Part 18

She couldn’t resist it. She stooped and picked up a stick. Creeping out on the stone again, she tried to fish up her ring with the stick; but it went deeper; it seemed to wink at her and dodge her, burrowing into the sand. With a cry of anguish, Fanchon dropped to her knees, half in the water, and plunged her arm into the pool, digging into the sand with her fingers. Joy and relief shot through her heart when she felt the hard metal loop again. She had it!

She staggered to her feet, holding it tight, but she wouldn’t put it back on her finger. She knotted it into her wet handkerchief and thrust it into her bosom. Then, blindly, weeping and shaken and dripping, she made her way back to the waiting taxi.

XXVI

COLONEL DENBIGH was pleasantly detained at the club luncheon. He went home in a taxi late in the afternoon, only about half an hour before his own dinner-time. Plato met him in the hall.

“Miss Jinny ain’t eaten no lunch, no suh, an’ now she’s up in her room. She say she’s got headache, an’ not to wait dinner.”

The colonel deposited his broad-brimmed hat on the table.

“Anybody been here to see me to-day, Plato?”

The old negro shook his head.

“No, suh. Mist’ Wilyum Carter, he came in to see Miss Jinny, but he’s gone ’bout two hours ago.”

A strange expression flitted across the colonel’s face, but he did not show it to his faithful factotum.

“Serve dinner on time, Plato,” he said gravely. “I don’t expect company--lunched in town with Judge Jessup and Mr. Payson.”

“Yessuh, so Miss Jinny tole me. Great trial, suh! Mirandy, Miz Carter’s collud girl, she ’phoned me ’bout it. She say she got so excited she went out in de yard an’ killed the wrong hen fo’ dinner. She killed de bes’ layer dey got, an’ Mist’ Carter he mos’ throw a fit. She say he’s gwine to make Mist’ Wilyum git a divorcement----”

“Plato,” bellowed the colonel, “how often have I got to tell you to stop gossiping? You quit it and get my dinner ready, or I’ll kill you instead of Mrs. Carter’s hen! Hear me?”

Plato giggled disgracefully, but he retired toward the dining-room door.

“Colonel Colfax he used to say----”

“Shut up!” shouted Colonel Denbigh, making for the stairs.

Plato withdrew slowly, still mumbling, and the colonel went up to Virginia’s room. He hesitated an instant, and then he knocked at the door.

“Got a bad headache, Jinny?”

She answered without opening the door.

“Very bad, grandpa. Don’t wait dinner--I don’t want any.”

“I’ll ’phone for Dr. Barbour,” he suggested anxiously. “How about it, Jinny?”

“No, no! It’s just a little headache from the sun. Any news, grandpa?”

The colonel, outside the closed door, stood with his hand at his chin, thinking.

“Not much, Jinny. I ’phoned everything I could, didn’t I? Dan made a great figure at the trial, and Leigh’s home now--I reckon Mrs. Carter’s got him packed in cotton-batting by this time. There’s one thing--I saw myself----” He hesitated, listening, but there was no interrogation from the other side of the door. “I saw William Carter ignore his wife in open court--after the verdict. It--well, Jinny, it stuck in my throat.”

There was a significant silence. He heard the slight stir of some one in the room; he thought that Virginia had been lying down and had suddenly sat up.

“I don’t think it was just right,” she said at last, in a faint voice. “He was here this afternoon, and he told me--he says she’s left him for good.”

The colonel, outside the door, gritted his teeth a moment in silence, very red in the face.

“The lummox!” he muttered under his breath at last.

“What did you say, grandpa?”

“I didn’t say anything, Jinny. I only thought something. I thought something not quite polite.”

“Oh!”

Again he heard the faint stir of her movements on the other side of the door.

“The girl looked like death,” he said bluntly. “She’d been through a terrible ordeal. It--I tell you what, Jinny, it looked darned cowardly!”

There was no reply to this, not even the rustle of Virginia’s garments. The colonel waited, rubbing his chin. At last he thought it better to leave something to her imagination.

“Have a bottle of ginger ale, Jinny? It’ll do your head good.”

She laughed hysterically. He could hear it. It was a musical laugh, but it was full of tears. His hand clenched.

“You get better!” he called to her. “I want you to drive up the mountain to-morrow and look at Colonel Russell’s mare. He wants to sell her for a lady’s saddle-horse. I reckon you’d like her, Jinny. It’ll take you about half the day. You can lunch with Mrs. Barbour. The doctor met me in town to-day, and he said his wife wanted you out to luncheon at the farm to-morrow.”

There was a rustle this time.

“I think I’ll go. Thank you, grandpa. You’re an angel--I mean about the horse.”

The old man cackled.

“Not in any other way, eh, Jinny?”

“You go to your dinner! You’ll get no compliments here,” she called back gaily.

But it was a tremulous gaiety. The old man knew it, and he suspected the headache. He went slowly and thoughtfully down-stairs. Dinner was already served in the quaint dining-room, Plato standing erect and black as ebony behind the colonel’s chair. The old man glanced contentedly at the white damask and the old-fashioned service.

“What have you got for dinner, Plato?” he asked as he sat down.

Plato went over a modest menu.

“Got some deviled crabs, col’nel. Yessuh, got ’em dis mornin’ when yo’ was in court--bigges’ crabs I’s seen dis season.”

The colonel considered.

“Plato, you take a deviled crab up to Miss Jinny’s room. If she doesn’t eat it, I’ll ’phone for Dr. Barbour.”

Unconsciously, the colonel was applying Miranda’s panacea for all human ills. Inwardly he was exceeding wroth with William Carter. His wrath and his fears continued well into the next morning, until he saw Virginia, pale but smiling, seated in the old wagonette, and Lucas driving sedately down the roadway to the gate. The colonel observed their departure with an anxious eye.

He was not sure now that Virginia cared. She was pale, but she was holding her own. The idea that William Carter had dared to come straight back--after that trial and all!

“The lummox!” the colonel growled under his breath. “The cowardly lummox--he knew I was out.”

Meanwhile, Lucas was driving slowly along the turnpike down which Fanchon had galloped, followed by Corwin--on his way, as it turned out, to his death; for that ride had led straight to the climax in the upper room of the inn. As it transpired later on, both Virginia and Lucas were thinking of it as the colonel’s slow old horses trotted along under the spreading branches of the great trees which stood like sentinels on either side of the wide road.

At this late season the foliage was dense and a little dusty, while here and there a sumac waved the first red flag of autumn, or a gum-tree stood like a flame in the midst of a grove of cedars. Virginia was watching a cardinal-bird winging its crimson flight from branch to branch when she heard Lucas accost a passing friend and then fall to chuckling--the succulent, suggestively happy chuckle of the negro. Lucas had never acquired the silent elegance of Mrs. Payson’s coachman. He was an old family servant, and he had known Virginia from her childhood. He chuckled now, touching the off horse with the mildly provoking tip of his whip.

“See dat nigger, Miss Jinny? He works at Miz Quantah’s place. He’s gwine courtin’, sho’s yo’re born!”

Virginia, who had lost sight of the red bird, glanced down the road after the retreating form of a middle-aged negro attired in clean blue overalls and a big straw hat.

“How do you know he’s going courting, Lucas? He’s not very young, is he?”

“No, ma’am, Miss Jinny, he ain’t, but his wife died a while ago. He’s gwine courtin’--yes, miss, he sho’ is. How’d I know? He done wash his face, Miss Jinny. When a man wash his face an’ shave, he’s gwine courtin’--yes, miss.”

Virginia laughed, and Lucas, thus encouraged, proceeded. He touched the nigh horse this time.

“Yo’ g’long, Tommy Becket. Yes, Miss Jinny, he’s gwine courtin’--he works ober at Miz Quantah’s, ayonnah”--Lucas pointed his whip--“righ’ over dere in dem trees. Dat’s where Miz Wilyum Carter am now, Miss Jinny.”

Virginia blushed. Involuntarily her eyes followed the flourish of his whip. They had come to the foot-hills, and, in a clearing, she saw a bleak farmhouse, a mere shack it seemed to her. She remembered that the Quantah place was miserable and the woman herself gaunt and poor--a forlorn, forbidding creature.

Then Lucas broke into his monologue again.

“Miz Carter, she’s sick, Miss Jinny--took sick jest after de trial. I did heah she ain’t got any money, an’ Miz Quantah, she’s gwine to turn her out, sick or no sick, she say.”

Virginia sat up suddenly.

“What did you say, Lucas?”

Lucas turned half-way round, driving with one hand, and flourishing the other as he answered.

“I say Miz Wilyum Carter took sick, an’ she ain’t got any money.” Lucas stopped the horses and pointed.

“I reckon she’s sick in dat room ayonnah--see de blinds open? Ain’t nebber open ’less Miz Quantah got a lodger. Ain’t got noffin to eat at Miz Quantah’s ’cept corn-dodgers an’ rabbits--no, Miss Jinny, dey ain’t.”

“Lucas,” said Virginia earnestly, “do you really mean that Mrs. William Carter is over there now, ill, and without money?”

“Sho, Miss Jinny, she is. I got dat from Miz Quantah’s collud man--yes, miss, I sho did. She’s sick an’ she ain’t got no money.”

Virginia was silent. Her eyes fixed themselves on that distant house, that repulsive, sordid-looking house, and she thought of Fanchon--a small, dainty, bewitching creature--dancing that amazing dance at the church musicale.

Lucas started the horses. The road turned, and before them a low bridge spanned an exquisite stream. The water purled and dashed over stones and slipped, still clamoring, into a lovely pool where lily-pads floated and low willows dipped their swinging boughs.

“Lucas, stop!” cried Virginia.

Lucas pulled the horses up so suddenly that one old fellow looked back over his shoulder.

“Yes, Miss Jinny?”

“Drive back to Quantah’s place, Lucas.”

The fat old horses turned obediently. Lucas said nothing. For once he restrained that racial quality which makes the faithful colored servant the intimate adviser and guardian of “his family.” He had a very clear understanding of Miss Jinny’s motives, he knew Miss Jinny. For all that, he felt that this time she could be trusted to go her own way--as long as he was in attendance, to exercise, at the crucial moment, his worldly wisdom.

The old wagonette, turning clumsily because of its length, was moving along the broken bit of road which led around the elbow of the wood into the Quantah clearing. The wood was an exquisite place, delicately fringed along its edges with yellow patches of goldenrod and the purplish white mist of asters. Through slender tree-stems Virginia began to see the house more plainly.

The side door stood open, and a tall, slatternly woman was feeding chickens, holding an old tin saucepan in the hollow of her arm. As the wagonette appeared she raised her eyes from the fowls long enough to stare, but went on throwing scraps out by the fistful, her hard mouth drawn into forbidding lines.

Lucas drew rein and Virginia descended.

“Is Mrs. William Carter here?” she asked quietly.

Mrs. Quantah emptied the pan and looked around her.

“Yes, she is--she’s sick, too.”

Virginia’s quick blush mounted. She felt peculiarly helpless. She was not even sure that Fanchon would see her, but she held out her card.

“Please ask her to see me--if she can,” she said, in a propitiating tone.

Mrs. Quantah wiped her fingers on her apron and took the card.

“Come in,” she said harshly, holding open the door.

Virginia followed her in. Involuntarily she gathered her white dress about her, the place seemed so dingy and repulsive. They passed through a forlorn hall and entered the kitchen. Sitting in a chair in the middle of the old room, with his back to the stove, was Mr. Samuel Bernstein. Virginia stopped involuntarily, and the woman, pulling out a chair for her, left them abruptly, carrying Virginia’s card in the empty saucepan.

Mr. Bernstein rose and bowed.

“Miss Denbigh, I think?” he said with elaborate politeness.

Virginia smiled.

“Mr. Bernstein, I know,” she replied quietly.

He offered his chair.

“It’s better than the one she’s given you,” he said graciously, “which ain’t sayin’ much. Sit down, Miss Denbigh. I guess you’ve come out here same as I have. I’m trying to see Mrs. Carter--Miss Fanchon la Fare, I guess it is now. This party”--he waved his thumb over his shoulder--“Mrs. Quantah, she says Mrs. Carter’s sick.”

“So I hear.” Virginia turned her eyes discreetly away. She could not look at Mr. Bernstein without thinking of his effort to engage her grandfather, and she wanted to laugh in spite of her errand. “I’m very sorry; I hope she’ll see me.”

“I hope so.” Mr. Bernstein leaned forward confidentially. “Say, I’ll tell you what I’ve done. You see, I felt kinder guilty. You know about that Carter boy? Well, I came out here on purpose to make good. I’m offering Miss Fanchon one thousand dollars a week for one big seven-reel feature for the Unlimited Film Company, and, after that, say, five hundred a week steady as ingenoo in the company.”

Virginia lifted her eyes with difficulty to the kindly red face opposite.

“That seems magnificent, Mr. Bernstein,” she said softly, and then in spite of herself she giggled.

Mr. Bernstein beamed.

“It’s a good offer, if I do say it! But, see here, Miss Denbigh, it ain’t often we get a subject like that. She’s just ideal for dances--see? Now, there’s another thing--coming out here, I made a find!” Mr. Bernstein raised one fat hand and spoke behind it, watching the door. “Notice that party--Mrs. Quantah?”

Virginia nodded, her eyes dancing. Mr. Bernstein edged his chair closer.

“Say! We’re going to do some Dickens pictures. No copyright on Dickens, you know, an’ it’s easy to get ’em. We’re going to do ‘Nicholas Nickleby.’ Now I ask you, did you ever see a better _Miss Squeers_? Look at her--take her all around--them angles an’ that mouth! Say, I’d give her something neat, believe me I would. I said so to her, an’ what d’you suppose she said to me? That woman, poor as Job’s turkey--what d’you suppose she said?”

Virginia was unable to imagine it and said so--with some difficulty, her lips tremulous.

“I asked her.” Mr. Bernstein leaned back in his chair and shook his head sadly. “I told her what I wanted an’ what I’d pay, an’ she said, ‘Nothing doin’!’ Now, what d’you know about that?”

He was about to say more, to enlarge on his grievance and on Mrs. Quantah’s resemblance to _Miss Squeers_, but there was a sharp sound. A door opened and shut, and the ideal _Miss Squeers_ entered. She did not look at Mr. Bernstein, but turned a stony gaze upon Virginia’s flushed and smiling face.

“She’ll see you,” she said laconically.

Mr. Bernstein leaned farther back in his chair with the air of a martyr determined to await his turn, if it took all night. Virginia rose hastily and followed Mrs. Quantah.

A moment before she had had to laugh at Bernstein; now her heart sank. She felt that Fanchon had never liked her, and now--wasn’t this an intrusion? Her courage suddenly wavered, and her knees felt weak under her when the gaunt woman opened a door at the end of the hall and almost thrust her into the room beyond.

XXVII

THE room was small and dim, although the shutters were open, as Lucas had remarked. There was a frayed and scanty look to everything, but a big four-poster stood in the corner. Lying across that, looking as small and helpless as a child, was Fanchon. She was half dressed, and she lay with her head on her arm, her soft dark hair tumbled about her shoulders and framing her white profile.

Virginia, who had stopped just inside the door, stood waiting, hesitating, uncertain what to do. Fanchon did not move, and she looked so white and limp as she lay there that Virginia thought she had fainted. She went quickly across the room and stood beside the bed, looking down at the motionless figure.

Fanchon’s eyes were closed, and the long, thick lashes made shadows on her white cheeks. There was no sign of makeup now except a touch of the lips that made her mouth look scarlet, in fearful contrast to the whiteness of cheeks and brow and throat. One arm was thrown across the bed and the small hand clasped the crumpled coverlet convulsively, the blue veins showing through its delicate whiteness. Half-clad as she was, Virginia saw how thin were Fanchon’s arms and how slender her neck, delicate and round as the stem of a flower. How changed she was!

A memory of the daring little figure in white flashed back, and a flood of pity submerged Virginia’s heart. William’s cry, “I’m done with her!”--how incredibly cruel it would have seemed here!

Still she did not move or speak, and Virginia touched her gently.

“Fanchon!” she said softly.

Very slowly Fanchon rose on her elbow and looked at the visitor. The fawn-like eyes were no longer soft; there was a smoldering fire in them, and the delicate brows came down above them. The small white face was distorted with an emotion that seemed to shake her from head to foot.

“Why do you come here?” she asked sharply. “What do you want of me?”

Virginia’s blush deepened painfully.

“I came because I heard you were ill and in trouble,” she replied kindly, her voice trembling a little.

Fanchon drew herself up farther into a sitting attitude, her knees under her chin and her hands clasping them. Her eyes still lowered at Virginia, and the whiteness of her face against her loose, dark hair had an almost weird effect.

“Why do you care for that?” she asked slowly. “Why do you want to see how far I’m down?”

Her tone and her glance alike conveyed almost an insult, and certainly a defiance; yet she was so weak that the other girl saw her tremble from head to foot, as if she had an ague. Again Virginia blushed, but this time she raised her head proudly.

“You don’t know me,” she replied gravely. “You wouldn’t say that to me if you did. I’m--I’m not like that.”

Fanchon still looked at her steadily, an untamed passion leaping up in her brown eyes like a flame.

“_Ma foi_, I know you well enough, I think!” she retorted bitterly. “You’re the woman my husband loved--and you’ve taken him from me! Oh, I know--you can look indignant! You righteous people--oh, _mon Dieu_, how good you are! But you’ve taken him away, for all that.”

Virginia, who had never had such things said to her before, recoiled. She drew away, looking at the wild little creature on the bed with a kind of horror. For a moment all her impulses were beaten down, and in the rebound she was ready to turn her back, to abandon the wretched girl to her fate. She felt as if physical blows had been rained upon her, as if she was no longer the Virginia Denbigh who had entered that wretched room on an errand of mercy.

“If you say things like that I can’t stay to hear them,” she said hurriedly, speaking with an effort, hot tears in her eyes. “I came to help you, if I could--and you insult me.”

Fanchon laughed the shrill laughter of hysterics.

“You don’t like it!” she cried wildly. “_Que voulez vous?_ You want only nice things said to you--and I can have all the horrid things and all the insults. That’s all I’ve had since I came here!”

Virginia, who was half-way to the door, stood still. Her quick ear had caught the wildness of the laughter, and the poor little huddled figure was sinking weakly forward. She came back.

“Fanchon, I came to help you. I’m telling you the truth--can’t you believe me? I should like to help you, if I could.”

Fanchon’s face twisted convulsively, and she snatched at the coverlet and drew it up over her shoulders. To Virginia she looked like a wild child playing at “tents” under the counterpane.

“_Tiens!_” she cried fretfully. “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve always told stories myself, until--until Leigh killed that man. Now, I’m not telling stories. I suppose I can believe that you meant to do something--something queer. That’s what they’ve all done to me since I came. I don’t know why you’re here--I don’t care! _C’est fini_--I’m done with you all!”

Virginia started. She remembered William’s words.

“I came because you’re ill. I want to help you, to make you more comfortable. That’s really all I came for, Fanchon. I’m sorry you feel so toward us--toward me.”

Fanchon shook back her hair and looked at the other girl curiously, her eyes darkening and changing wonderfully.

“How pretty she is,” Virginia thought, “and how wretched.”

But Fanchon did not speak. For a while she only studied Virginia. At last she spoke slowly, twisting the coverlet.

“Were you in court?” she asked.

Virginia shook her head. Fanchon’s eyes held hers, with that fierce, dark, challenging look.

“But you know my story?”

“Yes, I’ve heard it,” Virginia reluctantly answered.

“My husband told you!” Fanchon sprang out of bed and ran across the room, seizing Virginia’s arm and looking at her wildly. “William told you!”

Virginia, who was fatally honest sometimes, said nothing; but her face confessed that William had told her much. She was horrified. How could she make this furious little creature understand how William had told her, and how she had replied? She ought never to have come here.

For an instant panic seized her and she longed to get away; and then her inherited and noble fearlessness steadied her. She met Fanchon’s feverish look calmly and frankly.

“I wish you’d believe me,” she said simply. “I’m not that sort of a woman, Fanchon. It’s true that William and I were engaged once, but he broke it off when he married you. And now”--Virginia’s pride flashed in her eyes--“if he were free to-morrow, Fanchon, it would make no difference--no difference in the world to me.”

They looked at each other. Fanchon, still holding the other girl’s arm in her shaking hands, searched Virginia’s face with that wild look of hers, her lips quivering. Virginia met the look at first proudly and angrily, and then with such compassion, such tenderness and honesty, that Fanchon’s lips twisted convulsively again. Suddenly she dropped Virginia’s arm and turned away. She took an unsteady step and almost reeled as she flung herself into a chair, hiding her face in her hands.

“Do you believe me now, Fanchon?” Virginia asked, more gently.

There was no answer for a moment, then she heard the other girl’s convulsive weeping. Fanchon, who had never controlled an impulse in her life, was weeping wildly, twisting about in her chair and beating the air for breath. It startled Virginia; she forgot herself and went to her. Seizing the frantic little hands, she held them in her cool, firm ones, as a mother might hold a frantic child’s.