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.
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.