Part 17

I have said that he was variously sensitive. By degrees he had set aside and carefully rid himself of even the smallest reminder of an hour which he deeply regretted. He had ceased to wear his revolver; had put it aside and locked it up. He had found that the gray suit he wore during the trial revived a dark memory. He gave it away. And now, the feeble ingenuity of a woman’s hatred had brought back in dreadful clearness all that time had mercifully dealt with.

He went out and forced himself to attend to the business of the day. He stayed late at the club, seeking society, unwilling to face the solitude of his own house.

As he walked homeward in the darkness he took refuge in that which had somewhat helped him at an earlier period. During his trial men swore to their belief that the younger man was in act to draw his pistol. This, as he thought of it in cold blood, justified his own action as defensive. He clung to this view of the matter; set it before his mind as true, and, with sophistry which was scarcely self-convincing, so manipulated the facts that at last mere repetition of the mental states did assist him to escape from the self-reproach which fell upon him when Averill had struck him with the verdict of a man whom all men honored. The telegram and Mrs. Trescot’s letter had forced him again to think it all over. He realized how small had been his victory over the recording power of memory. He had been at the mercy of a slip of paper—and, at once, that which chanced a year ago was to him as if it had happened yesterday. At times he felt competent to defend and excuse his action; at others he suffered the anguish of such regret as was inevitable in an imaginative man, who felt keenly the accusation of having taken advantage of a man who carried no arms and was, to some extent, incapable of protecting himself.

By degrees, as the days went by, he comforted himself with the idea that here at least was the end. He had, too, at times an indistinct feeling that there was cruelty in thus tormenting a man who had bitterly repented; and the memory of the beauty and grace of the woman, and his immense admiration of her, barbed and poisoned the shaft which had gone so surely to its mark.

Meanwhile, Constance took up her life, but with more or less thought of its supreme purpose. She heard from Coffin what were the habits of Greyhurst’s days, and began to plan ways of knowing more of his life. At first all thought of him disturbed her emotionally; but this she learned to put aside. She was frequently at the general’s, but would go nowhere else. He had found for her riding-horses, and an old slave for a groom, so that soon her figure in the black riding-habit became familiar in and near the town. In a word, she lived, or seemed to live, the ordinary life of a young widow of more than usual means.

No one she knew mentioned Greyhurst, and, except the Averills and Coffin, no one suspected that she was doing or thinking otherwise than the two or three sad women in St. Ann who, like herself, were suffering from the cruel consequences of some deadly quarrel.

Toward the close of her second week at St. Ann, Mrs. Averill asked her to be present at a meeting of women who were interested in their modest home for the orphans of Confederate soldiers, to which Constance had promised help from Susan and herself. Contact with the Averills, and the misery she had seen as the direct or indirect result of war, had lessened her own strong partisan feeling. Disposed by nature to be generous, she was, moreover, eager to make friends and secure allies; and thus, although rather reluctant to face the many she would meet, she decided at last to accept Mrs. Averill’s invitation. It was late in the afternoon when she found herself among some two dozen ladies, old and young. Many of them she had met, and all were either anxious to express their sympathy by a kindly greeting, or were merely curious to see the rich widow who had so strangely elected to return to St. Ann.

Mrs. Averill explained that the meeting was informal and designed to assist the male managers of the home. She spoke, for Constance’s information, of the good it had done, and of the great difficulty they had in carrying it on. A lady read the quarterly statement of the treasurer, and the smallness of the deficit gave Constance a sad sense of their limited resources. Several women offered modest aid, and then there was the usual silence.

Constance whispered to Mrs. Averill, who said:

“Certainly, my dear. Ask what questions you please.”

Constance rose. “Mrs. Averill permits me to ask for some little information. May I inquire how many children you have in your home?”

From this she went on in a businesslike way to put herself in possession of all the facts she required to know.

“I have had,” she said, “some acquaintance with an institution like yours, and now may I learn finally how much per head per day it costs you?”

No one was quite prepared to answer; but Miss Bland, a spinster she had met before, said: “We can say that if we had a thousand dollars a year, with our present subscriptions, it would be enough to support all our home has room for.”

Constance then said: “My sister and I shall be most glad to give, between us, that amount for five years; and probably we may be able then to secure the same sum to you as a permanent income.”

There were exclamations of pleasure and surprise, and warm and grateful words as they turned to thank her. At last, on the suggestion of further business, Mrs. March, a stout, elderly dame, and their chairman, said: “We shall ask the gentlemen, our managers, to offer you formal thanks, Mrs. Trescot, for your generous help. As Southern ladies we thank you, and may I venture to add that every one in St. Ann appreciates the kind and liberal way in which you and Miss Hood have dealt with the squatters and, indeed, with all those with whom you have had to deal.”

Mrs. March drew back her chair and, smoothing out her gown, sat down, well pleased with her little speech.

“Thank you, Mrs. March,” said Constance. “It is quite unnecessary to thank us formally. I have here a blank check; I will fill it out for the first six months. And your little deficit I shall like to make good as my personal gift.”

Miss Bland, who sat on her right, said: “Oh, thank you; and don’t you want to see our printed report?”

Mrs. Averill shook her head; but the signal came too late. Constance said: “Yes, certainly, Miss Bland; I am much interested.” She glanced at the first page and saw that the managers were all ex-officers of the Confederacy, and that the seventh name was John Greyhurst’s. A faint flush rose to cheek and forehead. “Thank you,” she said as, with an effort to seem calm, she returned the pamphlet. “I do not want it.”

“Oh, keep it,” said Miss Bland; “I have another copy.”

“I said, ‘I do not want it,’” returned Constance, with emphasis.

Mrs. Averill frowned, and Mrs. Dudley, seated behind Miss Bland, whispered to her, with vicious satisfaction: “Take care, Eliza! How could you?”

“I do not see what I have done.”

As Mrs. Trescot rejected the pamphlet she sat up, quite too visibly disturbed to escape the notice of those who were within view of her face. With the persistency of the dull-witted, Miss Bland, annoyed at Mrs. Dudley’s reproof, exclaimed: “Oh, do take it!”

Constance turned toward her, saying so as to be generally heard: “I know, Miss Bland, that it could not have occurred to you that among the names of the managers is that of—” and she stopped, controlling herself.

Mrs. Dudley, leaning over the back of Miss Bland’s chair, whispered, “It is Greyhurst! How could you!”

“Oh, I never thought!” cried Miss Bland, awkwardly apologetic. “I am sorry. I didn’t remember.”

“I was sure of that. Do not let it trouble you.” Constance’s voice broke, and then, recovering, she added, “You have really done me a service.”

“You may be sure, Mrs. Trescot,” said Mrs. Dudley, “that we never thought—we—”

“Excuse me if I interrupt you,” returned Mrs. Trescot. “After what I have just learned, I must ask you to consider our gift as entirely in the hands of the visiting ladies, and not at the disposal of the male managers.”

Mrs. Averill said at once: “It shall be as you wish, dear. The gentlemen have been so inactive that it did not occur to any of us to think of them. The man referred to was put on the board three years ago, when it was first formed. It should have occurred to us; I ought to have told you.”

There was a moment of silence, when Mrs. March said: “You may rest assured, Mrs. Trescot, that no one here fails to feel with you; and if, under the circumstances, you would rather not give at all, we should all understand it.”

“Thank you,” said Constance, proudly; “you are most considerate. But you are welcome to all we can do, and if you find the situation embarrassing, as may be the case, I will write to Colonel Dudley and explain it myself. I see that he is chairman of the board.”

“Oh, no, no,” said several women. “By no means; it is quite unnecessary.”

Constance smiled in her cold way, shaking her head as she spoke, and rising.

“I must go. It is—it was a little too much for me. And you are all so good. I must go. Good-by.”

Mrs. Averill went with her to the outer door. “Oh, my dear, I am so sorry—and in my house, too; I am so very sorry!”

“I am not very sure that I am,” said Constance, as she kissed her and went away.

Mrs. Averill looked after her in puzzled amazement, and then returned to the room where her friends were busily discussing this unpleasant incident.

“It is just as well; she had to know soon or late,” said Mrs. March. “Of course he will hear of it—and I, for one, hope that he will hear of it.”

Others were of her way of thinking, and in a dozen homes that evening the sad story was revived and Constance’s generosity praised, and her sad fate pitied anew.

That evening she wrote to Mrs. March, inclosing a copy of a note sent to Colonel Dudley. She could not leave the ladies in a situation which obliged them to make to the managers an explanation which should properly come from her.

To the president of the board of the home she wrote:

“DEAR COLONEL DUDLEY:

“My sister and I are much interested in your excellent charity, and we shall have the pleasure of aiding it to the extent of one thousand dollars a year for five years. Then, or sooner, we hope to endow it with enough to represent the same income. An accident brought to my knowledge the fact that one of your members is the man who murdered my husband. You will, I am sure, understand why I have felt it to be impossible for me to confide our gladly given help to a board of which he is a member. I have placed the money, and shall in future place it, in the hands of the visiting committee of ladies, for their use, and theirs alone. My own strong feeling, and my late husband’s great regard for you, will, I know, excuse to you my very frank statement.”

A courteous note acknowledging the receipt of her letter was all she heard of it for a week or more.

Susan Hood had twice put off her journey to St. Ann, having no reason to leave the home she loved except her affection for Constance. She had reluctantly come to the conclusion that marriage and trouble had in some way set up barriers between them. She had been the one strong, and even jealous, affection of Constance’s younger life, and now sadly felt that it had incomprehensibly lessened, and that her sister seemed to have been incapable of more than one such relation at a time.

After Trescot’s death Constance had begun again to rely on her, and to defer to her opinion on the lesser matters of life. But all through the summer and their many months of travel she had felt that the mind once so open to her was hiding and cherishing thoughts which she, Susan, was not allowed to share. All her kindly attempts to enter into the confidence of her sister failed, and now, being about to join her, she wrote, in some anxiety and distress:

“MY DEAR CONNY:

“Why you so obstinately insisted upon returning to a place which must be full of painful memories I have never yet learned. Even for me it must ever be hateful. But you are all I have in life; whither you go I shall go. It is my duty, and I shall make it my pleasure. That is all—except, dear, that I am sure you are bent on something which you have, so far, concealed, and which I hope to understand. I have respected your reticence, assured that it must have a reasonable basis; but we once lived a frank and undivided life, and your attitude to me all summer has made me most unhappy. Let us be, dear, as we once were.

“Try to get a good horse for me. Love to the Averills. I shall arrive on November 2, D. V.

“Yours always, SUSAN.

“October 25, 1871.”

It was near to the close of the month when Constance received this letter, and she knew at once that further concealment would be impossible. She was equally well aware that Susan would be shocked and grieved at a course of conduct so opposed to the beliefs which governed her own actions. Constance was sorry, but it did not affect her resolve.

She was always at home to the increasing number of women, young and old, who called upon her. Although her piano remained closed, she made her house interesting to people who had few chances of intellectual enjoyment, lending books and magazines, and when alone busying herself with hanging prints and water-colors brought from abroad. In the afternoons she rode in all weathers.

So far she had won her way, as she had meant to do, making her rather excessive bounty to the poor and sick the more gracious by the attraction of manner which made those whom she tactfully obliged partners of the honest joy she felt, especially in helping the sad and hopelessly stranded women of her own class.

Her desire to know more of her enemy than Coffin could tell her found at last an ally. Just before Susan’s arrival, she had come from a long ride, and met at her door a woman whose face and worn look had interested her for a moment at the meeting in Mrs. Averill’s home. Seeing her in her riding-dress, the woman would have gone away, but Constance said: “No, I am quite at leisure. Do come in. You are, I think, the matron of the home. I saw you at the meeting.”

“Yes; I am Miss Althea Le Moine.”

She was dressed in clothes which had evidently been long in use. Her air of furtive apprehension struck Constance. “A provincial lady,” was the hostess’s conclusion, as they sat down. Constance rang, saying: “I have the habit of indulging myself with a cup of tea after I ride. May I tempt you?”

The tea was brought, and the toast and cake evidently enjoyed, while they talked of the home and its needs, or Constance turned over her Florentine photographs, setting at ease a woman whom she felt to be somewhat embarrassed.

At last Miss Althea said: “I have come to you, Mrs. Trescot, to ask a little help.”

“Now that is very kind of you,” said her hostess. “Let us talk. What is it?”

It seemed that she owned a small house left to her by a brother who had fallen at Lookout Mountain. “He was a Confederate soldier,” she added. A mortgage upon it was one of the smaller debts due to Mr. Hood. Perhaps Mrs. Trescot would kindly wait. The interest was in arrears—the rent was ill paid; but she hoped—

Constance interrupted her. “I shall have pleasure in speaking of it to General Averill. I think that it has already been considered—and, by the way, how much is it?”

“Five hundred dollars; and really the house is all I have.”

“Make your mind easy; when my sister arrives we will do something to relieve you, and will certainly cancel the back interest. Now don’t cry. You have given me a pleasure, and if you cry I shall cry, and I hate to cry. Let us talk of something else.”

“How can I thank you? I have been so troubled—you won’t mind my telling you the rest?”

“I? No, indeed. What is it?”

“One of my brothers was in the Northern army. He lived in Kentucky. He died some time ago. Last month the ladies found out that he was a Federal officer, and now I am so afraid they will think—oh, one of them said I ought not to be kept on.”

“No one will disturb you. You are needlessly alarmed. I will speak to Mrs. March. You may feel entirely at ease. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Althea, as she rose. “I do think I shall sleep to-night. I wish there was anything I could do to show you how grateful I am.”

“Stop,” said Mrs. Trescot. “Sit down. You can help me. But, first, I want to ask you to consider what I shall say as confidential—absolutely confidential.”

“Yes, of course.” Miss Althea was curious, and her narrowing life had left her little of interest.

“I learned lately, as you know, that the man who killed my husband is one of the managers of the home. It embarrassed me. You can understand that, and why it must keep me from visiting at the home as I should like to do.”

“But he never comes there, Mrs. Trescot. At the visitors’ meeting yesterday Mrs. Dudley said that the colonel had told him that, as he never attended their meetings, he ought to resign, and he has done so.”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Trescot. “I have reasons—very good reasons—for desiring to know more of this man. I have trusted you; and now, when you hear anything of interest about him, I want you to come and tell me.”

Miss Althea, much astonished, promised to be watchful, and went away comforted, but with her curiosity ungratified.

On the following day Greyhurst recognized in the morning mail the black-edged envelop and the writing of Constance Trescot. He threw it on the table. He had again the feeling that in a variety of ways he had been made to atone for a minute of passionate resentment and the fatal action in which it had resulted. Always what men called thin-skinned, and feeling keenly what would have affected others but little, he had become, of late, less obviously irritable, but even more sensitive. The hint to resign from the board, which a year before he would have angrily resented, humiliated him the more when, hearing later of Mrs. Trescot’s gift to the home, he knew at once what hand had struck him. He knew, too, as he sat at his table, that to burn this letter would be the wiser course. He could not. It held him as with a spell, as a serpent charms a bird, both drawing and repelling. He tore it open at last, and an inclosure fell out. For a moment he held it unread; and then, as if compelled, read:

SIR:

The inclosed is a copy of a letter my husband left on his desk the morning of October 7, 1870. You will see that he meant to sacrifice his position as my uncle’s agent if Mr. Hood still refused to deal generously with your clients. My husband’s murder and my uncle’s death left to my sister and to me the privilege of generous dealing, of which your hand deprived George Trescot.

“CONSTANCE TRESCOT.”

“Curse the woman!” he cried. “I was a fool to read it.” He crumpled Trescot’s letter in his hands as he sat, and then smoothed it out and read it again. He never for a moment doubted that it told the truth. He was a man of too easy morals, but capable of affection and even of love. A new and overwhelming realization of what he had done to this woman swept over him in a storm of self-reproach and pity.

He sat with his face in his hands, his elbows on the table, the copy of Trescot’s letter before him. He lit a match and saw that his hand shook as he held the two papers over it and they slowly burned away. Then, rising, he lighted a cigar and threw himself on a sofa. The cigar went out. He cast it away. How would this end? There must be a limit to the ability of this woman to torture him, and to his own capacity to suffer. After all, he was a man and she but a woman. The matter of his resignation from the board of the home was a trifle, and he was prospering as never before. It was not so easy to deal with the horrible power these letters had to bring back emotions which time had helped to render less poignant. He had a bad memory for faces; but now, as he lay, he saw again the smiling young fellow approaching with his message of peace and kindness. He might have understood even then; but long years of unrestraint had combined with the bitterness of defeat to ruin him. He rose and, returning to his table, tried to lose himself in the enforced study of an important case. It was vain. He went out to a stable near by and mounted a horse he had just bought. It proved unruly, and a furious ride brought back the horse tired and the rider relieved, more at ease, and with a renewed sense of mastery.

His life was too busy to leave him large leisure for painful reflection. He had cases to try, and one which called him away to the capital of the State. He was gone for a week. His political ambitions also claimed a part of his time, as he hoped in a year to be a successful candidate for the legislature, and would then be absent for long periods.

Meanwhile, in one and another way, from Coffin and from the gossip Althea Le Moine willingly and in wonder brought to Constance, she knew of Greyhurst’s habits and expectations, and silently brooded over plans of disturbing her prey, not as yet fully realizing her power, nor comprehending how far the sensitive nature of the man was aiding her purpose.

III

Susan Hood had been a week at St. Ann before she was able to learn anything of the design, so steadily held, that had brought Constance back to a place which she, at least, wished never to see again.