Part 7

He comforted her as best he could, not in the least degree sharing her apprehensions.

At last she said: “What do you suppose he wanted?”

“I think, dear, it would be hard to say.” He did not choose to admit that it had appeared to him to be an attempt to alarm him. He added that the man had been foolish, and yet was not a fool. “I fancy him to be in debt,” he said, “and to depend too anxiously on the issue of this suit.”

“I do not like him.”

He laughed. “Would you like any one who did not think George Trescot a legal angel?”

“I should not,” she cried, and kissed him. “He is very handsome, but he made me uncomfortable.”

“Oh, he is quite harmless.”

“So is a poor little dead snake on the road, but I jump when I see it.”

“Go to bed, Mrs. Eve,” he said, laughing.

A moment after she put her charming head through the half-open doorway and cried: “I hate him!”

“Oh, go to bed, you bad child. You don’t hate anybody.”

“But I do,” she murmured, as she went up the stair.

Her weekly letter to Susan went next day. She wrote:

“DEAR SUSAN:

“In two weeks I shall be at Eastwood, but how I am to live there two months with uncle, and without George, I do not yet see. I am sometimes surprised to recognize how completely he is all of life to me; and then I am glad. I rejoice in my good looks and my voice because they are for him, and because they help him among these strange people who are still sullen and bitter about the war they brought upon us, and about what it cost them. As if we, too, had not had our share! George expects me to be very tender of their feelings, and I am—indeed I am; but when I see George nursing that crippled arm, and evidently in pain of which I am never to speak, I sometimes—But I will say no more to you, my only confessor. When George says that I am to forget and, what I cannot forget, forgive, I can almost do it. Indeed, I go to church because he goes, and sing the hymns—you should hear me. If it would make him more happy I could almost pretend to believe what he believes. It cannot be only a creed which makes him so tender, so entirely true, so thoughtful, and, above all, what I am not, so magnanimous concerning these people. He brings home no stories of his annoyances, but I have heard and seen more than enough to make me cry at times because I urged him to come to this place. He only says: ‘Why, all this is natural, and must pass away with time.’ But still I feel that we are in a hostile land.

“Knowing what he has to endure, I said to him last week that his religion nowhere orders us to forgive the enemies of those we love. You should have seen his face. I got a proper scolding; and oh, I love him to scold me. Can you understand that?

“Last night we had a visit from a Mr. Greyhurst, who is the lawyer of the people who dispute uncle’s land claims. I overheard them talking rather high, and suddenly appeared as peacemaker. The man looked at me and was quiet. It was like a charm; but the way he looked was not quite pleasant. A dark, Spanish-looking person, with overbold eyes, and very handsome, with a strong, uneasy face—a curious contrast to the refinement and intellectual beauty of George, who looked slight and almost frail beside this man’s massive figure. Sometimes I am anxious when I look at George and know that he has to remain in this heat. When, in your last letter, you said that I had no resource in me or my beliefs against the sorrows of life, I had a sudden and horrible fear lest you might have been thinking of George, and then I felt it was cruel of you, and as if I never could write to you again; but I ought to have known better. This strained, anxious life is, I suppose, making me morbid, and perhaps something else is having a like effect.

“George has heard from uncle, who either does not or will not realize the state of affairs here among his dear rebels, who hate him, and no wonder. At first I disliked the idea of his coming to St. Ann; but, on the whole, it may be as well. He can be stiff enough in a letter, but not when he is face to face with a resolute man. He will learn a little when he comes.

“Yours always, “CONSTANCE.

“P.S.—I have been rather depressed of late, but this is largely because of the prospect of leaving George. In truth, we have been making some friends, and just now the town is lovely with flower-gardens.

“C.”

VIII

Mrs. Averill had been absent a week, on a visit to friends in the country, before Constance saw her again.

Constance, standing at the gate, watched her for a moment as she moved among her flowers in the front garden. The old lady, turning, smiled a glad welcome for the face on which the joy of youth and love and perfect health were plain to see. “Ah, for shame!” she cried, looking over the box row, “prying at an old lady alone with her flowers. Come in, my dear; I forgive you. If you knew what I was saying to my flowers you would like it; I was really thinking of you. There are flowers which always remind me of certain people. Oh, no; I won’t tell you what I was thinking.”

“Then,” said Constance, gaily, “I shall be equally cruel and not tell you what delightful things were in my mind.”

“Let us trust that they were complimentary.”

She was so pretty and so sweetly gracious, with her underlying, pathetic expression of abiding sorrow, that Constance felt tempted to say: “What a beautiful old lady you are! I wonder what I shall be like if I live as long.” She limited herself to saying: “Yes, they were as—well, as complimentary as you could desire.”

“Thank you, my dear. That is saying a great deal. I suppose we never outlive our vanity. Come in; it is too hot for you here.”

“No, there is shade enough. How is the general?”

“Very well, for him. He is never very strong. Just now he is worried because of what your husband told him of Mr. Greyhurst’s visit, and that miserable business of the club. You overheard it, he said. The general blames himself, and, of course, did not mean to say a word about it to Mr. Trescot. He does not think that Mr. Greyhurst did anything to influence the vote.”

“Perhaps not; but I don’t like and I don’t trust that man.”

“I do not like him either, my dear. But we do hope that neither of you will think that the old officers here have any other than good-will to your husband. Mr. Greyhurst is a very strange man. He was divorced from his wife, who died eighteen months ago. During the war he put her money into Confederate securities. We have all found them rather insecure”; and she smiled.

“Yes; so I have heard,” said Constance.

“At one time he was on General Hill’s staff, but he was constantly quarreling, and the general says he was too impulsive and resentful to be a good officer.”

“I wish some one else had the case,” said Constance.

“Well, my child, no one could quarrel with your husband, and, after all, the general will be the senior counsel.”

Constance bent over and kissed the little old lady, saying: “Thank you; you always comfort me; and then—oh!”

Greyhurst was leaning over the paling fence.

“Good evening,” he said. “May I come in? What good luck you have with flowers! I see Mrs. Trescot’s every day as I go by. I fancy they grow best for the ladies. I see that you have Coffin working for you. He can hardly know much about flowers.”

“Oh, I am teaching him; he wanted work, and I am glad to help him.”

“A lazy, worthless vagabond, Mrs. Trescot, I fear; one of the squatters. I am surprised he would work for Mr. Trescot after the way he talks. These squatters are pretty saucy.”

“He is my gardener, not Mr. Trescot’s; and as yet my husband has made no objection.” She was quietly amused at Coffin’s diplomacy.

Mrs. Averill, a little puzzled, looked up from the flowers she was pruning.

“Well,” returned Greyhurst, “that is a comfortable view of the situation.”

“It is very useful,” said Mrs. Trescot, “in married life for husband and wife to know how to hold their tongues.”

“Quite true, my dear,” said Mrs. Averill, still a little in the dark.

“Therefore, when Coffin abuses my husband I shall say: ‘Are the geraniums doing well?’ ‘Best in town, ma’am.’ Then I shall say: ‘Coffin, I forgive you.’”

Greyhurst was not quite up to the light give and take of mere chat, to which Constance was trained. Mrs. Averill saw in it a tactful effort to reduce a serious question to a harmless level. The man felt himself chaffed, and said: “You will find him out.”

“Not in work-hours,” she laughed. “Punctuality is my one virtue. That I insist on, even in a husband.”

“Will you not come in?” said Mrs. Averill, not liking the man’s ill-repressed look of embarrassed annoyance.

“No,” he said; “I retreat under fire. I must go. Mrs. Trescot is too sharp for a poor old Confederate; I shall retire before worse comes.”

“That was what we did not do in the war, Mr. Greyhurst,” said Mrs. Averill, gaily.

“I protest,” said Constance, “against considering me as an enemy.”

“Oh,” he returned, “after all, it is generally the man who retreats. I ask for terms of honorable surrender.”

Mrs. Averill said, smiling, “You may march out with colors flying, and here they are,” giving him a rose.

“And Mrs. Trescot’s?” he asked.

“I never give roses out of other people’s gardens, and just now there are none in mine.”

He took off his hat, saying: “I am usually too late, or too early. That is the fate of some of us. May I hope to be more fortunate when your roses appear?”

“Perhaps, if you are very, very good,” she cried, relenting, and disposed against her feelings to send him away in a good humor.

“Thank you,” he said, not ill pleased; and setting Mrs. Averill’s rose in his buttonhole, left them alone.

“My dear Constance, were you not rather hard on that man?”

“No; he was insolent, and he meant to be; and I know he lied about Coffin. Tom is a man who might kill you, but he would never work for a man and lie about him. Heaven knows what he said to Mr. Greyhurst. He owes him a grudge.”

“Yes, my dear; but it is worse than no use to make a man like John Greyhurst angry. It is really a poor kind of triumph. You had better have appeared not to notice what he said.”

“I could not help it. The man is unpleasant to me.”

“Best not to show it. Come in and let us talk over our plans. Do you want to stop in Washington on your way North?”

As Constance walked homeward she acknowledged to herself that she had been unwise, and knew as by instinct that a very little graciousness to this man would have better served her husband. She smiled, as she went down the dusty street, at her certainty that she could bring the man to her feet like a fawning spaniel. She read with natural readiness the eager eyes of this ungoverned personality. Then she saw in her mind the fine lines of Trescot’s face, and thought of the restraint and patience with which he refrained from urging upon her opinions which she felt with intense feeling were their only ground of difference. The manners of a man to his wife are a final test of conduct; and again she smiled, as though at some fresh discovery, and the joy of its tender recognition.

She was now a well-known figure in the town. Many persons acknowledged her greeting. She went into two or three shops, helped a little child up some steps, and left with every one a pleasing sense of liberal cheerfulness, and of that charm of manner which made her somewhat startling beauty a contribution to the joys of life.

As she came out of a shop she met Coffin.

“Well,” she said, “Tom, how is your brother-in-law?”

“He’s failing, ma’am.”

“Is there anything you need for him?”

“Yes, ma’am; I was going to ask you something. He says would you come and read out of the Bible to him? We can’t any of us read well.”

She hesitated, and then said quickly, “Yes, I will come; but cannot his wife read?”

“Yes; but not like you can; it’s you he wants.”

“I will come. Have you seen Mr. Greyhurst lately?”

“Yes; and I reckon I fooled him well.”

“You abused my husband,” she said merrily.

“Who told you that? I did—I did.”

“Mr. Greyhurst.”

“Well, he is a fool. He just swallowed it all like them big catfish grabs a bait. Well, you’ll come soon? He ain’t going to live long.”

“I will come; I shall be there to-morrow.”

As Tom left her, she wondered why she had said she would read to the man. In fact, she had no ready excuse for denying so simple a request.

Not far from her home she was aware of Greyhurst. He met her and turned back, walking beside her.

“Mrs. Trescot,” he said quietly, “I was rude to you; I desire to ask your pardon.”

“Indeed,” she returned sweetly, “we were both, I fear, a little cross.”

“Thank you; that is more than a pardon.” Pausing a moment, he added gravely: “I have had, madam, a rather sad and disappointing life, and I suppose it has soured me. Are you ever sorry for things you do?”

Constance was less amazed at the odd turn his talk had taken than a man would have been, for men say easily to women things they never could say to those of their own sex.

“Yes, I am sorry every day,” she returned.

“I was hasty in what I said to Mr. Trescot the other night. I fear that you overheard us, and I wish now to assure you that I did not blackball him at the club.”

“I wonder,” thought she, “if that be true.” Her temper was rising, but she said coldly: “The whole matter is unimportant—entirely unimportant.”

“Not to me, madam, not to me; but Mr. Trescot has a way of being—”

“Stop, Mr. Greyhurst,” she said; “you forget yourself. We are going to quarrel again. It seems to me that you have an extraordinary gift of saying disagreeable things.”

“That is true. My life is one long story of regrets. I—there is no one I should be less willing to annoy than you.”

He turned his dark eyes on her as he spoke, for now they were at her gate, and she had stopped.

“I am sure of that,” she said.

Very strange to her was this strong man, big and athletic, with ardent eyes and sudden familiarities, and impulsive speech and childlike regrets.

She gave him her hand, saying good-by, but did not ask him to come in. To her surprise, he bent over it, raised it to his lips and kissed it, and lifting his hat, went on his way.

“Well,” she said, “next to Uncle Rufus, that is the most singular man I ever met. I wonder if he is quite sound in mind.” She gave a queer little glance at the hand he had kissed. Among the older gentlemen of Creole descent it was not rare to see this pretty usage. But this man she had not seen over a half-dozen times, and it was out of doors. She went in, wisely resolving to say nothing, and much inclined to avoid Greyhurst in future.

IX

The increasing heat of the latter days of July, the dust, the dried-up garden, and the mosquitos helped the young wife’s faltering will, so that she felt physically convinced that a change was imperative. And there was also another and a powerful motive for care of her health.

She said to her husband next morning at breakfast:

“I have arranged with Mrs. Averill that we leave a week from to-day, on the evening train.”

“I am glad it is settled, Constance. I shall be happier when you are breathing the good salt air.”

“It had to be, I suppose.”

“Yes, it had to be.”

She was silent for a moment, and then said:

“George, Thomas Wilson has asked me—it was Coffin who brought the message—if I would go to see him to-day.”

“Well, why not? But I do not like you to be in those clearings alone.”

“Coffin will be there.”

“That will answer, I suppose. What else is there?”

“He wants me to read the Bible to him. His wife cannot read, or reads badly. These people are amazingly uneducated. Why cannot he get a preacher? I was foolish to say yes.”

“Well, dear?”

“Surely, George, you must understand me.”

He saw her difficulty at once, and said, smiling: “You may trust me always to understand you. You know, dear, my own feeling in regard to freedom of belief and, indeed, of unbelief. You know, too, what I desire and never urge. I see your difficulty, but there is no need for you to pretend anything. He will ask no questions. The Bible is a book—or, rather, many books. We have read much of it together.”

It was true. Without any concealed intention on his part, and purely as noble literature, they had read at times, in their evenings alone, much of the great Hebrew poetry, as they had also read much of the best English prose and verse.

“Yes, I know,” she returned; “but this is so different, George. What am I to read to a dying man? I went there once. It was horrible—so slovenly and dirty and ill-smelling; and I never before saw a man dying. It was dreadful. It seemed to me so unnatural.”

The thought struck him as singular. “That is,” he returned, “only because in the ordinary ways of life to see a death is rare for most people. I have seen thousands die. To me, for four years, death was ever near, a sadly common event. It is what may precede death that I dread,—long illness, the loss of competence,—but not death. I hope that, when I die, my twilight may be brief.”

“Please don’t,” she said. “But what _am_ I to read?”

“Well, then, to settle your mind, dear, read him the fourteenth chapter of John, and take my little Bible with you. I doubt if there be a Bible in the whole settlement.”

“Thank you, George.”

“Shall I go with you? I should be very glad to go.”

“Oh, no, no.” She felt that this would have embarrassed her.

“Remember, the fourteenth of John. It is very beautiful. Have you never read it?”

“Never.”

The reply shocked him. In spite of what he knew of her life, it also surprised him. For the moment he had been puzzled by her question; but the chapter he named was a favorite of his own, and he would, after all, have been unable to name any other more suitable.

In the afternoon she found Coffin waiting at the foot of the bluff. He walked with her past the busy cotton-presses, and then out of the wood on to the cleared lands with their broken fences and half-burned stumps. “Wait for me here,” she said, and went on to Wilson’s log cabin. The woman and her children were absent. By the dim light within she saw, as she paused at the door, the broken chairs, the open press with soiled gowns, and the lean chickens picking up the crumbs lying about the dirty floor. The air was heavy with the odors of uncared-for illness. As she approached the rude bed, Wilson said, trying to sit up, “There’s a chair, ma’am. Set down. Not that one; it’s broke.”

She took the hot, dry hand, and feeling a keen desire to run away, sat down beside him, saying, as she put her basket on the table, “I brought you some soup. I hope you are better.”

“No, ma’am; and I never will be no better. The doctor you sent told my wife I couldn’t hold out long. She’s awful troubled about the funeral. We talked it over, and I reckon it won’t cost much. I told her so. Tom will make the coffin.”

She was seeing a new aspect of life—the crude business of death among the poor. It shocked a woman who, in her abounding health and immense vitality, had little more realization of decay and death than has the normal animal.

She murmured softly, “Do not worry; we will take care of all that.”

“Thank you,” he said; “that’s mighty good of you. I can’t talk long; it makes me cough.” Then, after a brief pause, he said: “I’ve been thinking a heap about things. I ain’t been a bad man, but I killed a man in Tennessee. You see, he shot Brother Bill a week before. Seems to me it was—yes, it was Christmas eve, and snowing. I got him comin’ out of his barn. Now I want to know. My wife fetched a preacher here. He’s a Methody. He said I’d got to repent of that man, or I’d go to hell. I didn’t want him any more. I don’t repent. If a man was to kill your man, you wouldn’t forgive him, now would you?”

“I would not,” she replied.

“I knowed you would say something like that, and it’s a real comfort. The other notion ain’t natural.”

The woman sat still in thought, while he coughed until he was exhausted. What would George have said? Why did men confess to her? She had been reinforcing a dying man’s undying hatred. And yet, how could she lie?

At last he whispered hoarsely: “Sometimes in the night I ain’t easy about it. It’s a kind of muddle, life is. You don’t ever get things cleared up. Did you fetch the Book? I used to like mother to read the stories in it when I was a little chap. When father was dying she read out of it, and now I’m going too. Would you read some?”

She opened the Bible where Trescot had left a marker, and read in tones which gathered pathetic sweetness as she went on near to the end of the chapter, when he stopped her. “Seems to me I remember that,” he said; “must have heard it once in church up in the hills. What’s that about the Holy Ghost? That’s what bothered me when I was a young fellow. I took religion bad, once; but that about the Holy Ghost used to kind of scare me of nights. What does that mean?”

Constance paused, searching the page for an answer. It was a childlike creature who lay gasping under the soiled sheet, and yet it was a man; and she felt that out of her larger life she owed him an answer. But what to say she knew not.