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.