Doubly false

Eunice found her brother Joshua in his room over the carriage-house, busy with a harness which he was putting in order. This man was a heavy, shambling fellow, younger by ten years than Eunice, and every way unlike her in person, save that he had the same sandy complexion. His limbs were short and stout, his countenance sullen, and his movements sluggish. He looked up as Eunice entered and nodded his head, but fell to work again without speaking.

“Joshua,” said Eunice, “you have heard of what has happened, I dare say.”

“Yes, the coachman was telling me of it. But it won’t hurt us, will it? The place is left all the same.”

“But it’s ten chances to one if she stays in it,” said Eunice.

“Ha! what’s that? If she goes, why what’s to become of us?”

“That’s what I come to talk about, Joshua.”

“Josh-u-a! Well, now, what has come over you to be so polite? Want something, I know, but what?”

“She wants something of you, brother.”

“Brother! How loving we are all at once.”

“Come this way, Josh, if you like that better; see that no one is about, first. There, sit down close by me on these carriage rugs, and speak low.”

Joshua sat down on the pile of rugs where Eunice had placed herself and prepared to listen, with his legs stretched out and the soles of his coarse shoes turned toward the door.

For the first time almost in her life Eunice spoke low and in cautious words. It was a long time before she could make herself thoroughly understood, and after the sense of her conversation had settled on that sluggish mind moments of sullen hesitation followed, which aggravated the hot temper of the woman almost beyond endurance.

“Is it sartin that the gal is dead?” he muttered at last.

“Certain. No woman was saved. Some got into the boats, but they were all swamped.”

“And she will be turned out doors.”

“Yes, a brother’s wife isn’t a natural heir, you know.”

“I don’t know nothing about it—but it’ll sarve her right—hang her, what kind of feeling has she got, cutting down a feller’s licker and stinting off his wages. That wasn’t according to promise; darn her, she needn’t come to me.”

“But you and I will have to go, or work like dogs for what we get. You don’t like hard work more than I do, Josh; but we shall get enough of it if she’s driven out.”

Joshua fell into thought here, and, dropping his chin on his chest, pondered over this rather unpleasant aspect of his affairs.

“Will she stop interfering with my drink?” he said at last.

“Yes, I promise that.”

“And give me a decent bed. I’m tired of sleeping on horse blankets.”

“I will send a mattress out this very day, with plenty of bedding and a carpet, if you want one.”

“Which I don’t—wasn’t brought up on one; but the old folks did somehow or other make out to give us beds to sleep on.”

“But you shall have everything. Would you rather be coachman or wait in the house?”

“Neither one nor t’other; shouldn’t I make a figger with them fancy coats on, stuck up on a high seat like—oh, git out with yer nonsense! As for the house, you’d a been a tarnal sight wiser if you’d kept out of that. Why, there ain’t no more gentility in one of us than you’d find in a bush fence. It’s like putting young crows in a brown thrasher’s nest. No, no, I’ll stay where I am, and potter about just as I’ve a mind to. She needn’t talk about permotion to me. It’s too late, I’m Josh Warner—beg your pardon, Josh Hurd—and nothing else can be made of me. She must let me alone, give a little extra chink when I want it, and never put no more of her restrictions on the licker.”

“She will promise all you want of her own accord, Joshua, and I will see that you get all that she promises,” was the conciliatory reply.

“Let her come then,” was the sullen answer. “But send out a lamp of some kind; she ain’t used to seeing candles stuck in a blacking bottle, and might turn up her nose. Let her come, Eunice, and I’ll make my own bargain—consarn her!”

Joshua scrambled to his feet with this concluding speech, and fell to work on the harness. Eunice watched him for a moment in grim displeasure, but gathered herself up and went away not altogether satisfied, for she saw that Joshua understood the situation and was disposed to make the most of it. Up to this time both she and her mistress had underrated his stupid cunning.

When Eunice returned to the house, she found her mistress prostrate on the bed with the curtains gathered so close that the vague outlines of her form and a wild glitter of the eyes were all that could be seen through them. She lay like a wounded animal in its lair racked with anguish but vigilant for her own safety. The closing of a door or a heavy footstep threw her into a trembling fit, but her thoughts were keenly at work all the time.

Eunice had no mercy on a state of feelings of which she was and ever would be profoundly ignorant. So she swept the volumes of lace aside and looked down upon the suffering woman with harsh contempt.

“Well, sob away; I suppose you will cry it out sooner or later,” she said. “I’ve seen Josh; he’s growly, as I expected, but I talked him over, and if you promise fair he’ll be on hand.”

“What time is it now, Eunice?” asked the suffering lady.

“Nigh upon two o’clock, I reckon.”

“Oh, Eunice, I should so like to be still a little while!”

“Well, why don’t you? There is nothing to be done afore dark, when everybody is abed. Stay alone and cry it out, if you want to, I shan’t interfere.”

“Thank you Eunice,” said the mistress, meekly. “There is such a struggle here, and here, that it kills me.”

The wretched woman laid a hand on her heart, then touched her forehead, sighing heavily as she spoke.

“Take one at a time, that’s my advice; give up the head and tussle it out with that tormenting thing you call a heart. Thank goodness, I never felt nothing there worth crying over. But to-night, when the time comes, just shut down the water-gates and give that head of yourn a chance. Grief is grief but business is business; mind that!”

Eunice dropped her arms, and the curtains settled over her mistress with the pliant fall of new snow. Seized by a vague instinct of humanity, she closed the blinds and filled the room with merciful twilight, then stole out on tiptoe with a caution that made her shoes creak dismally, and sent a shudder from the bed.

Hour after hour Mrs. Lander lay upon her bed praying for a moment’s sleep, which would not come. Her first passion of tears had, as Eunice predicted, set her mind free, and it came out of her great burst of grief hard and sharp as steel. Shall I tell you how this woman reasoned there in her solitude? Do not think it unnatural, for such things may exist in human nature—up from her worldly heart came consolation in this form, even when she was weeping for her lost daughter:

“Had she lived, I must have been dependent still—worse off than ever, for even as a child she was haughty and selfish—and he was generous as the sun. But—but she was my daughter, my only child—my hope, my beautiful, beautiful darling!”

Here came a great flood of anguish, which proved the natural motherhood of the woman, but directly her keen selfishness broke through.

“Mistress of all this—unrestricted and young enough to think of a future—no, no, I could not give it up. What do these half-cousins, to whom the law awards it, know of wealth and its uses? Besides he wished it. The will is every word in his own handwriting; never was a man’s desires made more positive. Then, I shall do so much good with the money. Let it pass from me, and the poor would be great sufferers. But above all, he wished it. He gave it to me.”

Thus the woman reasoned in her tears and wept in her reasoning. She would doubtless have given up the property could that sacrifice have brought his child to life. But with the certainty of her death, the possession of wealth was a consolation the sweetness of which she began to taste keenly even at this early moment.

Toward night Eunice came into the chamber with a cup of strong tea and some toast, of which Mrs. Lander partook. After this she became restless and walked her room to and fro, watching the crescent of a new moon which just smiled on the lovely landscape and died out pleasantly, like the dimples on an infant’s face.

At last the door opened and Eunice threw a black shawl into the room.

“Cover up that white dress from top to toe,” she said. “They are all hived up for the night. Come along.”

There was no sound upon the stairs—scarcely the rustle of a dress, to tell when those women went out or came in. Two waving shadows flitted across the grounds, followed by the sound of a deeply-drawn breath, as the stable door opened and closed with noiseless caution. Then a rough head appeared at the window a moment, and the light seemed to go out. Some thick, dark substance had been drawn over the glass.

All this precaution seemed useless. No one was watching. The grounds lay shadowy and quiet in the calm night. The slow sweep of the river rose above the sounds of wakeful insects that chirped their tiny music in the leaves. All at once the roar and rush of an engine thundering along the road startled the two women, who had left the stable and were creeping through the shrubbery on their way back to the house. The sound frightened them, neither could have told why, and they ran forward breathlessly. The front door being farthest from the household, stood open, but there was a long stretch of the marble pavement which they were compelled to pass in reaching it. Before leaving the shrubbery, they paused to listen to the tread of feet coming up a flight of steps cut along the face of a stone precipice which lifted the lawn above the river. Two men were evidently coming up from the railroad, which wound along the foot of this precipice, and a few moments would bring them in sight of the house.

“It is David and that man,” whispered Mrs. Lander. “They will find the door open. What shall we do?”

“Run for dear life,” answered Eunice, and gathering up her skirts, she made a vigorous rush for the portico.

Mrs. Lander followed close, keeping inside of the pillars, and scarcely allowing her feet to touch the marble pavement.

“There they come,” whispered Eunice, pausing for one instant to reconnoitre. “I can see their heads—now for it!”

The next instant both the women stood in the entrance hall, clinging together and panting for breath. Eunice shook off her mistress, closed the door with noiseless slowness, drew a bolt and turned the key in its lock.

“Now get rid of that and go to your room. It’s natural that I should be up,” she whispered. “I give you ten minutes to get all right. Hark!”

The two men were outside the portico, walking across the terrace. Eunice took off her blanket shawl, and groping her way to the rack at the lower end of the hall, hung it up with other out-door garments, and stood in the dark, waiting.

The sharp ring of a bell sounded through the stillness of the house. Another and another peal. Then Eunice came forward and called out to know who was there.

“It is I—David and Mr. Stone,” was the reply.

Eunice struck a match, lighted the hall lamp, and then deliberately opened the door.

“It is fortunate I was up,” she said. “The Madam has been taking on so, I was afraid to go to sleep. Have you any news, sir?”

“Nothing more than the papers give,” answered the lawyer. “Poor lady, it must be a dreadful blow for her.”

“Awful,” answered Eunice. “She hasn’t lifted head from the pillow since morning.”

The faint sound of footsteps and the trail of a dress came from above just as Eunice uttered these words. She caught a quick breath and went on:

“Dear me, that must be her! She’s heard the door bell, and guesses that it’s you. It’s enough to break one’s heart to go up and tell her there’s nothing to hope for; but it must be done.”

“Say that I will see her in the morning,” said the lawyer, placing his hat on the hall stand.

“I’ll go to her at once and have the worst over, or she’ll be wandering through the house all night. David, you take Mr. Stone to his room.”

With this Eunice went up stairs abruptly, leaving the two men to take care of themselves.