Part 15
“Well, well,” said the doctor, “a will is the only contribution to folly a dead man can make. Ah, good morning, Miss Hood. Your sister is somewhat better; we must have patience.”
“I have it,” said Susan. “But come into the garden with me a moment. It seems just now impossible to find a quiet place.” He followed her, and as they walked down the path she said:
“Do you think that if she recovers she will be in mind what she was; and can you, with your great experience and what you know of her, form any idea of how this calamity will influence her life? She is all I have, and I am so very anxious.”
“I think it likely that she will get well and be sound in mind and body. Unless misfortune wrecks us utterly and we become insane, after a shock like this we remain essentially what we were. New conditions, accidents, sorrow, may cause people to appear for a time alien from themselves. They are rarely so. The novel incident only evolves what might have remained unused, unknown, for a lifetime. She may surprise you, but it will be with the use of some quality you have never had occasion to see—or she to employ. Grief does not, as a rule, alter people radically.”
Susan listened, deeply concerned and thoughtful. “Thank you,” she said. “But it does seem as if a thing like this must change one.”
“No. Put yourself in her place. What would you be or become? What would you do?”
“I should go to the East—to Egypt. One seems there so small, so puny. I should try to forgive. Oh, I should try to save my soul alive; but then, doctor, I am an old maid, and cannot imagine what a woman like Constance feels or will feel.”
The doctor considered for a moment the face and figure of the “old maid,” and, smiling, looked at his watch. “You old maids are perilous folk. No one else shall abuse you but Miss Susan, and I do not mean to tell you what I think of you. I shall come in to-night.”
She went with him through the house to the door, and there saw Coffin seated on the steps. He haunted the place, questioning the servants, or, with boundless patience won in the loneliness of the woods, waiting until some one came out who could tell him of Mrs. Trescot.
Susan said: “Come in.”
“No, I won’t come in. How is she? Will she die? I could not stand that.”
“No; she will get well. But, Mr. Coffin, I want you to think over what I said to you. You talked wildly of killing that man; you frightened me.”
“I’ve thought about that. When she’s well I’ll see; if she wants it, I’ll get him, sure.”
“She never will want that—never.”
“I’m not that sure, and I ain’t made that way, neither. I’m going to wait and see. If she just lifts a finger I’ll kill that man.”
“Oh, no, no!” she cried. “It is horrible—murder on murder. We are going away as soon as she is well enough. God will help her to forget, and she is young, and time is God’s great peacemaker.”
“She is going away! going away! That’s awful. Since I was a boy I never had a friend like she was—and she’s going.” His eyes filled and he stood still, the tears rolling down out of the patient eyes over his brown, sun-tanned cheeks. He brushed them away with his sleeve and went out of the gate, saying over and over, “She’s going.”
The weeks went by while Constance slowly recovered. At times she sat up of a sudden with dilated pupils, staring, but silent. At other times she babbled of her home, her childhood, of Susan, but never of recent events.
At last, one morning, after a natural slumber, she sat up and said to Mrs. Averill:
“Where am I? Tell George I want him at once. I say at once!”
Susan, hearing her high-pitched cry, ran in.
“What are you doing here?” asked Constance. “Where is George?”
The two women stood by, mute and without resource.
“Why don’t you answer? Something happened.”
She fell back, to their relief, again insensible.
From this time she began to recover, as it were in fragments, her memory of the tragic past. For a while she lost to-day such remembrances as yesterday had brought. A little later, the storm which had left her nervous system shattered passed away, and she began to piece together her recovered recollections. Susan sat by in wonder, grieving for the pain this revival of memories was plainly writing on the face once so joyous and so fair. Somewhere she had seen described such a condition of mind, and as, one day, she talked of it to the doctor, she recalled and quoted the lines:
“‘For again life’s scattered fragments, memories of joy and woe, Tremulously grew to oneness as a storm-torn lake may grow Quiet, winning back its pictures, when the wild winds cease to blow!’”
“Yes,” he said; “that describes it perfectly.”
A word or two now and then told that she knew of Trescot’s death. For a week she asked no questions, but lay still, entirely patient. At last, one day, the doctor, uneasy at her changeless melancholy, said to her: “You are better; do you not feel better?”
“Yes, I am better; I should like to get on to the lounge.”
Pleased at any return of will or wish, he said, “Yes, certainly,” and with Susan’s help lifted her wasted frame and laid her on the lounge.
She said: “Thank you, and please leave me with Dr. Eskridge.” Susan went out.
“Doctor,” said Mrs. Trescot, “I know all about it.”
He was immediately relieved. He had looked forward with anxiety to the hour of questions. “My poor child!” was all he could say.
“How long have I been ill?”
“Nine weeks, Mrs. Trescot.”
Suddenly she asked: “And the child?”
He took her hand. She read his answer in the kind eyes which had seen so much of disaster and death.
“I see—I know. If anything could make it worse, that does.”
“Do not talk any more,” he said, as he rose.
“Yes, I must. No, you cannot go; I must finish. Was that—that man ever tried?”
“Yes.”
“Well?—oh, tell me; don’t be afraid; I can bear—oh, anything, now—anything!”
“He was declared not guilty.”
“How could that be?”
But now Dr. Eskridge saw signals which made him resolute. He replied: “When you are better you shall hear. I will answer no more questions now.”
“One—only one. I insist. Will he live here? Does he live here?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. I will ask no more questions. I promise to be good—very good.”
The doctor rose, relieved. He said: “In two weeks you must go away, and later it would really be best to go abroad. You are young and will get well and strong.”
She smiled feebly, the large blue eyes unnatural and strange in the worn, thin features—they alone unwasted and beautiful.
“‘I am young.’ Isn’t that what is always said, doctor?”
“Yes; but it is true, and let me add that, however impossible it may seem to you, time is very kind—to the young at least.”
“I am not young, and time—yes, I want its help. I do not wish to die; I want to live.”
“Now, that is better,” he said, and went down-stairs, telling Susan on the way that her sister knew everything, and was really in a wholesome state of mind and eager to get well.
Susan shook her head. How could that be? Being a woman, she wondered that her sister could wish to live.
Constance asked no more questions; but, seeming to put it all aside, set herself to get well.
Three days before they left she called Susan and the general to her room, insisting that she would not be satisfied until she was at ease about certain matters. She surprised both by the clearness and decision with which she stated her wishes.
“Susan and I, general, are, I am sure, agreed to divide the shore-land at the bend with the Baptiste heirs; but, let me ask, will such action benefit that man?”
Susan looked up.
“I do not know. He lost the suit, and, of course, his large contingent fee. I do not see how a separate agreement as between you and Mrs. Baptiste can benefit him, even if his fee had been arranged to be a share of the land.”
“Then,” said Constance, “if they agree not to litigate further, and he is none the better for it, we will divide. Does that suit you, Susan?”
“Yes, I have said so; anything, dear, that you want done I shall want done; and this I especially desire as an act of simple justice. We will give the general a power of attorney to act for us.”
“Then sister and I wish the squatters to have land on the bluff back of the bend—to eastward, I mean.”
The general made notes.
“The land must be good,” said Constance; “and we wish to be generous. I should like them all to be helped to buy what they need to clear and till the land.”
“It will be rather costly.”
“Yes,” said Susan; “but Constance wishes it, and there is a large amount of accumulated interest in bank. It was my uncle’s way.”
“I want Coffin especially cared for,” said Constance. “I wish him to have the cleared land nearest the bluff; and, general, I want you to pay him five dollars a week to care for my garden.”
“Your garden, Conny!” exclaimed Susan.
“Yes; I mean to shut up the house; but I shall keep it; I shall never sell it. I want no one to enter the study. Lock it. Has it been disturbed?”
“No, dear; I locked it and have the key.”
“Then give it to me. The house is mine. I shall keep it as it is.”
“Is not that unwise, sister?”
“I have made up my mind.”
“Well, dear, it is yours. We will not discuss it.”
The doctor had long since warned her against contradictions, and against anything which might stir up dangerous emotion.
“Is that all?” asked the general.
“Yes,” said Susan; “except that we desire to make the most liberal arrangements in regard to the mortgages not yet settled. You cannot be too generous. My sister and I know how your people have suffered.”
The old soldier looked up, touched by what she said. “You are giving a sad old man a rare pleasure. Is that all?”
“No,” said Constance. “I have here a letter. Read it, please, when I am gone. If you dislike to do what I ask, it can wait. There is no hurry about it, and I am very sorry to trouble you.”
“You do not trouble me. Ah, my dear children, we shall miss you sadly.”
“But next summer,” said Susan, “you will spend with us at Beverly.”
“Perhaps,” he said; “but you had better go abroad.”
Constance had put off seeing Coffin; but on the sixteenth of December, the day before they were to leave, she sent for him.
He entered, halting in his gait, somewhat bow-legged, a round-shouldered man in much-worn gray, with here and there a lingering Confederate button, a ragged felt hat in his hand. What Susan called the “lost-dog” look was in his eyes.
What he saw was a tall, wasted woman in black. She was very thin and without a relic of the rosy color which once added so much to her beauty. The large framework of her features showed too prominently in the absence of flesh. Above all, the man was shocked at her complete pallor. He was too unthoughtful to have been prepared for the effects of emotion and consequent illness. Her quiet manner not less amazed him. The women of his own class wept and were natural. This woman had back of her two centuries of Puritan self-restraint, and the controlling reserve of a class accustomed to hide emotion.
She said, as she gave him her thin, cold hand: “Sit down; but first shut the door. I want to talk to you.”
He sat down on the edge of the chair.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Oh, very well, ma’am.”
“Can you hold your tongue, Tom? I want to trust you.”
“I can.” He was a man by long habit wood-dumb, as the old lumbermen say—a man of few words.
“I want you to take care of my garden.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You will come every week to the general to get five dollars; you will care for my garden. You are also to have the best land on the bluff.”
“I didn’t expect all that. I’m right thankful. They do say you’re going away. Mrs. Averill says you’ll never come back. Are that so?”
“No; they think so; but I am coming back. That is what I want no one to know. Will you keep it to yourself?”
“I reckon, Mrs. Trescot, you know you can trust me.”
“I am sure I can,” she said as she rose. “I am still weak, and I cannot talk to you as I want to do when I come back. If you need anything, General Averill will see to it—I mean anything for the Wilsons.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She gave him her hand. He took it with something like reverence. Then he stood, uneasy, evidently with something unsaid.
“Well?” she asked. “Is there anything else, Coffin?”
“I was thinking you might be wanting some one to kill that there man.” He spoke simply, in his drawling mountain dialect, as he might have asked what tree he should fell.
The thought had been too often in her mind to cause her any shock. She said, “No, no.”
“It wouldn’t be no trouble, ma’am. I’d as lief do it on my own account as not.”
“No,” she said again; “no. That would not be any comfort to me, Tom. I want that man to suffer. I want him to suffer every day, every night, till he curses the day he was born. I don’t want him to die, Tom; not yet—no, not yet.”
He accepted her statement with blind faith in her resources, and with the obedient trust of a faithful dog, wishing to help and not knowing how.
“I wouldn’t know how to fetch that about. Now, if you know—”
“No, Tom, not yet. I must first get well and strong. Good-by; I shall ask Mrs. Averill to let me hear how you get on, and the Wilson children and the rest. But remember, no one—no one must know what I have said to you.”
He went away wondering, sorry not to be able to bring about what she desired, and with dull wonder because of her unwillingness to accept the vengeful service for which he was so ready.
XVIII
On the afternoon of the next day the sisters left for the long journey to their home on the Beverly coast of Massachusetts. The general, who had gone with them to the station, on his return came into the parlor—no one called it a drawing-room in St. Ann. Mrs. Averill was seated before the hickory-log fire, her knitting on her lap. She was looking up at the rival flags, the swords, and the poor little photographs. As she heard Averill’s step she took up her knitting, smiling sadly at the intrusive remembrance concerning the “ravell’d sleave of care” which none can knit. He had a letter in his hand.
“Eleanor,” he said, “this has been a great shock to me. I could not have imagined it as possible.”
“No new trouble?” she said quickly. “What is it? Always tell me things first and say what you like afterward. Men always prepare one.” She was slightly irritated.
“Oh, it is of no personal moment. Read that, Eleanor, and tell me what on earth I am to do.”
She took the letter and read:
“MY DEAR GENERAL:
“If what I now ask seems to you too strange, or may in any way annoy you to carry out, let it go; it can wait.
“I want a simple gray stone put over my husband’s grave, with this inscription:
“‘In memory of George Trescot. Aged 29 years. Late Major 6th Massachusetts Volunteers.
“‘Murdered on October 9, 1870, in St. Ann.’”
Mrs. Averill slowly folded the letter, and replaced it in the envelop. “Do you not think, Edward, that she may be a little—well, not quite sane? It is too strange, too horrible.”
“No; she is sane enough, Eleanor. But grief plays strange tricks with the most sane.”
“I, at least, cannot imagine a really great sorrow associated with ideas of revenge; but, after all, Edward, there is more than revenge here—or perhaps less. It would, after all, be only an unusual act of justice.”
“But you could never have desired such a thing.”
“I am not sure. No, I could not; but I am not Constance. I do not blame her.”
The general stood by the fire, the letter in his hand. At last he said: “Personally, Eleanor, I could wish this thing done. A man commits a crime like this and justice fails; people forget, and there is not even a record; and at last the man, too, I suppose, forgets.”
“But does he? Do you think that a man like him does at last cease to feel what he must have felt when that dear, beautiful woman fell at his feet? I often think, as I sit here, Edward,—just a sad, childless mother,—that if the men whose bullets left us lonely could have seen us or fully known what they had done, they could not have failed to be unhappy.” Then she paused and, looking up affectionately at the kind, brave face of the comrade and lover, added: “But I am glad they cannot know.”
“Yes, that is as well, dear. I, too, have helped to create in unseen homes the misery of war, more’s the pity. If every man in an army knew and saw whom his shot killed or crippled, and saw, too, all the far-away, never-ending consequences, I think wars would cease.”
“Perhaps, perhaps,” she said, as she looked up with full eyes at the crossed swords over the mantel.
They were silent again for a little while. Then she said:
“What will you do about this letter—this inscription?”
“I hardly know.”
“You may be sure that the churchwarden will never permit it. You can see him and show him the letter in confidence. He will say no; and you can repeat this to our poor Constance.”
The general, well pleased to be thus counseled, had his interview with the astonished warden, and upon his protesting wrote to Constance to that effect.
She replied that no one, not even Susan, knew anything of her letter, and that no further steps need be taken. She was sorry to have given trouble.
She wrote from time to time, but her letters were rare and never personal. Meanwhile, they had gone to Europe, as the doctor had desired them to do. Susan wrote often. Constance was, apparently, well again, but still thin and without a trace of her lovely coloring. The doctors said it was anemia, but one in Milan insisted that it was not want of blood, but some change in the nervous system. He had seen such cases and said that she would always be pale. “I really think,” said Susan, “that she is more beautiful than ever, but it is the beauty of living marble; and, dear Mrs. Averill, I had a cherished belief that this awful thing would make my sister turn where alone are peace and rest and the hope that lives when earth has none. I can see no such result. She will not even let me speak of what is so near to me. This alone makes her irritable, and that is new to Constance. People stare at her, and no wonder—so pale, so stately, and so sadly indifferent. She reads little, goes to the galleries, and takes no real interest in anything except that she shows the most eager desire to get well and vigorous. I should have wished to die. She was always, except with George and me, a reserved person, and now I am sure there is something constantly on her mind. It is not a mere torturing memory, but something which, when she thinks she is unnoticed, makes her smile in a cold way. I cannot describe it; but it does worry me. Once only she has shown interest, and that was about the miniatures we have had made for you from the photographs of your sons. They are very admirable, and to know what they will be to our dear friends pleased her. She said, ‘How George would have liked them!’ and, believe me, this is the only time I have heard his name pass her lips. I can give you no better idea of the effect she produces than to tell you what happened yesterday at the Pitti—no, it was at the Bargello. I was seated, looking at the statue of David. My sister was moving about, never looking long at any one of the wonderful things on every side. I heard a man near by say to a younger man: ‘Did you see that woman?’ ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘what a colorless face! She is as pale as death.’ The other said: ‘But what a cold, beautiful face! She must have had a history worth hearing.’ They strolled away, and I heard no more. I have a dreadful desire to know what has become of that man Greyhurst. Is he still in St. Ann?”
Mrs. Averill looked up from the letter she had been reading aloud to her husband.
“I have never chanced to set eyes on him,” she said. “But, then, I rarely leave my home.”
“As you know, dear,” returned Averill, “we do not speak. Of course I see him and hear of him. I think he has been made to feel that men are more than ever inclined to avoid him; not so much, I am sorry to say, on account of Trescot’s death as because of that terrible evidence of his uncertain temper. At the club I notice that he is not asked to take a hand at cards, although he plays well.”
“That is rather a mild punishment.”
“Yes; but it means something to him; and the social discipline has had its effect on a man who is, or was, amusing, and who liked the society of men. He is a sensitive person and feels it. I hear, too, that he no longer carries a revolver.”
“Indeed! and here, where it is so common!”
“Yes; Colonel Dudley told me. He has had two or three successful cases of late, and behaved with propriety and good temper.”
“Mrs. Dudley told me that he has been speaking in the county at political meetings.”
“Yes,” said Averill, “and admirably well. He wants to go to the legislature. That is all I know, Eleanor. I dislike even to talk about him. So far he is prospering, and that dear fellow is forgotten. This is a strange world, and not altogether satisfactory.”
Mrs. Averill was silent for a moment, automatically plying her knitting-needles. The general stood with a hand on her shoulder. Presently she said:
“Will you drive me to the churchyard this afternoon? I want to leave some flowers on the grave.”
He replied, “Certainly—of course.”
Then she added: “I was wondering how, in the far future, these two lives will end—her life and his.”