how absurd you are!” Yet she liked it well. His tendency to set his love in delicacies of poetic expression pleased her. She could show in many ways the strength and quality of her affection, but she had not his gift of language. Her love was more passionate than his—of another, perhaps not of so fine a fiber.

After their evening meal they sat in the library, with open windows, in the still, warm air. He felt better for the quiet hour, and for the peace of the morning service, where her voice rose that day in the old hymns familiar to his childhood. She went because it pleased him; she sang because he liked it.

“The Sunday stillness is very pleasant,” she said. “You always look rested on Sunday night.”

“Yes; it is like an oasis in the desert—we pause to rest and win refreshment for the march of the morning. It is the one day when it is all evening, and man ceases from labor. That is a bit far-fetched, but I so feel it.”

“I understand, George; but for me it is of all days the best because I have you, and people stay away, and there is no business. Is it I or is it the church that is so restful?”

He smiled: “I do not know, my love, whether women often feel what some men do, that even if the hours of the service did not represent something higher, to be merely taken for a time out of the turmoil and worries of the week-day life, and into a region of higher thoughts, would have its peculiar value.”

She wanted him to say that it was her companionship which gave the day its restfulness. She would have denied, even to herself, that her husband’s religion was, strange as it may seem, a subject of jealousy. Any approach to discussion of a matter so dear to him embarrassed her, and she made haste to escape, saying:

“Do you really find that long service so restful?”

“Yes; and more than that—oh, far more.”

“I wonder if I ever shall. I have not heard from Susan since she wrote about uncle’s being so feeble.”

Entirely aware of her state of mind, he accepted, as usual, her disinclination to dwell longer on what was to him so serious a part of his daily life; and went on to follow her lead, and to talk about their Eastern home and their letters—she sitting the while on the arm of his chair, as she liked to do.

“It is curious, Constance, how one changes. Yesterday I was tired and not as sure of my case as I know I should have been. To-day I feel elate and eager, and yet I am not much subject to moods. It must be purely physical. I was never ill in my life until I was hit.”

Constance said quickly, with a half-repressed laugh: “You must touch wood, George.”

“What a strange old superstition!” he returned, smiling. “I wonder how it grew up—where it came from.”

“But touch it—touch it!”

“No!” he cried, laughing; and then, seeing her too earnest look, he tapped on the table.

“It is all nonsense, of course, but—”

“But what?”

“I do not know. Uncle has a dozen such sillinesses. I never had—I never used to have. I think love must nourish superstition.”

“And so now you wish to be superstitious by proxy; and, dear, you have been very quiet to-day. I should call it absent-minded. Where now is your mind absent? Does anything worry you?”

“Yes. I saw Mrs. Averill after church.”

“Well?”

“She said she was very sorry that the general was not to take an active part in the case.”

“And so am I. Was that all?”

“No; she said he was one of the few people who could keep Mr. Greyhurst in order; and you know, George, that man’s reputation.”

“Yes, I know it. The old lady was hardly as considerate as usual. And so it is this which troubles you. It need not. We are merely two lawyers engaged to try a suit. Of course sharp things are said at times, and the same men meet afterward and laugh over it. I think, too, you know, dear, that I am pretty good-tempered. I can even forgive you for being jealous of my mistress—the law.”

“Oh, but I am; and I don’t like this man, George. I should hate any one who had been rude to you.”

“Please not to say such things, Constance,” he returned, with an appealing hand on her arm. “The man has been ill-mannered, but, after all, there has hardly been material enough even to suggest forgiveness. Keep that for something larger. Let us drop him and not spoil our Sunday.”

“Pardon me, dear, dear George; I shall never, never be like you. You see I am asking for forgiveness.”

“Hush,” he said, putting his hand over her mouth. “The word is not in the vocabulary of love. Shall I read to you?”

“Yes; some short story. I want to be amused. Oh, not the magazines.” She rose and settled herself comfortably in an easy-chair as she spoke.

To her surprise, he took up the Bible. Of late he had read to her parts of its greater poetry, avoiding all that was doctrinal. Much of it was new to her, and the splendor and passion and novelty of the language had found echoes of sympathetic answer in the stirred depths of her awakening nature. But now she said quickly: “Not to-night, George; something light—a short story.”

“Wait a little. Here shall be an old tale, the best short story ever written.”

“What is it?” she questioned, suddenly curious.

He made no direct reply, but turned to the Book.

“Once upon a time—”

“Oh, I like that. Is that in the Bible?”

“Once upon a time—This is the story of Joseph the Dreamer.”

“Ah! go on, George.” She fell back in the chair, luxuriously at ease, and fanning herself as she listened, for the night was warm, and the voice she loved admirably modulated. She knew, too, how he would deal with the story.

When he read to her the Bible tales or the Hebrew ballads, it was in a way quite peculiarly his own, with thoughtful comments, occasional scenic backgrounds, and a word now and then of Oriental dress and customs. She closed her eyes, the better to secure visions of what he drew for her. He made her see the parched hillsides of Shechem; the wandering lad, proud of his colored coat; the brothers Reuben and Judah, sharply characterized; the contemplated murder; the sale of the terrified boy; the long caravan march of his masters over the desert to Egypt. She felt the sad youth’s grief; and then shared his amazement at the pyramids, the turbid Nile, the funeral boats with many oarsmen, the crowded towns, the strange old civilization, and the changeless red sunsets. The gaps in the Scripture narrative were well filled, as she saw, too, the slave-market, and the lad led away to the house of Potiphar. He made real to her the prison story of the dreams and of the slave-boy’s good fortune. Then came the famine and the visit of the brothers, with their terror when, at their evening halt in the desert, they found in their sacks the money and the drinking-cup. She saw the splendidly clad governor and the returning brothers, heard their plea for the old man, and of his love for the little brother, the child of his age, and then their trembling words concerning that other who was dead. He read of Joseph’s emotion, of his easy forgiveness of those who had sent him to captivity, and thus to high fortune. As he read of these simple pastoral people, dazzled by the wonders of the teeming land, pyramids, palace, and temple, and the one highway beside the Nile, and the strange hill-hidden graves, the descriptions became part of the story, and what she heard she seemed to see. He ended with the meeting of the father and the long-lost son.

“Thank you,” said Constance. “How true you make it seem, how real! Oh, some day we must go to Egypt.”

“Yes; and everywhere. I seem to see my way clearly. In a year or two we will go home to Boston. I do not deceive myself. Some day there will be nothing in reason which I shall not be able to give you. And you liked the story?”

“Oh, much—very much.”

He turned over the pages, and then mechanically picked up a glove she had left on his table, and laid it in the Book, saying: “We will read this other story next time.”

“What story, George?”

“Ruth. Of course you know that.”

“Yes, in a way; but I never read it.”

Her ignorance as to certain things never failed to cause him an unpleasing surprise; but neither by look nor by word did he ever show it. He said: “You will like it, although it is not as skilfully told as the tale of Joseph, and the scenery is more simple.”

“I am sure I shall like it if it has the directness of that story of Joseph. It is that which makes it so striking.”

“You are quite right; but I do not think I ever saw before what it was that gave this story its peculiar charm. There is none of the modern excess in the analysis of motives. You seem to have seen it as I did not.”

“Thank you,” she returned. She liked, above all things, praise, even the mildest, from her husband; and, flushing a little, continued: “I did like the directness of it. The men do this or that, but you are not told that they are good or bad—oh, not even when they sell the little brother. I liked another thing. Isn’t there a gleam of humor where Joseph says to Judah, ‘Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?’”

He looked up, pleased to be able to say: “Yes, that is true, but often as I have read it, I never noticed it. It is very human. Any more such wise comments, dear?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Was it natural for Joseph to forgive his brothers—and so easily, too? For my part, I should have made them suffer. I could not have forgotten; I should have hated them all through those years.”

“Oh, no; I am sure you would not.”

“But, George, even if he forgave them his own sufferings, how could he pardon them for the poor old father’s misery? No; I could never have done that.” She rose as she spoke. “I am glad I was not Joseph. You will go to bed early, George, and get a good rest.”

“Yes; good night.”

She kissed him as he sat. As he picked up a book he saw that she had come back.

“Well, dear?”

She seemed to him, as she stood bending over him, like some queenly lily—gracious, sweet, and stately. He said as much, looking up.

“I wanted to kiss you again. That was only ceremonial; this is love.”

She threw her arms around him, kissing him passionately. “Now, early; don’t read long.”

As she turned away, the great red rose she had set on his table of a sudden fell to pieces, the red petals dropping on the table and on the open book he was holding. She raised her hand in a quick gesture, and cried out: “Oh, the rose I gave you!”

“Well,” he said quickly, “what of it, Constance?”

“Oh, nothing. It startled me; I suppose I am a little nervous. I never used to be. Good night.”