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.”
“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:
“Yes, the rooms will be in order for your uncle and our welcome Susan. Mrs. Averill has been sending me a lot of things—I presume owing to your distrust of my capacity to keep house. I have at least laid in a stock of patience for use when your uncle comes, and have got out and dusted my other unused virtues. I received last week a kind note from Colonel La Grange, with a check for my settlement of the damaged cotton. You may guess how much—enough to make it easier to deal with your uncle.
“You ask in your last whom I see, and would like to know what I do all day. You ask if I have made any new friends. I scent the wicked weed jealousy in the garden of love. Fie for shame! More people have been able this year to get away. I see no women except Mrs. Averill, and if you are jealous of any woman it must be of Rosalind or Portia or Lady Macbeth. I have been refreshing myself with the company of these ladies in your absence. Horses are so plenty that I have been able to ride a few times with La Grange, and I begin to think of the joy of some day riding with you.
“Poor Wilson is dead; and, as you desired, I took care of the funeral. The rest may keep. Everything goes well, and there are still flowers,—oh, in abundance! I hear that the rector is not well and has given up. A young man named Kent has taken his place. I had some distant relatives named Kent. I never saw them. You may tell Susan that La Grange, who knows Mr. Kent, says he is young and very good-looking. That is all my news. Do take care of yourself.”
“Poor Susan!” thought Constance; “I think she prefers them old. I imagine Susan in a mild clerical flirtation!”