The Trescots by degrees settled into a routine of life which, while it left Constance alone in the mornings, usually permitted of their being together the rest of the day, and in the evening.
A few friends or relatives of the Averills called upon them; but these visits were evidently formal or made to oblige the general’s wife, and they were left much alone.
If Trescot soon felt the social atmosphere to be cold, he excused it, and trusted to time and chance for better things. Except that Constance saw in their reception difficulties for her husband, she had small regret on account of the conditions which relieved her from being constantly on guard, and made her secure of a larger share of the society she preferred to all other.
The women she met and tried to find pleasant were chiefly interested in their households, in the difficulties caused by the emancipation of the slaves, and in the awkward subject of the misgovernment of the South. There were but few subjects which were free from peril, and such intellectual sympathies as Constance possessed awakened little interest among overburdened women whom many forms of disaster had left with too constant thought of the morrow.
What help and advice Constance required she found in the Averill house, where now and then they ate a meal and were at all times welcome guests. The older woman discovered, to her husband’s joy, a novel pleasure in Constance Trescot’s music; and it became common for the old general and his wife to appear of an evening, and while the men smoked their pipes on the porch the piano, Susan’s wedding-gift, was opened, and song after song, or the tones of the greater music, soothed and pleased the pale little lady who sat a silent listener, or pleaded for “just one more, my dear.”
Then, too, Susan sent the new books and the magazines, and these were passed on to the Averills, who formed, by degrees, an increasing attachment to the young man and his wife, and became thoughtfully busy in the difficult task of bringing them into cordial relations with what was best in the town. As far as was possible to a woman like Constance, the regard was returned. She had all her life had a singular incapacity for generous division or sharing of her affection. Once it had been wholly Susan’s. It was now George Trescot’s, and this predisposition was reinforced by a passion deep, jealous, and exacting. The man so long lonely sunned himself in the warmth of all that an intelligent and beautiful woman brought to help and glorify his life, with no mind to criticize the quality of the woman’s love.
And so the latter days of April passed, and the warmth of May and June came, while, with the all-sufficient company of books, music, and talk, time moved onward. In the evening he read to her or told her of his work, and she of what she had seen and done. Of the keen sense he had of hostility in the very air of the place he said but little. She was but too anxiously aware of it, and said as little.
On an evening early in June the general came in, and leaving Constance alone with her open piano, the two men went out on to the porch.
“I came in, Mr. Trescot, because I want to talk of the squatters. I heard to-day that there may be trouble. I wish my friend Mr. Hood were more reasonable.”
“He is not, and never will be, and there is nothing to do but to serve the usual notices on them.”
“It has already excited a good deal of feeling. The squatters will resist, or at least two of them will. The fact is that I have been unable to make up my mind in the past to turn out three old soldiers of my own regiment. One of these is a lame man, crippled in the war. Cannot you wait until the suit for the water-front has been tried?”
“It is low down on the docket, and it will be October before it can come up. But what would be gained by that—by waiting?”
The general was unprepared to reply. He was merely inclined, like most old men, to put off the disagreeable, having that faith in the helpfulness of time which is a part of the business creed of the aged.
He said at last that he was of opinion that Greyhurst was stirring them up. The eviction of a lot of old soldiers, one of them eighteen years on the ground, father and son, would further prejudice an already hostile public opinion, and make it the harder to secure a just verdict in regard to the question of title to the lands beyond them on the river.
“What I disliked to do about these men, Mr. Trescot,” he said, “will be dangerous for you to attempt. I think it right to tell you that. Their land is not valuable for steamboat landings, and for any other purpose it is useless, because the squatters never can sell it; but they won’t give up, and are utterly indifferent to law, and quite well aware that the community is on their side. Best let them alone just now. Wait a little.”
“No, I must go on.”
“It will be at the risk of your life.”
He could have said nothing better fitted to add vigor to Trescot’s resolute intention. He replied, laughing: “I presume that we have both been shot at pretty often.”
“But this is different, Trescot.”
“Yes, I know that. But am I to believe, general, that an opponent lawyer deliberately advises an assassination?”
“Oh, no, I beg you not to misunderstand me; I spoke rather too positively. Greyhurst would never do that; and, upon my word, he never did anything deliberate in his life. The man is impulsive and quick to resent, and very imprudent in talk. He is in debt, and if he can win this suit he will probably receive a large contingent fee. These men, especially that fellow named Coffin, have been to see him,—I pointed the man out to you on the street yesterday. Mr. Greyhurst has told them that you surely mean to evict them. I do not think he can have gone further.”
“If he said only that I mean to evict, that is true. I would tell them that myself. Was there anything else?”
“No; but there are ways of saying things. It was none of his business. They did not consult him as a lawyer, and he was merely making mischief. These mountain-men who are now squatted on the flats come to me like children. They were, some of them, in my company when I first went out, and they look to me for protection. It is a damned disagreeable business, sir; and none the easier for John Greyhurst’s interference and Mr. Hood’s stupid obstinacy.”
“I presume, general, that you really could not make up your mind to act on Mr. Hood’s determination to evict.”
“I must confess, Mr. Trescot, that I would not. I think I said as much. The legal right no one can dispute; but I could not come down on these poor devils with the law without being looked upon as an oppressor, and, what is worse just now, as the instrument of a Northern man. Even for me, my dear Trescot, to evict mercilessly men who have lived there five, ten, even eighteen years unmolested—even for me, sir, there might be risk.”
“And for me,” queried Trescot, smiling, “much more risk?”
“That is my belief, sir. I do not think Mr. Hood has ever taken in the situation.”
“No; it is his land. The men must go. For him it is simple,—but for me and you there are the human ties to land men have cleared and plowed, the sense of the home, and all manner of associations. Mr. Hood prides himself on being exact in business. Out of it he is generous, even lavish. He has not imagination enough to be largely charitable. I never saw a man like him.”
“Then, sir,” said the old general, grimly humorous, “he had better lavish on you a good revolver or a first-class rifle. What I could not or would not do, you will surely risk your life if you try to do. I may as well say to you that my chief reason for giving up Hood’s agency was his infernal obstinacy about these squatters. Did he tell you that I had said so, and that no reputable gentleman in St. Ann would accept the position?”
“No, he did not,” returned Trescot, somewhat surprised at this revelation of Mr. Hood’s methods.
“Well, no one here would take it on his terms, and, as I see it, he has placed you in what is a position of real danger. Even now, before you have moved legally, these men are sure they will be turned out. They are not men to wait, and the whole town is on their side. Think it over. A very little money would settle the business.”
“You are no doubt right; but what can I do? I must give up the agency or act on Mr. Hood’s orders. I came here to do so, and I mean to move in the matter. How can I hope to convince him if you failed?”
The general laid a hand on Trescot’s knee, and said very earnestly:
“Wait until I write to him again. I have known lives lost in this country for far less things, and if you are set on taking legal action I beg that you will go about armed.”
Trescot laughed. “Why, my dear general, I am half crippled, and it would be simply useless. Do you all carry revolvers?”
“I do not; but if I were bent on following out Mr. Hood’s orders I most assuredly should do so, and, too, I should be rather careful how I went out at night.”
Trescot thanked him and said: “You will do nothing with Hood; but could not we do something with these men if you and I saw them together?”
“It is worth trying. I shall go with you with pleasure. Before I leave let me say a word more about that land suit. It was first brought the year after the big flood in sixty-three. Who suggested to the Baptiste people to dispute Hood’s title I do not know. Two lawyers have had it; one died and one threw up the case. Then it came into Greyhurst’s hands, and has hung on. I had too slight evidence in Mr. Hood’s favor to want to try it, and Greyhurst evidently took it with the hope of forcing a compromise. I can’t think he believes their claim just.”
“Well, I shall urge it, and we can make him come to time. It is very much like a sort of legally disguised blackmail. What kind of man is he? I ought to know. You said he was impulsive.”
“Yes, it is as well that you should. A rather unusual person. He has had a wild life, but is not uncultivated. He certainly has a high opinion of John Greyhurst, and the most damned insecure temper I ever met with. Halloa! Talk of him another time. Listen to that!”
There was a low, mellow roll of murmurous thunder. The general rose. “We are in for one of our big thunder-storms. It will cool the air. Say good-by to Mrs. Trescot. I must hurry.” He went away around the house in haste.
As Trescot stood looking at the darkening sky a blinding splendor of violet light made bright the distant river and the march of dark masses of cloud across the star-lighted sky. “Come out,” he called to his wife. “The general has gone, Constance; come out on the porch.”
She rejoiced in a great storm, as she did in any display of the might of nature, such as the wild sea drama of a gale on her own rock-bound coast. She came out at once and they walked into the garden. The herald wind of the coming storm shook the house and brought a cool breath of freshness.
“How delicious the air is, George, and how magnificent, how glorious!”
Swift javelins of light flashed incessant, with crashes of thunder, and soon the sudden downfall of rain drove them to the shelter of the porch.
“No, I can’t go in, George. I never before saw such a storm. I love it. I should like to be once in an earthquake.”
“Not I,” he returned, laughing. “I saw one in New Mexico. I prefer to face again the worst fire I was ever under. I got out of a window on to a shed, and the house went down behind me.”
Again a vast flare of lightning made every drop of rain in the air a moment’s jewel.
“The rain blows in here; get your rain-cloak,” he said. “Wait, I shall get it—or better to go in.”
“Oh, no; I must see it. You could not find the cloak.”
She left him where he stood enjoying the storm. As the quick-coming flashes lighted the hill slope he saw a man moving, very slowly as it seemed to him for one storm-caught, some thirty feet beyond the garden fence. He called out, “Halloa! come in here.”
Surprised to receive no reply, he called again. A moment after, amid still more vivid light, Trescot was aware of a flash lower down on the hillside, and of the sound, once familiar, of a rifle-shot. The broken glass of the window just to the left jangled. As the instant lightning flared, Trescot, seeing the man moving down the hill, ran through the garden and out of the gate in hot pursuit, thinking quickly as he caught sight of him at moments, “It was the old-fashioned rifle; he can’t reload. By George! he is lame; I shall have him.”
He was not twenty feet away when Trescot’s foot caught in a tangle of briers and he fell. He rolled over on his lame shoulder, and in some pain got up to find he had lost his man in the wood at the foot of the hill. He stood still a moment in the rain, and then walked back up the rise of ground.
His wife was on the porch. “Where have you been? What was that, George? I heard glass break.”
Concealment was impossible. “I am all right. A man shot at me; one of those squatters, I suppose. I saw him plainly; he was lame. Come in, dear. I should have had him in a moment if I had not fallen.”
“You are not hurt?” she asked anxiously.
“No; but come in. The shot went quite wide and broke the glass. Do not mention it to those blacks. It must appear to have been an accident while I was closing the shutters.”
When they were in the lighted room and the house shut up, he saw how pale she was. He put his arm around her. “Constance, love,” he said, “this will not occur again.” He was by no means sure. “Do not be worried; I am to see these men with Averill in a day or two. We shall settle with them in some way.”
“But what will you do? and how can I live here with the chance of having you brought home to me dead? Oh, this barbarous country! And I made you come—and my uncle, I shall never forgive him.”
At last he persuaded her to go to bed. She passed a restless night, almost without sleep—perhaps for the first time in her life of vigorous health.
When, next day, she insisted on his not leaving her, he said at last: “We shall walk to the Averills’, and I shall call for you after I have gone over some of the old French deeds. I shall not be long.” Her very visible anxiety troubled him, and the more because it was reasonable. She was not easily answered.
“But what will you do, George?” she went on. “Can’t you arrest him? Something must be done, and without delay. I shall write to uncle.”
“No, you must not do that; it would be of no use. Before he could reply I shall have consulted with the general and done something.” He had no clear idea of what he should do, except that he still meant to visit the squatters with Averill. He said as much.
“But I cannot sit still and wait,” she returned. “I simply cannot.”
Such reassurance as he was able to give quite failed to satisfy her. She went slowly up-stairs, step by step, deep in thought, and then, making a sudden decision, dressed herself with unusual care and came down to join him. Although she commonly talked much when with her husband, as they walked on she barely answered him, and finally left him at Mrs. Averill’s gate.
During the night, as Constance lay awake, she had reproached herself again and again for having urged her husband to accept her uncle’s offer. What now he would do had not satisfied her. As she walked by his side she kept on perplexing herself about a situation in which, as a woman, she felt herself powerless. After an uneasy half-hour with Mrs. Averill, to whom she said nothing of what had happened, she took her leave, and with a sudden and well-defined resolution in her mind went down the steep road from the bluff, and leaving the busy cotton-marts and -presses behind her, followed the river bank. The path led through scrubby undergrowth on to rudely cultivated clearings. Here were two well-built log cabins. In front of the nearer one a man well beyond middle age was seated on a stump engaged in oiling the lock of a rifle. As she came upon him he stood up in wonder at the loveliness of the wandering stranger.
She said: “Will you kindly give me a drink of water, and may I sit down? I am tired.”
“Would you come in, ma’am, out of the sun?”
She followed him, and took the chair he offered, and the tin cup.
“What good water you have! Thank you.”
As he moved she observed his lameness, and sharply observant, saw about her no evidence of a woman’s care. This was the man she sought.
“Yes, ma’am; it’s a spring below the bluff.”
“What a handsome bearskin! Did you shoot him?”
“Yes; last winter, up in the Virginia hills.”
“Are you a good shot?”
“I reckon I am.”
“But you missed my husband last night.”
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed, “who told you that?”
“He saw you. It is useless to deny it, and the fact is, Mr.—what is your name?”
“I’m Tom Coffin, and I just want—”
“Wait a little. If you had killed him you would have killed your best friend.”
“Well, now, that’s pretty good. My friend! ’Tain’t a matter to talk over with women. He’s got to let me alone. My father, that’s dead, and me, we have been here eighteen years, and now comes your man and says git out.”
“Is the land so good?”
“No, it isn’t; but it’s mine, and it’s all I have.”
“Suppose my husband were to offer to do one of two things?”
“Well,” he said, “he ain’t offered nothing.”
“If he wins our suit about the bounds of the land below you on the river, and would give you a deed for five acres on the bluff,—good land, too,—would you take it in exchange for what does not belong to you?”
“I would; but he hasn’t got it. Mr. Greyhurst says he won’t git it.”
Then the man became of a sudden suspicious.
“Look here, ma’am; I ain’t used to dealing with ladies. Did Mr. Trescot send you? He needn’t have been afraid.”
“Afraid!” she said proudly, rising as she spoke. “George Trescot, my husband, afraid! It was not he who ran last night. Who was it ran from an unarmed man?”
Then in a moment she was back in a well-played part.
“Mr. Coffin, I came here just because I am a woman and a young wife. My husband does not know, or I never should have been allowed to come. I want to make sure that you will not kill an unarmed, crippled man. I can’t stand by and wait to see what will happen. I will not go until you promise me that you will agree, if we win, to exchange your clearing for the better land below; or if you will not do that, tell me now what you will take to move if we—I mean my uncle—does not win his suit.”
Coffin weakened. This gracious woman with her soft voice and eyes full of tears captured the man.
“Who’s going to make sure of the pay?”
“I shall pay. Come, now, let us be friends. I am really on your side. You can’t fight the law. Some day you will have to go and get nothing for all you have done. Come, now, what will you take?”
“Would you say three hundred, ma’am?”
“No; four hundred,” she said quickly. It was the half of her little personal savings.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
She put out her hand. He took it shyly, as she said:
“Are you busy all day?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Could you come up in the afternoons and help me in my garden, for three dollars a week?”
“I will if your man wants me; he won’t want me.”
“Yes, he will. You should have come at first and talked to him. You are both old soldiers; and, Mr. Coffin, you must be a Northern man—you have a good old New England name.”
“No; my father was. He came from Massachusetts.” Then he was silent.
She saw that he was still unsatisfied. “Ah, my own State. Is there anything else? I want it all clear.”
“Well, it isn’t, and I want to know. The fact is, ma’am, Mr. Greyhurst told me you folks wouldn’t do anything, but just drive me out. Father and I have been here eighteen years, and my sister has the cabin just below here. Her man’s sick, and there’s two children, and go was the word, just like we were dogs.”
“If Mr. Greyhurst told you that, he said what was not true. He knew nothing about it, or what Mr. Trescot would do. My husband was coming here with General Averill to-morrow.”
“Was he?—he and my old captain?”
“Yes, and you come like a coward and shoot at an unarmed man, who is ready to help you.”
“O Lord, drop that! I was just fooled by that man Greyhurst. I’ll get even with him. I was thinking—me and another man—that we’d go and see Mr. Trescot. Greyhurst he said it was no good. You can tell your husband, if he’s minded not to be hard on us, I can help him about those bounds down below. I won’t say no more till we talk—me and him.”
Constance, surprised, returned: “I’ll leave you to settle that with him, but don’t go and what you call get even with Mr. Greyhurst.” She saw mischief in this. “Keep it all to yourself; do not let him know that you are on our side. Promise me; you know I trust you.”
“I can hold my tongue, ma’am. Darn that lawyer chap!”
“Well,” she said, “here is your first week’s wages.”
“No; I don’t take money I haven’t earned.”
“Yes, you must,” and she left the notes in his great rough hand.
“Of course Mr. Greyhurst will see you in my garden.”
“Well, it ain’t none of his business. Guess I’ll be the fooler this time. When will I come? I don’t half like it.”
“But you will. Come to-day at six. It is too late for work, but I want Mr. Trescot to talk to you.”
“Well, I’ll come. I’ve said it, and I’ll come.”
“Good-by.”
Well pleased, she went away across the clearing and up the bluff, determined that her uncle should agree to pay, or that she herself must do so. “I have bought a man and saved a man’s life,” she said joyously. She was glad, elate, and at ease.
She had been so long with Coffin that her husband had gone home. She hurried her steps and entered the house just after him. A great joy was in her heart. She would tell him in this way—no, it should be in that way. The adventure delighted her, and the feeling that she had been able to help her husband and make him secure.
“I missed you,” he said, as they sat down in the little library; “what made you so late?”
“I went for a walk. I went down to the river and then through the woods to where your squatters live.”
“Constance, you must not do that again. God knows what might happen among those lawless men. This fellow Coffin—I know him now—is one of the worst of them. Promise me, love.”
“I can—I do. But I saw your lame scoundrel.”
“Saw him! You saw him!”
“Yes.” And she poured out the whole story, while he listened amazed, and not too well pleased. She saw the gravity of his look, the slight frown as she finished.
“Was I wrong, George?” she said anxiously.
He hesitated and then replied:
“Yes; this is not a woman’s business. You have pledged me without thought to what your uncle will never agree to do; and the money—where is it to come from?”
“I have it, George, and more than enough. I will not,—oh, I cannot let this state of things go on. My uncle must give you freedom to act as seems best. It is he who put you in peril. I won’t stand it.”
“And still, Constance, this must not occur again. It was thoughtless and unwise.”
“Thoughtless! Oh, George,” she cried, with a sudden passion of tears, “it was anything but thoughtless. I scarcely closed my eyes last night. I have been in an agony of apprehension. I could not wait to see what would happen. If I had been a man, and loved you as no man can love—oh, I should have killed him! Do you think this kind of thing will go on? And I brought you here, I made you come, I bribed you with my love, myself. Now I can sleep, you are safe. I have found an enemy and made him a friend. Oh, this horrible town! Let us go. Let us give up.”
She went on with broken phrases and disconnected words, and was soothed only when, at last, as she lay sobbing on his breast, he said: “Try, dear, to control yourself; we must talk this over quietly. Now, wait a little; do not speak.”
By degrees she steadied herself, and at last, wiping her eyes, said: “There, it is over; but I must finish, and I won’t be so weak again. I do think you must see, George, that this was not with me a matter of choice. I had to do it. You are the one thing in life for me. There is no other. Oh, you have your work and your enlarging future, your religion. I have you. That is my sole excuse. To-morrow I would do it again. That is all. And if I have done what my love made me do, at least you must see that out of it comes some good.”
He had been amazed and annoyed by her abrupt interference, but as she talked he quieted himself, and while in wonder at the abandonment of a passion so all-possessing, began to feel that her pledges must be kept to the letter. He said so, to her joy, and added, as he kissed her tears away: “I am sorry you went, but I love you the more for the courage that carried you through.”
She smiled. “Ah, George, it was the courage of selfishness; it was the courage of love. And I am forgiven? I want you to say it.”
“Hush! We shall never need the word—never. And so I am to see that scamp to-day at six. He must be a pretty cool fellow.” The humor of it struck him. “Do you expect to be present?” he asked, laughing. “To be shot at overnight by a man who proposes to attend to your garden the day after is something delightfully unusual.”
There was no laugh in it for Constance. The man was back again in his every-day calm. The woman remained excited, restless, and even exhausted by the strain of the morning and the talk with her husband. Her mind was still on the matter.
“You must write to Uncle Rufus and simply say you mean to have your way.”
“I will think it over. Probably I shall do so, but you, in the meantime, must not do what I alone ought to do.”
“No,” she returned, somewhat meekly; “I am out of the business now. But, George, don’t tell that man he is a scoundrel. He is the captive of my bow and spear.”
“No, I think I shall manage it; but I hardly think I can apologize for not being hit.”
“Please don’t,” she said, and went up to her room, glad then, and again after lunch, to lie down and rest with a mind at ease. The rather grim humor of the situation did not strike her as it would have done her sister.