Part 21

Returning in an hour, the doctor sat down with his pipe and his thoughts. Both the personages in this sad drama had told him their stories. The mixture of good and evil in these two lives struck him. Both were without that steadying faith which had been his from childhood. Greyhurst was simply unreligious by habit. Constance had no religion, and, as Susan had told him, declared herself simply indifferent. Motives such as might otherwise have helped them were absent. The contrasts of Greyhurst’s life interested him—his unchecked boyhood, his passionate nature, his intelligence, his impulsiveness, his sensitiveness, the incidentally told act of self-exposing courage. He felt how vain it was to judge of human actions without the largest knowledge.

Then he reflected upon the calm, steadily pursued revenge of the woman, with its dreadful inventiveness, its implacable hatred.

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe as he wondered what manner of woman might she be whom Greyhurst desired to marry. The man had been scourged by vain regret. His repentance had so modified and gentled his life that all men saw it. If the woman loved him, and he could live elsewhere than in St. Ann, it might be the final solution of serious questions; but there was one incalculable factor in this tangle of human passions—the strong personality of Constance Trescot. He lighted his candle and went up to bed, more than a little pitiful for the woman who suffered, and for the man who had caused her to suffer.

VI

When Constance quietly related to Susan what she had done about the land, the elder sister was as near to reasonable wrath as it was possible for her to be. They were at breakfast when this revelation was unintentionally drawn out, not altogether to Constance’s satisfaction.

Susan had said: “I want, Conny, to put a new roof on the church, and I thought you would like to buy the land northwest of the churchyard. They talk of stables there.”

“The church roof does not interest me; the other does, Susan. But I cannot buy anything now. I have found use for all my spare income.”

Susan looked up. “And for what?”

“You may as well know it from me, sister. Some one will be sure to tell you, and I suppose this wretched little town will feed its gossip with this for a month of orphan sewing-circles.”

“What have you been doing now, Conny?”

“I have paid an extravagant price for the strip of frontage next to ours. Mr. Greyhurst owns the lots beyond it. His land is valueless without the addition of the deep-water front between us. He was in treaty for the Baptiste strip, and I bought it. I said I meant to ruin him. I had to tell you. I do not like to talk of it. But I will not be lectured. It is perfectly useless. What I feel you can never feel. I am glad to be alone in what I do, and I am not yet done with him.”

She spoke with increasing passion, more and more rapidly, sitting forward erect, as poor Susan, astonished, let fall her egg-spoon and fell back in her chair.

“I have seen all along that I make you unhappy. As compared to the personal justice I am dealing out where other justice failed, I hardly care. But neither affection nor opinion shall come between me and that man. I think you set the doctor to warning me. He did. What was health of mind or body compared to this? I suppose it will be the preacher next. But I advise you not to try that. Let us say no more, or we shall quarrel.”

“You say, dearest sister, let us say no more. It is you who furnished both text and sermon. I have said next to nothing. I asked nothing. It was you, and you alone, who began it.”

The plain, good-natured face was tearful as she went on: “We can never quarrel. That is impossible. But I think you both unkind to me and unjust, as I have never reopened this most painful subject. I do not say that I never meant to. You spoke of the rector, and of what I might ask him to do; and lest you should again misunderstand me, I may as well say now”—and she calmed herself a little as she spoke—“that Mr. Kent intends to call on you again. I wish you to know that. I did not ask him to do so. I have never dreamed of asking him to interfere. I have never thought of doing so. I do not mean to imply that he has never spoken of what you have been doing. Everybody talks of it. I think Mrs. Dudley may have spoken to him of your strange conduct, and he has mentioned some things to me which I had never heard of, and which I trust may not be true. But, dear Conny, you are the talk of the town.”

“I do not care.”

“That is the worst of it.” She paused, and then added: “But I will say no more. I have done, and when you say that not even affection for me would check you, it is time I ceased to speak.”

Constance studied the pained face a moment, and then returned: “Yes, we had better stop here; and as to your rector, I apologize. I did not imagine you cared. I have no fancy for clergymen; but if you want me to see him, I will.”

“Oh, I don’t care whether you see him or not.” Susan’s temper was failing her at last.

“Susan,” said Constance, “that isn’t like you. I don’t want to hurt you. If I have said too much, forgive me.”

“Oh, Conny! You have done so much that it is hard to forgive where I so constantly disapprove.”

“Yes, that may be. I can’t help it. As for Mr. Kent, I know you wish me to see him. I will, I will. I presume,” she added lightly, “that he will not undertake my reformation.”

“He is a gentleman, and my friend.” Susan flushed a little as she stood up. “I must go to my Bible-class. I almost forgot it. Good-by.”

Constance sat still. She was pleased to do something that would be agreeable to Susan. She would see Mr. Kent. He had come to St. Ann to relieve a clerical friend who had fallen ill, and upon the rector resigning had accepted his parish. She knew no more than this; but was it possible that Susan—No; it was absurd. Susan would never leave her, and had often laughed at what she called these “Sunday-school unions.” She had, however, noticed Susan’s slight embarrassment and her unusually quick show of resentment when Constance had spoken of Kent. Yes; she was perfectly sure that Susan would never marry, and that they would never be parted. And still the thought left her a little uneasy.

Greyhurst had been away for a week; but the news about the land purchase lent fresh zest to the gossip which so greatly annoyed the Averills. Colonel Dudley had been confidential to Mrs. Dudley concerning Greyhurst’s affairs, and she in turn to others, some of whom were of opinion that Constance’s mind had given way—a decision not easily accepted by those who met her in her own home and knew of her care of the poor, and of the intelligent interest with which she talked of books and the politics of the day. She was living a double life.

It was now past Christmas, and clear and cold, when, one morning, Susan set out to visit Mrs. Averill, her sole confidante. The old lady had again felt it a duty to express herself so freely that Constance, resentful of interference, now visited the Averills but rarely. She had also had an unpleasant interview with the general in regard to her purchase of land.

Susan found neither help nor comfort from her friend, and only the relief of being able to cry like a child—with the sad companionship of the tears of an older woman.

Coming out of the house with red eyes, and very conscious of an emotional breakdown, she saw the rector, Mr. Kent, coming up the street from the town. He moved slowly, and seemed to Susan to be deep in study of the broken boards of the sidewalk.

Susan was of no mind to meet him just now. Their intimacy had reached the stage which permits of sympathetic curiosity, and she was aware that her eyes were red. She waited to let him go by; but turning in at Averill’s gate, his face lighted up as the woman descended the steps and they met.

He saw that she had been crying, but merely said:

“A fine frosty day, Miss Susan; a pleasant reminder of New England.”

“Yes, I like it; and, indeed, I wish I were there.”

“Shall I find you at home this afternoon?”

“No; we ride to-day.”

“But it is dark early. Perhaps late, on your return?”

“Very well, then, late; and, by the way, my sister will see you.”

“I am glad of that—at six, then.”

He turned to go, hesitated, and said: “You are troubled, I fear. I can easily guess why, and I cannot wonder at it. I wish it were in my power to help you.”

“No one can do that.”

“It is needless to hide from you, Miss Susan, what every one knows. That miserable man has gone away. Will not that put an end to your sister’s strange conduct?”

“It might with any one else. It will not with her. From her childhood it has been like this. You are very kind, but it is like the possession one reads of—no one can help her or me. But I must go—good-by.”

He had seen much of her in the parish work and elsewhere, and now, as often before, noted with pleasure the two gifts she had in common with Constance—the charm of grace in movement, and, with less height, a faultless figure. He quite forgot his intention to call on Mrs. Averill, and remained for a moment looking after Susan Hood.

Dr. Eskridge, on the farther side of the street, benevolently regarded this interview and its results, when Kent, seeing himself observed, crossed over, guiltily conscious, like a boy caught in an apple-orchard, but as yet regretfully innocent of the joy of transferred property.

“If you are going my way,” said the doctor, “I will walk with you; but you must remember the antiquity of my legs, and not travel at your usual rate. A fellow must begin to be old somewhere. I am as well pleased that it is not in the head. You have been in the mountains, I hear. Get any deer?”

“Yes, three; and I had some queer experiences. It is like nothing I ever saw elsewhere. I camped in the snow with a mild-looking little man who is said to have killed three men. He explained to me, in a casual way, that he preferred to avoid a certain settlement because a man lived there whose father he had shot.”

“I suppose,” said Eskridge, “that it was one of those well-preserved vendettas.”

“Yes; just that. He remarked that it wouldn’t matter if he were alone; but he didn’t want to get me into trouble. We were lying by the camp-fire at night, and he went on to tell me of his quarrel, much as you might of any of the commonplaces of life.”

“Did you take his morals in hand?” said the doctor, with a questioning look at the strong face of the younger man, for whom he had both respect and friendly regard.

“No, not then. I did not see my way. Later in the evening he asked me what I did for a living. I said I was a preacher, an Episcopal clergyman. This appeared to interest him. He said there were none of that kind in the hills—only Methodists. Upon this I asked if they preached against killing one another. He said yes; but when a man shot one of your people, what could you do? I could only reply that Christ taught us to forgive injuries. He was silent for a moment, and then said: ‘It wouldn’t work in the mountains, because, next thing, the fellow would kill you to get clear of your killing him; and where, then, would the forgiveness come in?’”

The doctor laughed. “I should have been puzzled to reply, or at least so as to be of any real use. What did you say?”

“What could I say? The very basis of the morals of forgiveness was wanting. I tried to clear the ground a little. He listened, and when at last I quoted, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,’ he said he had ‘knowed’ that tried by fellows that were afraid, and hadn’t ever seen that it worked.”

“It must be a strange life,” said Eskridge. “But, Kent, here we have in this little town a woman who is no better than your friend. A stranger story could hardly be. Doctors, soon or late, hear everything; and I perhaps know more of it than any one else. I have long meant to talk to you about it. Both these sisters must be suffering. May I ask if you have any influence with Mrs. Trescot?”

“None at all, doctor. She has, I fear, like these men, nothing to which I can appeal.”

“And Miss Susan?”

“She has failed—altogether failed.”

The doctor reflected with approval on the intimacy with Susan which enabled Kent to answer as he had done.

“Well, the man has gone away. I hear from more than one source that he is engaged to a Miss Jeanette Wilson. We used at one time to see her here, a very sweet, intelligent, pretty girl, with a great deal of money. If it be true, this may end a foolish and wicked business and enable Greyhurst to live elsewhere, as I am assured he would very gladly do.”

“It is almost too good to be true. Do you think, doctor, that he has ever sincerely repented of that awful murder? I hear men say so.”

“Repented, Kent? No! Not in your sense. I am sure that he is punished by regret and the most honest self-reproach. I know that he suffers. Mrs. Trescot has punished him with such ingenuity of revenge as almost makes one pity the man. This last land business has terribly embarrassed him in regard to money. But the course she has taken has inflicted suffering of various kinds on innocent people,—and, above all, on her sister—to me the finer nature of the two.”

“Yes, her sister,” repeated Kent, softly. “Perhaps, when Mrs. Trescot learns of this other woman, she will give up.”

“I hardly think so. _Le diable d’une idée_ is a very persistent fiend, and very mischievous.”

“Yes; the devil of one idea,” said Kent.

While the two men were thus discussing her, Constance, liking the cold air and the brilliant sunshine, was seated on the back porch. She was reflecting with her too habitual intensity upon what she had done. There were minutes when she was made vaguely uneasy by the gradual failure of her interest in books and flowers, and by her difficulty in setting aside schemes which she knew to be utterly vain. Moreover, the satisfaction she promised herself in creating misery and adding ruin was not such as she had expected. How much Greyhurst had suffered she had not fully known until, in his few and only words to her, he had let her see that she had inflicted lasting pain. How would it end? The man had gone, and she was at the limit of her resources.

When she thought of this, and of Susan, and of the pain she had given the Averills, to whom she owed so much kindness in those darkest hours, she said: “Why not stop here?” It was, save once before, almost literally her first moment of doubt or indecision; but then, as if a giant fate were shutting out all other paths, her obsession rose again dominant, and deprived her of liberty to reflect or to marshal the forces of reason. She stood up, and felt, as she did so, some sense of inertness, some lack of her usual strength of body.

She rode with Susan in the afternoon, as they had agreed to do, and, returning, went up to change her dress.

Susan was still at the door and giving the black maid some household directions when Mr. Kent came up the garden path from the street. He knew that his visit was welcome. The plain, sweet face, with its humorous lines, made that distinct enough. In fact, he was the one person whose presence insured her happy talk and freedom from the thought of what dreadful surprise Constance might have in store with which to trouble her life.

She thanked him for the venison he had sent, and they fell into talk of his mountain journey, the scenery of the hills, and the books constantly supplied from the East.

At last he said: “Does your sister read much?”

“No; not of late. In fact, my sister never was a great reader; and now she is too uneasy, too restless-minded, to sit down to a book.”

“That seems a pity. Books are sometimes such blessed apostles. But to get good out of them, or help or consolation, does require a certain temperament and the habit of books. After all, readers, like poets, are born, not made.”

“Yes, the habit of books; she never had that. Do you know Lord Macaulay’s verses about this thing—the comforting of books?”

“No, I do not.”

“I have a poor memory for quotations. I envy the people who possess a remembered library of poetry. There is one of the verses which I suppose I am able to recall, because I liked it more than the rest. He is telling of the gift of love of literature which the fairy godmother gave him at birth.

“‘Fortune that lays in sport the mighty low, Age that to penance turns the joys of youth, Shall leave untouched the gifts which I bestow, The sense of beauty and the thirst for truth.’”

“I like that, and I shall be glad to see the whole poem.”

“I will send you the book to-morrow. I must confess that, of late, not even books are capable of distracting my mind. My sister is evidently failing in health. She is becoming more and more silent, and she is gradually losing interest in the charitable work she did so well; in fact, I—” here she paused, feeling, with the defensive instincts of a woman, that these advances in the direction of personal statements were somewhat perilous.

With some realization of her state of mind, he said quickly: “Yes, I can imagine how trying it must all be to you. If I can be of any use, I am sure you must know how entirely I am at your service; and if to talk of this trouble hurts and does not help, let us drop it.”

The look of anxious kindness on the man’s face as he leaned toward her, the sense that here was the sympathy of a strong and comprehending manhood, in some way, of a sudden, weakened her habitual self-control.

Repressed here and troubled there, missing the old affection, the demand for love and attention, of Constance’s former days, Susan’s gentle spirit, to which love meant so much, to her dismay, gave way, and she began to show in tears the too visible signals of distress.

“Oh, Susan,” he said, “I am so sorry for you! I know, of course. I know what is hurting you. I wish I could tell you how much it all means to me.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, “I know”—wiping her eyes; “you are—you have been both good and helpful. But it goes on and on, and I am afraid. I live in constant fear of what to-morrow may bring.”

“Let me have the right to end it all—the right to speak for you as you cannot.”

“No, no.” She shook her head and sat tapping her skirt mechanically with her riding-whip.

He took her hand. “This must not go on.”

“Hush,” she said. “Here comes Constance.”

As they stood up, she raised his hand to her lips.

He bent over and kissed her forehead.

“You must not,” she said shyly.

“But I did,” he replied; and, as they drew apart, Susan, flushed, tearful, and not unhappy, said quickly: “I must go—oh, do let me go!” and leaving him, passed in haste through the back parlor and up-stairs.

At another or an earlier day, the unusual speed of Susan’s exit, and Kent’s slightly embarrassed look, would not have escaped notice from Constance, who now entered from the hall. The younger sister was, however, freed from suspicion by the too constant ideas which occupied her mind. She said graciously: “I am very glad to see you, Mr. Kent; and how delicious your venison was!”

At times she had seen him in the street, and twice at the Averills’; but, except for a moment, never in her home or elsewhere. Something in his general bearing disturbed her; was it because he looked like some one? He had very little of the conventional clergyman in dress or manner, and Constance knew in a minute or two that she was talking to a man of her own class, and accustomed to the ways and habits of a larger world than she had found at St. Ann.

“I must say to you, Mrs. Trescot, how much pleasure it gives me to see you. I am kept pretty busy among these unlucky freedmen, who are like children, and I have had very little time for social visits.” She recognized and liked the tact which thus set her free from need to explain why she had not seen more of him. She found herself saying with cordiality that she hoped he would find time in the future, and that, as he rode often, he would be able to join them—a pleasure which Susan had refused him, believing that Constance would be ill pleased.

“I should like nothing better,” he said; “I came near to taking that liberty last Tuesday; but I had to hurry home.”

“I saw you ahead of us,” she returned, “and told my sister that you had the cavalry seat, and that you must have seen service. Susan did not appear to know, and I was rather curious.”

“Oh, Miss Susan,” he said to himself, “you did not know!” There was little about his life which that lady did not know.

He replied: “Yes, I was born in North Carolina; but I was educated at a seminary in the North, and had a parish in Portland when the war broke out. I thought the North right and I served as a chaplain in the Eighth Maine. I came here on a holiday to relieve a sick friend, and when he gave up I accepted the parish. At first I had trouble, but now I get on well enough. It is impossible not to like these people. When once they accept you there is no limit to their kindness; and as I was a Southern man who had been in the Northern army, I was surprised to find how soon I was made to feel at home.”

Again the smile, and something in his face taxed her memory. She said: “They were most kind to me in my great trouble—most kind. I shall never forget it.”