Part 8

For a moment she sat still, glad that he was unable to recognize her embarrassment. Then, her eye wandering over the page, she said: “Perhaps this may help you. ‘The Holy Ghost, the Comforter.’”

“There can’t be no comfort in what a man can’t understand. I don’t know as that—”

A cruel spell of coughing stopped him; and the agony of vain effort shook the rickety bed until it creaked sharply. For some reason, this strangely affected her. It seemed an inanimate expression of the extent of discomfort and wretchedness. At last, worn out, he groaned, “My God, that’s awful!” as he wiped away the blood on his lips and the gray tangle of his beard; and then, with recurrent reflection: “But there’s a heap of things a man can’t understand.”

She shared his conviction as she sat with her glove on the open page, penciled here and there by a hand she loved. She murmured, “Yes, yes,” and read on. “‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.’”

“Won’t you say that again?” he murmured feebly.

The clear tones of a voice often spoken of for its charm repeated the promise. She was close to tears as she continued:

“‘Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’”

She was emotionally too much disturbed to go on, and made a brief pause to regain her command of speech, relieved by the strange comments which gave her time.

“That about being afraid, now, that’s curious-like. I’ve been troubled pretty often, but I don’t know as I ever was afraid.”

She made no reply, but read on, as one may do automatically, with one half-conscious mind on the text, and with one other mind perplexed by thoughts of death and life—the sudden sense of the sweet values of mystery in love and friendship and religion, of which George had spoken. She read on to the end, not taking in the meaning of the three verses which followed.

“Is that all, ma’am?”

“Yes; that is all.”

“Thank you.” He lay on his back, silent, the sweat on his forehead, his cheeks red, his eyes closed. What were his thoughts? There on the edge of the grave was this rude, half-civilized man of the woods, without education, with his creed of an eye for an eye, and here the woman of another world, with every gift and every chance that wealth had given, and both alike bewildered over the simple words of a promise which neither could comprehend nor yet know how to use.

The flies buzzed in and out and settled on the hot face undisturbed, until she began to fan them away.

“I wasn’t asleep,” he said feebly, opening his eyes: “I was a-thinking.” So, too, was she.

“I was thinking,” he repeated, “that maybe you wouldn’t mind saying a prayer. You won’t need to kneel down, the floor’s that filthy; it’s them chickens, and my wife’s wore out.”

The voice was very earnest in its appeal. “I might get some help.”

Constance sat up, in her perplexity fanning him more rapidly. She was helpless, stranded, full of pity. Was this a time for deceit? To whom could she pray? She felt for the man in his hour of doubt and pain, putting forth yearning hands for a sure hold on something. Would such an hour ever come to her?

He felt vaguely her hesitation, and with the gentleness of the mountain-man said: “Maybe you ain’t used to praying in company.”

“No, no,” she said, glad of the frailest pretense; “I am not; and the room is close, I must get outside.” It was true. She had the keenest sensitiveness to evil odors. Her head swam, and saying, “I will come again; I must get into the air,” she stood up and emptied her basket of fruit, lemons, and the bottle of soup. “You must need ice. I will send it to-morrow—no, to-night. Coffin will bring it.”

He thanked her, and again she had to touch the hot, dry hand, as he pleaded: “This isn’t any kind of place for folks like you, ma’am; but the angels might be like you—I don’t ask no better. You will come again, won’t you?”

“I will; certainly I will,” she said, and went out.

“A sad kind of angel you are, Constance Trescot,” she murmured, as she drank in the fresh pine-scented air. She had a pained sense of incompleteness, of incompetence, of failure.

Her uncle’s views, which were nourished by the pleasure of being in opposition to his own world, had kept her ignorant of all that Susan knew so well. Constance had felt no need of it for herself or for others. With all her many resources, her education, her acceptance by a man like Trescot on terms of intellectual equality, she had shrunk away defeated, unable to answer helpfully a simple, uneducated woodsman. She moved on into the forest, deep in thought, followed by her doglike guardian. Presently, as she went past the cotton-presses, she was aware of coming steps and met Mr. Greyhurst. He turned and went with her. Seeing whence she had come, he said, with some seriousness: “These clearings are rather lonesome places for ladies, Mrs. Trescot; and, now that the blacks are free, not altogether safe. You must pardon my frankness. Mr. Trescot may not fully comprehend the risks the North has brought on us.”

It was said kindly, and as she felt he was not without reason, she replied: “You are no doubt right; but when I come here among these poor people I ask my garden helper, Coffin, to follow me.”

“So I see, but he is a wild fellow, like the rest,—oh, I suppose, trustworthy in a way. I should think you would find these people interesting. They are mostly men who have drifted down from the mountain country.”

“Yes, I like them. This time I went to take a sick man some luxuries.”

“You are very good. These people—and, in fact, most of our people—are too poor to be able to help one another.”

“Oh, these are trifles any one can afford.”

“Perhaps. I called on you again yesterday, but was unlucky. Will you allow me to say one thing?”

She laughed. “Being ignorant, I must, I suppose, be generous. What is it?”

He went on, with a manner so timid and unassured as to be in marked contrast with his athletic build and ordinary self-assertive carriage.

“We have been so long accustomed to regard Mr. Hood as a sort of despotic landlord, standing in our way here in St. Ann, that your appearance as representing him rather startled our good ladies.”

“I trust they were agreeably startled. Are we so surprising?”

“Oh, I said you, Mrs. Trescot; men are never surprising.”

“Indeed! I have often found them so. I think, however, when my uncle comes in the fall for that tiresome trial, you will find one man who will pass as agreeably surprising. I want him to come because we wish him to know St. Ann and all these delightful people. Besides, he is a great friend of the South—what at home we called a Copperhead. He could do a great deal to help this town; and, once here on the spot, he may be brought to see that even in business it is often the best policy to be generous.”

“You will pardon me, Mrs. Trescot, if I say that he has hardly been that, or even just.”

“Perhaps not; but we trust that in the end St. Ann will not have to regret our coming or our influence with him. In business my uncle loves to be what he calls exact; outside of it he is the prey of everybody who wants help.”

“That is unusual,” he returned; “but, unfortunately, this is all business.”

“Yes; but, after all, Mr. Greyhurst, it is hard for a man to escape from the tyranny of his own temperament. My uncle is always in the opposition, and for that reason I think he really enjoys a legal battle.”

“It is often a costly luxury.”

“Yes; but he does not care about that.”

“What you say about the difficulty of escape from the despotism of temperament—ah! that is sadly true. No one knows that better than I. I envy Mr. Trescot his entire self-control. I think the bar is scarcely a good education in amiability.”

“If,” she laughed, “my husband degenerates in St. Ann I shall run away. I think General Averill is a poor illustration of the influence of the practice of the law.”

“Oh, the general! No one is like Averill. He has the tenderness of a woman. He is impossible as an example.”

“Cannot a man make himself what he really wants to be?”

He glanced at her with interest, and returned gaily, “Can a woman?”

“No,” she said; “no.”

“Neither can I, Mrs. Trescot, more’s the pity.”

He was once more on the point of one of those easy confessions, which, for some occult reason of sex sympathies, men, as I have said, are so apt to confide to the charity of women. Young as she was, she was prepared for it, and not liking the too personal turn the talk had taken, she said:

“You have told me what folks think of us in St. Ann, but you have never asked—no one has—what we think of St. Ann.”

“Well,” he said, “that might be worth while.”

“We like it and the people.”

She was scarcely accurate, to state it in no worse way.

“That is pleasant; I accept my share.”

“I must leave the partition to you,” she said lightly. “What a big river-steamer!”

“Yes; the _Stonewall Jackson_, a new boat.”

“How warm it is!” She raised her parasol as they came out on the bluff. “Is it always as warm as this in your July weather?”

They went on talking of every-day matters. In the main street she said: “I must leave you here; I have to make a call and do some shopping.”

He took it to be a dismissal, and, raising his hat, left her.

He walked on, absorbed in thought. The woman had a calming influence upon his uncertain temper. Most women so affected him. With men his self-esteem was always on the watch for slights. It made his associates uncomfortably careful. He was at times aware of their reserve, and, without fully understanding the cause, resented it. He felt it in his business, and most of all with Trescot, who, although very desirous of keeping on good terms with him, found it increasingly difficult. That morning, in Averill’s office, Greyhurst had returned to the question of an amicable settlement of Hood’s claim to own the water-front at the bend. Trescot had once more made the reply that it lay with Mr. Hood, and that he had himself failed to move him. Greyhurst had lost his temper and made his disbelief so plain that nothing except Averill’s very positive interference and indorsement of Trescot’s statement had saved an open quarrel. Greyhurst had reluctantly apologized, and Trescot had been exasperatingly good-humored.

As Greyhurst walked on he said, with returning remembrance of his annoyance: “Damn the man! I was a fool to talk of it,—a child,—but his cold-blooded ways are hard to stand.” As he murmured his condemnation of Trescot, a big black fellow, much in liquor, hustled him. He struck him savagely and went on. The man gathered himself up, and following him, said meekly: “I didn’t go to do it, massa.”

“Oh, go to the devil!” exclaimed Greyhurst. “Get out, or you’ll get a bullet through you!”

He had made himself angry about one man, and another had suffered. A minute later he was sorry for his brutal haste. His life was full of such regrets; but this was a minor one, and did not trouble him long.

X

By and by, her errands done, Constance called at her husband’s office, and they walked homeward together.

He told her that he had heard from her uncle. He had once more declined to yield assent to any of Trescot’s proposals. The squatters must go.

Constance laughed. “Wait till I have him here. I know a way.”

“Upon my word, dear, I begin to respect your legal resources; but they are, so far, rather costly. You have provided for Coffin. How much it will require to get the rest to leave we do not know. As for the use of the machinery of the law to turn them out to shift for themselves—I will throw up the whole business rather than do that.”

“Indeed, I should, George, if it came to that; but it will not; there will be no occasion.”

“Well, I trust not. I have had a long talk with Greyhurst this morning in Averill’s office. I never knew so peculiar a man. He told me that he, at least, had had no hand in that club business. When I thanked him and said that I had never for a moment supposed the Confederate officers had been in it, he said some of them had, and would have told me who they were if I had not said I did not wish to know their names. He laughed, and remarked that it was as well not to know, because I might feel obliged to call them to account. I said in reply that I had no malice about the blackballing, and that in a case of even graver injury I should not feel justified in avenging myself by shooting a man, and that a bullet in the shoulder was, in my case, a pretty positive peacemaker.

“As he made no reply, I went on to say that I had never desired to be a member of the club, and was therefore quite easy in mind. When Averill asked him at what time in October he thought our case would come up, he said he did not know, and that it never ought to come up at all; and when I said that was my desire, but that it would have to go to trial, he quite suddenly lost his temper, and said that I ought to be able to bring about a settlement. And then there was more of it, and worse.”

“What did you say, George?”

“Oh, Averill interfered, and I said I should do everything possible; and indeed I shall. He went away in a curious sullen humor, and, upon my word, he is like some rude, undisciplined boy; but I think he has brains enough to know that he has a bad case. If he knew all I know, he would give it up, although that is not Averill’s opinion.”

“I met him in the woods as I came from Wilson’s. He was pretty sharply critical of Uncle Rufus, and was rather intimate in his talk about himself.”

“Was he? I should not have thought him a man to do that.”

“It surprised me less than it does you, for men have a queer way of opening their minds to women.”

“I am sure you said what was right. How is poor Wilson?”

“I was wrong to go, George.”

Realizing what must have happened, and not altogether sorry, he said: “What was your trouble, my love? Did you read to him?”

“Yes; I read to him, and oh, George, he asked me questions.”

“What, dear?”

She hesitated, and then said: “It was dreadful. He asked me what was the Holy Ghost, what kind of a Ghost. It was awful. How did I know? How does any one know? Your Bible is a tangle of mysteries.”

“It is answered in the same chapter, Constance.”

“Answered?”

“Yes; it is the Comforter.”

“I said that.”

“It is also called the Spirit of Truth, Constance. That which is as old as the world, as old as He who made it, the Spirit before which science bends in worship, that on which the world of morals rests. Isn’t that simple enough?”

“Yes,” she said doubtfully.

“Was that all, dear?”

“Oh, no, no; he asked me to pray for him.”

He looked at her. She was troubled, tearful; he hardly knew what to say, and at last wisely put the question by. “We will talk of that at another time, not now; it is a large question.”

“I did not do it.”

“No; you were right.”

“Thank you, George.”

To know that, thinking, believing as he did, he was able to put himself in her position affected her deeply. She was about to go on and say something of the man’s confession and his creed of unforgiveness, but recalling what she too had said in reply, she was silent.

The next week she went away to her old home with the general and Mrs. Averill. The day after her arrival she wrote to Trescot:

“DEAR GEORGE:

“I am sitting on the great rock at sunset, and it seems as though the waves I love are glad of my coming. A mad gale is hurling them on the rocks below me, and far away there is a wild turmoil of waters about Little Misery Islands. The air is sweet and salt, and it wants only the sunshine of the love I miss every hour.

“I found Susan well and utterly unchanged. Why should she not be?—only that I have changed, and am wiser and a larger person than when you first knew me. What your dear love and company have done for me I know full well. The atmosphere of my old home seems to me other than it was. I think I shall understand Susan better. Once I used to think her narrow. Uncle Rufus is thinner than thin, with a wilted autumnal look, and the same delicate features, and the same meek violence in his opinions. I refused to be taken in the toils of an invitation to discuss his Western affairs, but it will have to be soon or late, though I shall not be serious with him until we are in St. Ann. Then he may look out. And now I must go. I hear voices in the garden.

“Constantly your constant “CONSTANCE.

“Isn’t that pretty, sir?

“P.S.—Tell me all the news, big and little. How are Wilson and Coffin and my cat? The Averills were most kind, and will be here very soon for a visit.

“P.S.—I am writing a second P.S.,—almost in the dark. Far away to right, Marblehead Light is flashing at intervals over the stormy water. There is another, a lesser one, far to the left. I like it better. It is, sir, if you please, constant, like me.”

She wrote daily, and a week later said:

“I can see that dear, grave face when I tell you that I went to church last Sunday with Susan. I am not going to pretend I went for any reason except because I love you, but that is not reason, for my love is all of me—body, soul, and mind. Is that a riddle, sir? I _had_ to tell Susan that I went because it would please you. She put on one of her queer looks, and said it was creditable to my sense of the humorous. I did not like that. I do not think that even you can understand the absolute negation from childhood of all thought about this vast matter of religion. Since I came, a little girl, to Eastwood, I have been imprisoned within the bounds of my uncle’s belief, or unbelief, and only of late years did I slowly apprehend that his attitude was purely due to the joy of standing up against other people’s beliefs. But think, dear, what this ignorance, ridicule, and denial did with a childhood like mine. Susan said once you cannot even teach manners without forms, nor make a child religious and reverent without forms. Is that so? I had a wicked little joy when uncle saw me go out to church with Susan. He said, as if it were a tragedy, ‘And this is the end,’ and, as Susan says, twinkled away. He does not walk like other people, but only from his knees—really an absurd little person, as he appears to me now, with a queer way of suddenly saying unexpected things. He told me once, when I was fifteen, that I was a fine animal. I was furious, but I think I know now what he meant.

“The Averills came and were made much of. Since the general was here uncle has spoken of you to our friends with a newly acquired pride, to the vast amusement of Susan. You are to understand that when, in October, you have the help of a man with some knowledge of business everything will be settled. I said, ‘Better, then, uncle, not to discuss things with an ignorant woman’; and with this he was contented for half a day.

“Whenever it is possible I go out in our cat-boat, and oh, to sail with a mad east wind driving the fog in your face! Do you like that? Nature is never too riotous for me—and then these summer evenings by the sea; what a blithe playmate! I used to like best to be alone on the shore or in the woods; but now, ah! to have you, and cry, ‘Look at this, George; and see that.’

“You say I am making you vain. I leave you to imagine how much I love you, how emptied is life without you. My uncle concerns himself with everything, from the dairy and the butter to my poor little every-day letters to you. ‘Absurd waste of paper,’ he says; and then, with his inconsequent felicity, ‘What would I do if you were dead?’ I said: ‘Do? I should kill myself in the hope to find you—oh, somewhere!’ Do you know, he laughed, and said: ‘Just so, just so. I do not doubt it.’ Then he went on: ‘Once you had a doll and it fell into the well. You were caught trying to climb down the chain to get it; and then, when you were punished, you said you would starve until some one got that doll.’ It was true. At last I scared him so that a man went down and got it. There was not much doll left, but it was my doll. He went on, and I learned more about my obstinate ways, until I fled away, leaving him talking, until, as I presume, he discovered that he was alone.

“Yesterday we had a dense fog. It rolled in from the sea in gray masses. An east wind drove it landward. I went to the shore and lay on the rocks just above the sea. The fog shut out the islands, and at last was like a gray wall about me. You know how the sea of a bright day seems to explain itself, when from far away the waves rise and gather and grow and break on the shore; but now you could not see twenty feet, and the great rollers came as if out of nowhere and tumbled at my feet. Somewhere out at sea a steamer screamed as if lost. Oh, but I wanted you! You would have said things of it all I cannot say. I can only see and enjoy and badly describe.

“C.T.”

A few days before she returned to St. Ann one of his replies to her daily letters ran thus: