VIII.
EARLY spring at Romney. The yellow jessamine was nearly gone, the other flowers were coming out; Atamasco lilies shone whitely everywhere; the long line of the islands and the opposite mainland were white with blossoms, the salt-marshes were freshly green; shoals, which had wallowed under water since Christmas, lifted their heads; the great river came back within its banks again.
Three weeks had passed since their return to the island. They had made the journey without the judge, who had remained in South Carolina to give his aid to the widow of his old friend, Roland Pettigru, who had become involved in a lawsuit. The three weeks had been slow and anxious—anxious, that is, to Eve. Cicely had returned to her muteness. Once, at the beginning, when Eve had pressed her with questions, she said, as general answer, “In any case, Ferdie will not come here.” After that, when again—once or twice—Eve had asked, “Have you heard anything more?” Cicely had returned no reply whatever; she had let her passive glance rest upon Eve and then glide to something else, as though she had not spoken. Eve was proud, she too remained silent. She knew that she had done nothing to win Cicely’s confidence; women understand women, and Cicely had perceived from the first, of course, that Jack’s sister did not like her.
But since that midnight revelation at Cousin Sarah Cray’s, Eve no longer disliked Cicely; on the contrary, she was attracted towards her by a sort of unwilling surprise. Often, when they were with the others, she would look at her twenty times in a half-hour, endeavoring to fathom something of the real nature of this little girl (to Eve, Cicely always seemed a school-girl), who had borne a tragedy in silence, covering it with her jests, covering it also with her coldness. But was Cicely really cold to all the world but Ferdie? She was not so, at least, as regarded her child; no one who had seen her on her knees that night beside the crib could doubt her love for him. Yet she let Eve have him for hours at a time, she let her have him at night, without even Dilsey to look after him; she never interfered, constantly as Eve claimed him and kept him. In spite of her confidence in her own perceptions, in spite of her confidence, too, in her own will, which she believed could force a solution in almost every case, Eve Bruce was obliged to acknowledge to herself that she was puzzled.
Now and then she would be harassed by the question as to whether she ought not to tell Miss Sabrina what she knew, whether she ought not to tell the judge. But Cicely had spared them, and Cicely had asked her to be equally merciful. At night, when lying awake, the horror of the poor baby’s broken arm would sometimes come to her so vividly that she would light the candle in haste to see if he were safe. If Ferdie should come here, after all! Cicely had said that he would not; but who could trust Cicely,—loving the man as she did? To Eve, after all that had happened, Cicely’s love seemed a mania as insane as the homicidal deliriums of the husband.
As to these deliriums, she tried to picture what they must be: the baby hurled from his little crib—that made her shudder with rage; she should not be afraid of the madman, then; she should attack him in return! Sometimes it was Cicely whom she saw, Cicely, shrinking under blows; it must have been something heavy and sharp, a billet of wood, perhaps, that had caused the scars across her white breast. She remembered that once, when inwardly exasperated by Cicely’s fresh fairness, she had accused her of never having known what it was to be really tired in all her life. Cicely had answered, rather hesitatingly, “I don’t know that I have ever been tired, exactly.” She had not been tired—no. She had only been half killed.
The poor little girl’s muteness, her occasional outbursts of wild sport, her jests and laughter, her abstractions, and the coldness sometimes seen in her beautiful eyes, were these the results of suffering? She questioned Miss Sabrina a little.
“She has always been the same, except that since her second marriage she is much more quiet,” replied the unconscious aunt. “Until then she was like quicksilver, she used to run through the thickets so swiftly that no one could follow her, and she used to play ball by the hour with—” Here the speaker paused, disconcerted.
“With Jack,” Eve added, her face contracting with the old pain.
Miss Sabrina had at last perceived this pain, and the discovery had stopped her affectionate allusions. But she did not forget—Eve often found her carefully made wreaths laid upon Jack’s grave. As for Eve herself, she never brought a flower; she walked to and fro beside the mound, and the sojourn generally ended in angry thoughts. Why should other people keep their loved ones, and she be bereft? What had she done, what had Jack done, that was so wrong? God was not good, because He was not kind; people did not ask Him to create them, but when once He had done it for His own pleasure, and there they were, helpless, in His world, why should He torture them so? To make them better? Why didn’t He make them better in the beginning, when He was creating them? Or else not make them at all!
One afternoon during the fourth week after their return to Romney, she was on her way back with Miss Sabrina from Singleton Island; the two had been dining there, the Southern three-o’clock dinner, and now at sunset the row-boat was bringing them home. To Eve the visit had been like a day’s truce, a short period, when one merely waits; the afternoon was beautiful, the Sound like a mirror; the home-island, when they left it, had been peacefully lovely, the baby from his wagon kissing his hand to them, and Dilsey squatting on the bank by his side, a broad grin of contentment on her dusky face. Cicely had declined the invitation, sending a jocular message to “little Rupert,” which inspired him with laughter all day.
The dinner had been excellent as regards the succulence of its South Carolina dishes. The damask tablecloth was thin from age, the dinner-service a mixture of old Canton blue and the commonest, thickest white plates; coarse dull goblets stood beside cut-glass wine-glasses; the knives were in the last stage of decrepitude, and there was no silver at all, not even a salt-spoon; it had been replaced by cheaply plated spoons and forks, from which the plate was already half gone. Blanche, the old negro woman, waited, assisted by the long-legged Lucasta, and by little Boliver, who was attired for the occasion in a pair of trousers which extended from his knees to his shoulders, over which they were tightly strapped by means of strings. Boliver’s part was to bring the hot dishes from the outside kitchen, which was in a cabin at some distance—a task which he performed with dignity, varied, however, by an occasional somerset on the veranda, when he thought no one was looking. Rupert was genial, very gallant to the ladies; he carried his gallantry so far that he even drank their health several times, the only wine being the mainland Madeira. Mrs. Singleton was hospitable and affectionate, remaining unconscious (in manner) as to the many deficiencies. And Eve looked on admiringly, as though it had been a beautiful, half-pathetic little play; for to her it was all pictorial—these ruined old houses on their blooming desolate islands, with the ancient hospitality still animating them in spite of all that had passed. The short voyage over, the row-boat stopped at Romney landing. There was no one waiting for them; Abram assisted Miss Sabrina, and then Eve, to step from one of the boat’s seats to the dock. Eve lingered for a moment, looking at the sunset; then she too turned towards the house. The path winding under the trees was already dusky, Miss Sabrina was a dozen yards in advance; as she approached a bend, Eve saw some one come round it and meet her. It was a figure too tall to be the judge; it was a young man; it was a person she had not seen; she made these successive discoveries as she drew nearer. She decided that it was a neighbor from one of the southern islands, who had taken advantage of the lovely afternoon for a sail.
When she came up she found Miss Sabrina half laughing, half crying; she had given the stranger both her hands. “Oh, Eve, it is Ferdinand. And I did not know him!”
“How could you expect to know me, when you have never seen me in your life?” asked the young man, laughing.
“But we have your picture. I ought to have known—”
“My dear aunt, never accuse yourself; your dearest friends will always do that for you. I dare say my picture doesn’t half do me justice.”
He spoke jestingly; but there was still twilight enough to show Eve that what he had said was simply the truth. The photograph was handsome, but the real face was handsomer, the features beautiful, the eyes blue and piercing.
“This is Cicely’s sister Eve,” said Miss Sabrina. “She has come out—so kindly—from England to pay us a visit.”
Ferdinand put out his hand with a bright smile. He had a smile which would have been a fitting one for a typical figure of youthful Hope.
Eve could not refuse, conspicuously, to give him her hand in return. It all seemed to her a dream—his sudden appearance in the dusky path, and his striking beauty. She did not speak. But her muteness passed unnoticed, because for once in her life Miss Sabrina was voluble, her words tumbled over one another. “Such a surprise! So nice! so delightful! How little we thought this morning, when we rose as usual, and everything was the same—how little we thought that it would be such a sweet, such a happy day!”
Ferdinand laughed again, throwing back his handsome head a little—a movement that was habitual with him. He gave Miss Sabrina his arm, drew her hand through it and held it in his own, as they moved onward towards the house. On the veranda, Cicely was waiting for them, her cheeks flushed with pink. Eve expected a defiant look, a glance that would dare her to express either her surprise or her fear; instead of that, Cicely’s eyes, meeting hers, were full of trust and sweetness, as if she believed that Eve would sympathize with her joy, as if she had entirely forgotten that there was any reason why Eve should not share it. Miss Sabrina sympathized, if Eve did not; she kissed Cicely with a motherly tenderness, and then, as she raised her wet eyes again towards Ferdinand, she looked so extraordinarily pleased that the young man bent and kissed her faded cheek. “There, auntie,” he said, “now we’ve made acquaintance; you must take me in as a genuine nephew. And improve me.”
“Oh, improve,” murmured Miss Sabrina, gazing at him near-sightedly. She put on her glasses (without turning her back) in order to see him more clearly. It marked a great emotion on her part—the not turning her back.
Eve went to her room; she thought that Cicely would follow her. But no one came until Powlyne knocked to say that tea was ready. At first Eve thought that she would not go to the dining-room, that she would send an excuse. The next moment she felt driven not only to go, but to hasten; to be always present in order to see everything and hear everything; this would be her office; she must watch for the incipient stages of what she dreaded. Cicely had said that it happened rarely. Would to God that the man would be touched by poor Miss Sabrina’s loving welcome, and by little Cicely’s deep joy, and refrain. But perhaps these very things would excite the longing that led to the madness!
When she reached the dining-room and saw the bright faces at the table, Miss Sabrina looking younger than she had looked for years, and wearing the white lace cape, Cicely, too, freshly dressed, and Ferdinand, they seemed to her like phantasmagoria. Or was it that these were the realities, and the phantasms the frightful visions which had haunted her nightly during all these waiting weeks?
As Ferdie talked (already Miss Sabrina had begun to call him Ferdie), it was impossible not to listen; there was a frankness in what he said, and in his sunny smile, which was irresistibly winning. And the contrast between these and his height and strength—this too was attractive. They sat long at the table; Eve felt that she was the foreign element, not he; that she was the stranger within their gates. She had made no change in her dress; suddenly it occurred to her that Ferdie must hate her for her mourning garb, which of course would bring Jack Bruce to his mind. As she thought of this, she looked at him. His eyes happened to meet hers at the moment, and he gave her a charming smile. No, there was no hate there. In the drawing-room, later, he told them comical stories of South America; he took Cicely’s guitar and sang South American songs; the three women sat looking at him, Cicely in her mute bliss, Miss Sabrina with her admiration and her interest, Eve with her perplexity. His hand, touching the strings, was well-shaped, powerful; was that the hand which had struck a woman? A little child? As the evening wore on, she almost began to believe that Cicely had invented the whole of her damning tale; that the baby’s arm had never been broken, and that her own hurts had been received in some other way. She looked at Cicely. But there was something very straightforward in her pure little face.
At ten o’clock she rose. Cicely made no motion, she was evidently not coming with her.
“Can I speak to you for a moment, Cicely?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Cicely, with alacrity. “What is it?” She followed Eve into the hall.
Eve closed the door; then she drew her into the dining-room, which was still lighted. “You said he would not come here.”
“Oh!” with a long breath; “he never would do it for me before, though I asked him, and asked him. And yet he has done it now! Think of that!”
Eve put her hands on Cicely’s shoulders as if to keep her, to call her back to realities. “Have you forgotten all you said that night at Mrs. Cray’s?”
Cicely gave a joyful laugh. “Yes.” Then, more defiantly, “Yes, I have forgotten the whole!” But her tone changed back swiftly to its happy confidence again: “Nothing will happen, Eve; you needn’t be afraid.”
“Has he told you so?”
“Oh, we never speak of it,” answered Cicely, looking at her with large, surprised eyes. “Did you think we spoke of it—of such a thing as that? A husband and wife—people who love each other? But you needn’t be troubled; it’s over forever.” She disappeared.
Eve waited a moment; then she went to her room. Before she reached her door Cicely overtook her; she had run swiftly after her down the long corridor. She put her arms round Eve from behind, and whispered, with her lips against Eve’s throat, “I ran after you to say that I hope that you will have, some day, as much happiness as mine.” Then she was gone, as swiftly as she had come.
To wish her a love like her own, this seemed almost a curse, a malediction. But, fortunately, there was no danger that she, Eve Bruce, should ever fall a victim to such miseries; to love any man so submissively was weakness, but to love as Cicely loved, that was degradation!
Her image gazed back at her from the mirror, fair in its tints, but strangely, almost fiercely, proud; at that moment she was revolting, dumbly, against the injustice of all the ages, past, present, and to come, towards women.
IX.
FERDIE had been two weeks at Romney.
Halcyon days they had seemed, each one beautiful from morning to night, with blue skies and golden sunshine; blossoms covered the trees, the air was full of perfume. Ferdie must always be doing something; besides the hunting and fishing, he had made a new swing, a new dock; he had taught the negroes base-ball; he had rowed and sailed hither and thither—up the river, out to sea, and north and south along the sounds, paying visits at the various islands when Cicely desired them. Every one was delighted with him, from Miss Sabrina down to the smallest darky; the captains of the Inland Route steamers grew accustomed to seeing him on the dock at Jupiter Light; the store-keeper on the mainland opposite looked out every morning for his sail coming across the Sound. Cicely, in the same state of mute bliss, accompanied him everywhere; Miss Sabrina went whenever the excursion was not too long. The negroes followed him about in a troop; of their own accord they gave him the title of “young marse.”
Through these days Eve felt herself an alien; Cicely said nothing to her save when she was with the others; she never came to her in her own room. And Eve could not feel that this neglect was caused by dislike; it was simply the egotism of perfect happiness. When Eve was present, Cicely talked to her; when she was not present, Cicely hardly remembered her existence. Miss Sabrina was not quite so forgetful, but she too was absorbed; Eve sometimes sat all the evening without speaking; fortunately she could make her stay short, under the pretext of not disturbing Jack by coming in late. She was not a timid woman, not a woman easily disheartened; each long, solitary day (for she seldom accompanied them), each silent evening, only strengthened her purpose of carrying away the child. She kept him with her constantly; Cicely allowed it, and Ferdie, after one or two good-natured attempts to carry off the little boy for a romp, left him undisturbed to his aunt. Whether Cicely had told him to do this, Eve did not know.
Strangely enough, Ferdie talked to her more than the others did. Several times, seeing her in the grove with Jack, he had come out to join her. And always, as he approached, Eve would make some excuse, and send the child farther away; this action on her part was involuntary. One morning she had gone to the beach. She had been there half an hour when she saw his figure emerging from the bush-bordered road. “Take Jack away,” she said quickly to Dilsey.
Dilsey, vexed at being ordered off when handsome “young marse” was approaching, took her charge round a point entirely out of sight, so that Eve and Ferdie were alone. The child gone, Eve could turn all her attention to the man by her side; her watching mood came upon her, the mood in which she spent her evenings. Ferdie had thrown himself down on the sand; handsome as he was, Eve had discovered faults in his face; the features were in danger of becoming too sharp; a little more, and the cheeks would be thin. The mouth had a flattening at the corners, a partly unconscious, partly voluntary action of the muscles, like that which accompanies a “dare” (so Eve described it to herself) on the part of a boy who has come off conqueror in one fight, but who is expecting another and severer one in a moment. This expression (it was visible when he was silent) and a look in his eyes sometimes—these two things seemed to Eve signs of the curse. They were slight signs, however; they would not have been discovered by one woman in a thousand; for Ferdie was not only handsome, there was also something charming about him. But Eve had small admiration for the charming.
To-day, as Ferdie lounged beside her, she determined to try an experiment.
“I am very anxious to have Jack,” she began.
“It seems to me that you do have him; it’s a complete possession,” answered Ferdie, laughing; “I’ve scarcely been able to touch the youngster since I came.”
“I mean that I want him to live with me, as though he were my own child; I would bring him up with all possible care.”
“Have you made a vow, then, never to marry?” Ferdie demanded, looking at her with a merry gleam in his eyes.
“Should you object—if Cicely were willing to give him to me?” Eve continued, a slight haughtiness in her manner alone replying to his remark.
“I suppose I couldn’t, though I’m fond of the little chap.” (“Fond!” Eve thought. She looked at him, with parted lips, in suspense.) “But I can’t imagine Cicely’s consenting,” Ferdie went on; “she is devoted to the child.”
“Not so much as she is to you.”
“Do you want me to urge her to give him to you?”
“Yes,” Eve answered.
“Why do you want him? For your own pleasure?”
Eve hesitated a moment. “Partly.”
“Are you by any possibility fancying that you can take better care of him than we can?” asked Ferdie, relapsing into his laugh, and sending another pebble skimming over the shining waters. “Leaving Cicely aside, I am the jolliest of fathers.”
“It must be that he does not know,” Eve thought; “whatever his faults, hypocrisy is not one of them.”
But this only made him the more terrible to her—a man who could change so unconsciously into a savage.
“Granting the jolliness, I wish you would ask Cicely,” she said; “do it for my sake. I am lonely, I shall grow lonelier. It would be everything to me to have him.”
“Of course you will grow lonelier,” said Ferdie. He turned towards her, leaning on his elbow. “Come, let me advise you; don’t be a forlorn old maid. All women ought to marry; it is much better for them.”
“Are they then so sure to be happy?” asked Eve, sarcastically.
“Of course they are.—The nice ones.”
Eve looked at him. “Even when married to brutes?—to madmen?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t select a brute. As for the madmen, they are locked up,” answered Ferdie, comfortably.
Eve rose. “I don’t know what I shall say next—if I stay here,” was her thought.
“I wish you knew my brother Paul,” remarked Ferdie as he lifted himself from the sand. “I can’t argue with you, I can’t put you down” (his smile as he said “put you down” was wonderfully sweet). “But he could—Paul could; and what’s more, he would, too! He hates a woman who goes on as you do.”
“Your brother lives in Canada, I believe?” said Eve, coldly.
“Canada?—what gave you that idea? He loathes Canada. He has charge of a mine on Lake Superior. He has always worked tremendously hard, poor old Paul! I have never approved of it, such a steady grind as that.”
“What is the name of the place?”
“Port aux Pins; called by the natives Potterpins. Are you thinking of going there?”
“I may,” Eve answered. Her tone was defiant in spite of herself; what did she care for Port aux Pins and his brother, save for their connection with his wretched self?
They had begun to walk towards home; Dilsey was in advance with Jack. “I beg you to urge Cicely to let me have him,” Eve began again, her eyes resting on Jack’s little wagon.
“You have made up your mind to ask a favor of me; you must want it terribly,” Ferdie responded. He took off his hat and let the breeze blow over his forehead. “I will do what I can for you. Of course we cannot, Cicely and I, give up her child to you entirely; but he might live with you for part of the year, as you desire it so much. My intention is to go back to Valparaiso; I like the life there, and I shall make it my home; there are excellent houses to be had, I have one in view at this moment. Later, of course, Cicely would wish her boy to come to her there. But in the meantime, while he is still so young—yes, I will do what I can for you; you may count upon me.”
“Thanks,” answered Eve. Her words were humble, but she did not look humble as she spoke them; Ferdie with his favors and his good-nature seemed to her more menacing than ever.
The tranquil life went on. Every morning she said to herself, “To-day something must happen!” But the Arcadian hours continued, and two more weeks passed slowly by. Eve began to hate the sunshine, the brilliant, undimmed southern stars.
“My dear, you are growing paler,” said Miss Sabrina one day. “Perhaps this sea-air of ours is not good for you.”
Eve wanted to reply: “Is it good to be watching every instant?—to be listening and starting and thinking one hears something?” “You are right; it is not,” she answered aloud; “all the same, I will stay awhile longer, if you will let me.”
“Oh, my dear—when we want you to live here!”
“Perhaps I shall die here,” Eve responded, with a laugh.
Miss Sabrina looked at her in surprise; for the laugh was neither gentle nor sweet.
Eve was tired, tired mentally and physically; this state of passive waiting taxed her; action of some sort, even though accompanied by the hardest conditions, would have been easier to her ardent unconquered will. She occupied herself with Jack; she said as little as she could to Ferdie; and she watched Cicely. Underneath this watchfulness there grew up a strong contempt for love.
X.
“EVE!” A hand on Eve’s shoulder.
Eve sat up in bed with a start; Cicely stood beside her, candle in hand. “Help me to dress Jack,” she said.
Eve was out of bed in an instant. She lighted her own candle.
Cicely lifted the sleeping child from his crib, and began hastily to dress him. Eve brought all the little garments quickly. “Are you going to take him out of the house?” she asked. (They spoke in whispers.)
“Yes.”
Eve threw on her own clothes.
After a moment, during which the hands of both women moved rapidly, Eve said, “Where is he?”
“Outside—out of the house for the moment. But he will come back; and then, if he comes down this hall, we must escape.”
“Where? We must have the same ideas, you know,” said Eve, buttoning her dress, and taking her hat and shawl from the wardrobe.
“I thought we could go through the ballroom, and out by the north wing.”
“And once outside?”
“We must hide.”
“But where?”
“In the thicket.”
“It isn’t a very large space. Supposing Jack should cry?”
Cicely went on fastening Jack’s little coat. “I can’t talk!”
“You needn’t,” said Eve; “I’ll take care of you!”
The hasty dressing completed, the two candles were extinguished. Jack had fallen asleep again. Cicely held him herself; she would not let Eve take him. They opened the door softly, and stood together outside in the dark hall. The seconds passed and turned into minutes; the minutes became three, then five; but the space of time seemed a half-hour. Eve, standing still in the darkness, recovered her coolness; she stepped noiselessly back into her room for a moment or two; then she returned and resumed the watch. Cicely’s little figure standing beside her looked very small.
By-and-by the door at the far end of the hall opened, and for the first time in her life Eve saw a vision: Ferdie, half dressed and carrying a lighted candle, appeared, his eyes fierce and fixed, his cheeks flushed. At that moment his beauty was terrible; but he saw nothing, heard nothing; he was like a man listening to something afar off.
“Come,” whispered Cicely.
Swiftly and noiselessly she went round the angle of the corridor, opened a door, and, closing it behind them, led the way to the north wing; Eve followed, or rather she kept by her side. After a breathless winding transit through the labyrinth of halls and chambers, they reached the ballroom.
“Now we can run,” Cicely whispered. Silently they ran.
Before they had quite reached the door at the far end, they heard a sound behind them, and saw a gleam across the floor: he had not waited in Eve’s room, then; he had divined their flight, and was following. Cicely’s hand swiftly found and lifted the latch; she opened the door, and they passed through. Eve gave one glance over her shoulder; he was advancing, but he was not running; his eyes had the same stare.
Cicely threw up a window, gave Jack to Eve, climbed by the aid of a chair to the sill and jumped out; then she put up her arms for Jack, and Eve followed her; they drew down the window behind them from the outside. There was a moon, but dark clouds obscured its light; the air was still. Cicely led the way to the thicket; pushing her way within, she sank down, the bushes crackling loudly as she did so. “Hurry!” she said to Eve.
Eve crouched beside her beneath the dense foliage. They could see nothing, but they could hear. They remained motionless.
After several minutes of suspense they heard a step on the plank floor of the veranda; he had made his way out. Then followed silence; the silence was worse than the sound of his steps; they had the sense that he was close upon them.
After some time without another sound, suddenly his candle gleamed directly over them; he had approached them unheard by the road, Eve not knowing and Cicely having forgotten that it was so near. For an instant Eve’s heart stopped beating, she thought that they were discovered; escape was cut off, for the thorns and spiny leaves held their skirts like so many hands. But the fixed eyes did not see them; after a moment the beautiful, cruel face, lit by the yellow gleam of the candle, disappeared from above; the light moved farther away. He was going down the road; every now and then they could see that he threw a ray to the right and the left, as if still searching.
“He will go through the whole thicket, now that he has the idea,” Cicely whispered. They crept into the road, Eve carrying Jack. But, once outside, Cicely took him again. They stood erect, they looked back; he and his candle were still going on towards the sea.
Cicely turned; she took a path which led to the north point. “There’s no thicket there. And if he comes, there’s a boat.”
The distance to the point was nearly a mile. The white sand of the track guided them through the dark woods.
“Shouldn’t you be safer, after all, in the house?” Eve asked.
“No, for this time he is determined to kill us; he thinks that I am some one else, a woman who is going to attack his wife; and he thinks that Jack is some other child, who has injured his Jack.”
“He shall never touch Jack! Give him to me, Cicely; he is too heavy for you.”
“I will not give him to any one—any one,” Cicely answered, panting.
As they approached the north point, the moon shone through a rift in the clouds; suddenly it was as light as day; their faces and hands were ivory white in the radiance.
“What is that on your throat, and down the front of your dress?” said Eve. “It’s wet. Why, it’s blood!”
“Yes; I am cut here a little,” Cicely answered, making a gesture with her chin towards her left shoulder; “I suppose it has begun to bleed again. He has a knife to-night. That is what makes me so afraid.”
The Sound now came into view. At the same instant Eve, looking back, perceived a point of yellow light behind them; the path was straight for a long distance, and the light was far away; but it was advancing in their direction. Little Jack, fully awakened by their rapid flight, had lifted his head, trying to see his mother’s face; as no one paid any attention to him, he began to cry. His voice seemed to make Cicely frantic; clasping him close, pressing his head down against her breast, she broke into a run.
“Get into the boat and push off, don’t wait for me; I’m in no danger,” Eve called after her. She stood there watching.
Cicely reached the beach, put Jack into the boat, and then tried to push it off. It was a heavy old row-boat, kept there for the convenience of the negroes who wished to cross to Singleton Island; to-night it was drawn up so high on the sands that with all her effort Cicely could not launch it. She strained every muscle to the utmost; in her ears there was a loud rushing sound; she paused dizzily, turning her head away from the water for a moment, and as she did so, she too saw the gleam, pale in the moonlight, far down the path. She did not scream, there was a tension in her throat which kept all sound from her parched mouth; she climbed into the boat, seized Jack, and staggered forward with the vague purpose of jumping into the water from the boat’s stern; but she did not get far, she sank suddenly down.
“She has fainted; so much the better,” Eve thought. Jack, who had fallen as his mother fell, cried loudly. “He is not hurt; at least not seriously,” she said to herself. Then, turning into the wood, she made her way back towards the advancing point of light. After some progress she stopped.
Ferdie was walking rapidly now; in his left hand he held his candle high in the air; in his right, which hung by his side, there was something that gleamed. The moonlight shone full upon his face, and Eve could see the expression, whose slight signs she had noticed, the flattening of the corners of the mouth; this was now so deepened that his lips wore a slight grin. Jack’s wail, which had ceased for several minutes, now began again, and at the same instant his moving head could be seen above the boat’s side; he had disengaged himself, and was trying to climb up higher, by the aid of one of the seats, in order to give larger vent to his astonishment and his grief.
Ferdie saw him; his shoulders made a quick movement; an inarticulate sound came from his flattened, grimacing mouth. Then he began to run towards the boat. At the same moment there was the crack, not loud, of a pistol discharged very near. The running man lunged forward and fell heavily to his knees; then to the sand. His arms made one or two spasmodic movements. Then they were still.
Eve’s figure went swiftly through the wood towards the shore; she held her skirts closely, as if afraid of their rustling sound. Reaching the boat, she made a mighty effort, both hands against the bow, her body slanting forward, her feet far behind her, deep in the sand and pressing against it. She was very strong, and the boat moved, it slid down slowly and gratingly; more and more of its long length entered the water, until at last only the bow still touched the sand. Eve jumped in, pushed off with an oar, and then, stepping over Cicely’s prostrate form to reach one of the seats, she sat down and began to row, brushing little Jack aside with her knee (he fell down more amazed and grief-stricken than ever), and placing her feet against the next seat as a brace. She rowed with long strokes and with all her might; perhaps he was not much hurt, after all; perhaps he too had a pistol, and could reach them. She watched the beach breathlessly.
The Sound was smooth; before long a wide space of water, with the silvery path of the moon across it, separated them from Abercrombie Island. Still she could not stop. She looked at Cicely’s motionless figure; Jack, weary with crying, had crawled as far as one of her knees and laid his head against it, sobbing “Aunty Eve? Aunty Eve?”
“Yes, darling,” said Eve, mechanically, still watching the other shore.
At last, with her hands smarting, her arms strained, she reached Singleton Island. After beaching the boat, she knelt down and chafed Cicely’s temples, wetting her handkerchief by dipping it over the boat’s side, and then pressing it on the dead-white little face. Cicely sighed. Then she opened her eyes and looked up, only half consciously, at the sky. Next she looked at Eve, who was bending over her, and memory came back.
“We are safe,” Eve said, answering the look; “we are on Singleton Island, and no one is following us.” She lifted the desperate little Jack and put him in his mother’s arms.
Cicely sat up, she kissed her child passionately. But she fell back again, Eve supporting her.
“Let me see that—that place,” Eve said. With nervous touch she turned down the little lace ruffle, which was dark and limp with the stain of the life-tide.
“It’s nothing,” murmured Cicely. The cut had missed its aim, it was low down on the throat, near the collar-bone; it was a flesh-wound, not dangerous.
Cicely pushed away Eve’s hands and sat up. “Where is Ferdie?” she demanded.
“He—he is on the other island,” Eve answered, hesitatingly. “Don’t you remember that he followed us?—that we were trying to escape?”
“Well, we have escaped,” said Cicely. “And now I want to know where he is.”
She got on her feet, stepped out of the boat to the sand, and lifted Jack out; she muffled the child in a shawl, and made him walk with her to the edge of the water. Here she stood looking at the home-island, straining her eyes in the misty moonlight.
Eve followed her. “I think the farther away we go, Cicely, the better; at least for the present. The steamer stops at Singleton Landing at dawn; we can go on board as we are, and get what is necessary in Savannah.”
“Why don’t I see him on the beach?” said Cicely. “I could see him if he were there—I could see him walking. If he followed us, as you say, why don’t I see him!” She put a hand on each side of her mouth, making a circle of them, and called with all her strength, “Ferdie? Fer-die?”
“Are you mad?” said Eve.
“Fer-die?” cried Cicely again.
Eve pulled down her hands. “He can’t hear you.”
“Why can’t he?” said Cicely, turning and looking at her.
“It’s too far,” answered Eve, in a trembling voice.
“Perhaps he has gone for a boat,” Cicely suggested.
“Yes, perhaps he has,” Eve assented, eagerly. And for a moment the two women gazed southward with the same hopefulness.
Then Eve came back to reality. “What are we thinking of? Do you want to have Jack killed?”
Cicely threw up her arms. “Oh, if it weren’t for Jack!” Her despair at that moment gave her majesty.
“Give him to me; let me take him away,” urged Eve again.
“I will never give him to any one; I will never leave him, never.”
“Then you must both go with me for the present; we will go farther north than Savannah; we will go to New York.”
“There is only one place I will go to—one person, and that is Paul; Ferdie loves Paul;—I will go nowhere else.”
“Very well; we will go to Paul.”
The struggle was over; Cicely’s voice had grown lifeless. Little Jack, tired out, laid himself despairingly down on the sand; she sat down beside him, rearranged the shawl under him and over him, and then, as he fell asleep, she clasped her hands round her knees, and waited inertly, her eyes fixed on the opposite beach.
Eve, standing behind her, also watched the home-island. “If I could only see him!” was her constant prayer. She was even ready to accept the sight of a boat shooting from the shadows which lay dark on the western side, a boat coming in pursuit; he would have had time, perhaps, to get to the skiff which was kept on that side, not far from the point; he knew where all the boats were. Five minutes—six—had elapsed since they landed; yes, he would have had time. She looked and looked; she was almost sure that she saw a boat advancing, and clasped her hands in joy.
But where could they go, in case he should really come? To Singleton House, where there was only a lame old man, and women? There was no door there which he could not batter down, no lock which could keep him out—the terrible, beautiful madman. No; it was better to think, to believe, that he could not come.
She walked back to the trees that skirted the beach, leaned her clasped arms against the trunk of one of them, and, laying her head upon the arm that was uppermost, stood motionless.
XI.
THE dawn was still very faint when the steamer stopped at Singleton Landing. There was no one waiting save an old negro, who caught the shore rope, and there was no one stirring on the boat save the gruff captain, muffled in an overcoat though the night was warm, and two deck-hands, who put ashore a barrel and a sack. Lights were burning dimly on board; the negro on the dock carried a lantern.
Two women came from the shadows, and crossed the plank to the lower deck, entering the dark space within, which was encumbered with loose freight—crates of fowls, boxes, barrels, coils of rope. The taller of the two women carried a sleeping child.
For Cicely had come to the end of her strength; she could hardly walk.
Eve found the sleepy mulatto woman who answered to the name of stewardess, and told her to give them a cabin immediately.
“Cabin? Why, de cabin’s dish-yere,” answered the woman, making a motion with her hand to indicate the gaudy little saloon in which they stood. She surveyed them with wonder.
“State-room,” murmured Cicely.
Upon the lower bed in the very unstately white cell which was at last opened for them, her little figure was soon stretched out, apathetically. Her eyes remained closed; the dawn, as it grew brighter, did not tempt her to open them; she lay thus all day. Jack slept profoundly for several hours on the shelf-like bed above her. Then he woke, and instantly became very merry, laughing to see the shining green water outside, the near shores, the houses and groves and fields, and now and then a row-boat under sail. Eve brought him some bread and milk, and then she gave him a bath; he gurgled with laughter, and played all his little tricks and games, one after the other. But Cicely remained inert, she could not have been more still if she had been dead; the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed was so slight that Eve was obliged to look closely in order to distinguish it at all. Just before they reached Savannah she raised her to a sitting position, and held a cup of coffee to her lips. Cicely drank. Then, as the steamer stopped, Eve lifted her to her feet.
Cicely’s eyes opened; they looked at Eve reproachfully.
“It will only take a few moments to go to the hotel,” Eve answered.
She called the stewardess and made her carry Jack; she herself half carried Cicely. She signalled to the negro driver of one of the carriages waiting at the dock, and in a few minutes, as she had said, she was undressing her little sister-in-law and lifting her into a cool, broad bed.
Jack asleep, she began her watch. The sun was setting, she went to one of the windows, and looked out. Below her was a wide street without pavement, bordered on each side by magnificent trees. She could see this avenue for a long distance; the perspective made by its broad roadway was diversified, every now and then, by a clump of greenery standing in the centre, with a fountain or a statue gleaming through the green. Trees were everywhere; it was a city in a grove. She remembered her first arrival off this coast, when she came from England,—Tybee Light, and then the lovely river; now she was passing through the same city, fleeing from—danger?—or was it from justice? Twilight deepened; she left the window and sat down beside the shaded lamp; her hands were folded upon her lap, her gaze was fixed unseeingly upon the carpet. After ten minutes had passed, she became conscious of something, and raised her eyes; Cicely was looking at her. Eve rose and went to her. “Are we in Savannah?” Cicely asked.
“Yes.”
Cicely continued to look at her. “If you really want me to go on, you had better take me at once.”
“But you were too tired to go on—”
“It is not a question of tired, I shall be tired all my life. But if you don’t want me to go back by the first boat to-morrow, you had better take me away to-night.”
“By the midnight train,” Eve answered.
And at midnight they left Savannah.
At Charleston they were obliged to wait; there had been a flood, and the track was overflowed.
Some purchases were necessary for their comfort; Eve did not dare to leave Cicely with Jack, lest she should find them both gone on her return; she therefore took them with her, saying to the negro coachman, privately, “If that lady should tell you to return to the hotel or to drive to the steamer when I am not with you, pay no attention to her; she is ill, and not responsible for what she says.”
As she was coming out of a shop, a face she knew met her eyes—Judge Abercrombie. He had come from Gary Hundred that morning, and was on his way to Romney; he intended to take the evening boat.
He recognized them; he hurried to the carriage door, astonished, alarmed. Eve seemed cowed by his presence. It was Cicely who said, “Yes, we are here, grandpa. Get in, and I will tell you why.”
But when the old man had placed himself opposite to her, when Eve had taken her seat again and the carriage was rolling towards the hotel, Cicely still remained mute. At last she leaned forward. “I can’t tell you,” she said, putting her hand into his; “at least I can’t tell you now. Will you wait, dear? Do wait.” Her voice, as she said this, was like the voice of a little girl of ten.
The old man, wondering, held her hand protectingly. He glanced at Eve. But Eve’s eyes were turned away.
The drive was a short one. As they entered Cicely’s room, Eve took Jack in her arms and went out again into the hall, closing the door behind her.
The hall was long, with a window at each end; a breeze blew through it, laden with the perfume of flowers. Jack clamored for a game; Eve raised him to her shoulder, and went to the window at the west end; it overlooked a garden crowded with blossoms; then she turned and walked to the east end, Jack considering it a march, and playing that her shoulder was his drum; the second window commanded a view of the burned walls of the desolated town. Eight times she made the slow journey from the flowers to the ruins, the ruins to the flowers. Then Cicely opened the door. “You can come in now. Grandpa knows.”
Grandpa’s face, in his new knowledge, was pitiful to see. He had evidently been trying to remain calm, and he had succeeded so far as to keep his features firm; but his cheeks, which ordinarily were tinted with pink, had turned to a dead-looking yellow. “I should be greatly obliged if you would come with me for a walk,” he said to Eve; “I have travelled down from Gary Hundred this morning, and, after being shut up in the train, you know, one feels the need of fresh air.” He rose, and gave first one leg and then the other a little shake, with a pathetic pretence of preparing for vigorous exercise.
“I don’t think I can go,” Eve began. But a second glance at his dead-looking face made her relent, or rather made her brace herself. She rang the bell, and asked one of the chamber-maids to follow them with Jack; once outside, she sent the girl forward. “I have taken Jack because we cannot trust Cicely,” she explained. “If she had him, she might, in our absence, take him and start back to the island; but she will not go without him.”
“Neither of them must go back,” said the judge. He spoke mechanically.
They went down the shaded street towards the Battery. “And there’s Sabrina, too, poor girl! How do we know what has happened to her!” Eve hesitated. Then she said, slowly, “Cicely tells me that when these attacks are on him, he is dangerous only to herself and Jack.”
“That makes him only the greater devil!” answered the judge. “What I fear is that he is already on her track; he would get over the attack soon—he is as strong as an ox—and if he should reach her,—have a chance at her with his damned repentant whinings—We must get off immediately! In fact, I don’t understand why you are stopping here at all,” he added, with sudden anger.
“We couldn’t go on; the track is under water somewhere. And perhaps we need not hurry so.” She paused. “I suppose you know that Cicely will go only to Paul Tennant,” she added. “She refuses to go anywhere else.”
“Where the devil is the man?”
“It’s a place called Port aux Pins, on Lake Superior. I really think that if we don’t take her to him at once, she will leave us and get back to Ferdie, in spite of all we can do.”
“If there’s no train, we’ll take a carriage, we’ll drive,” declared the judge. “This is the first place he’ll come to; we won’t wait here!”
“There’ll be a train this evening; they tell me so at the hotel,” Eve answered. Then she waited a moment. “We shall have to stop on the way, Cicely is so exhausted; I suppose we go to Pittsburgh, and then to Cleveland to take the lake steamer; if you should write to Miss Sabrina from here, the answer might meet us at one of those places.”
“Of course I shall write. At once.”
“No, don’t write!” said Eve, grasping his arm suddenly. “Or at least don’t let her send any answer until the journey is ended. It’s better not to know—not to know!”
“Not to know whether poor Sabrina is safe? Not to know whether that brute is on our track? I can’t imagine what you are thinking of; perhaps you will kindly explain?”
“It’s only that my head aches. I don’t know what I am saying!”
“Yes, you must be overwrought,” said the judge. He had been thinking only of Cicely. “You protected my poor little girl, you brought her away; it was a brave act,” he said, admiringly.
“It was for Jack, I wanted to save my brother’s child. Surely that was right?” Eve’s voice, as she said this, broke into a sob.
“They were in danger of their lives, then?” asked the grandfather, in a low tone. “Cicely didn’t tell me.”
“She did not know, she had fainted. A few minutes more, and I believe he would—We should not have them now.”
“But you got the boat off in time.”
“But I got the boat off in time,” Eve repeated, lethargically.
They had now reached the Battery Park; they entered and sat down on one of the benches; the negro girl played with Jack on the broad walk which overlooks the water. The harbor, with Sumter in the distance, the two rivers flowing down, one on each side of the beautiful city—beautiful still, though desolated by war—made a scene full of loveliness. The judge took off his hat, as if he needed more air.
“You are ill,” said Eve, in the same mechanical voice.
“It’s only that I cannot believe it even now—what Cicely told me. Why, it is my own darling little grandchild, who has been treated so, who has been beaten—struck to the floor! His strong hand has come down on her shoulder so that you could hear it!—Cicely, Eve; my little Cicely!” His old eyes, small and dry, looked at Eve piteously.
She put out her hand and took his in silence.
“She has always been such a delicate little creature, that we never let her have any care or trouble; we even spoke to her gently always, Sabrina and I. For she was so delicate when she was a baby that they thought she couldn’t live; she had her bright eyes, even then, and she was so pretty and winning; but they said she must soon follow her mother. We were so glad when she began to grow stronger. But—have we saved her for this?”
“She is away from him now,” Eve answered.
“And there was her father—my boy Marmaduke; what would Duke have said?—his baby—his little girl!” He rose and walked to and fro; for the first time his gait was that of a feeble old man.
“They can’t know what happens to us here!—or else that they see some way out of it that we do not see,” said Eve, passionately. “Otherwise, it would be too cruel.”
“Duke died when she was only two years old,” the judge went on. “‘Father, ’ he said to me, just at the last, ‘I leave you baby.’ And this is what I have brought her to!”
“You had nothing to do with it, she married him of her own free will. And she forgot everything, she forgot my brother very soon.”
“I don’t know what she forgot, I don’t care what she forgot,” the old man answered. He sat down on the bench again, and put his hands over his face. He was crying—the slow, hard tears of age.
At sunset they started. The negro chamber-maid, to whom Jack had taken a fancy, went with them as nurse, and twenty shining black faces were at the station to see her off.
“Good-bye, Porley; take keer yersef.”
“Yere’s luck, Porley; doan yer forgot us.”
“Step libely, Jonah; Porley’s a-lookin’ at yer.”
“Good-lye, Porley!”
The train moved out.
XII.
A DOCK on the Cuyahoga River, at Cleveland. The high bows of a propeller loomed up far above them; a wooden bridge, with hand-rails of rope, extended from a square opening in its side to the place where they were standing—the judge, bewildered by the deafening noise of the letting-off of steam and by the hustling of the deck-hands who ran to and fro putting on freight; little Jack, round-eyed with wonder, surveying the scene from his nurse’s arms; Cicely, listless, unhearing; and Eve, with the same pale-cheeked self-control and the same devoted attention to Cicely which had marked her manner through all their rapid journey across the broad country from Charleston to Washington, from Washington to Pittsburgh, from Pittsburgh to Cleveland.
“I think we cross here,” she said; “by this bridge.” She herself went first. The bridge ascended sharply; little slats of wood were nailed across its planks in order to make the surface less slippery. The yellow river, greasy with petroleum from the refineries higher up the stream, heaved a little from the constant passing of other craft; this heaving made the bridge unsteady, and Eve was obliged to help the nurse when she crossed with Jack, and then to lead Cicely, and to give a hand to the judge, who came last.
“You are never dizzy,” said the judge.
“No, I am never dizzy,” Eve answered, as though she were saying the phrase over to herself as a warning.
She led the way up a steep staircase to the cabin above. This was a long narrow saloon, decked with tables each covered with a red cloth, whereon stood, in white vases representing a hand grasping a cornucopia, formal bouquets, composed principally of peonies and the foliage of asparagus. Narrow doors, ornamented with gilding, formed a panelling on each side; between the doors small stiff sofas of red velvet were attached by iron clamps to the floor, which was covered with a brilliant carpet; above each sofa, under the low ceiling, was a narrow grating. Women and a few men sat here and there on the sofas; they looked at the new passengers apathetically. Lawless children chased one another up and down the narrow spaces between the sofas and the tables, forcing each person who was seated to draw in his or her legs with lightning rapidity as they passed; babies with candy, babies with cookies, babies with apples, crawled and tottered about on the velvet carpet, and drew themselves up by the legs of the tables, leaving sticky marks on the mahogany surfaces, and generally ending by striking their heads against the top, sitting down suddenly and breaking into a howl. Eve led the way to the deck; she brought forward chairs, and they seated themselves. A regularly repeated and deafening clash came from the regions below; the deck-hands were bringing steel rails from a warehouse on the dock, and adding them one by one to the pile already on board by the simple method of throwing them upon it. After the little party had sat there for fifteen minutes, Eve said, “It is—it is insupportable!”
“You feel it because you have not slept. You haven’t slept at all since we started,” said Cicely, mentioning the fact, but without evident interest in it.
“Yes I have,” responded Eve, quickly.
There came another tremendous clash. Eve visibly trembled; her cheeks seemed to grow more wan, the line between her eyes deepened.
“This noise must be stopped!” said the old planter, authoritatively. He got up and went to the side.
“They won’t stop,” said Cicely.
Eve sat still, the tips of the fingers of each of her hands pressed hard into the palm, and bits of her inner cheek held tightly between her teeth. At last the rails were all on board and the gangways hauled in; the propeller moved slowly away from her dock, a row of loungers, with upturned faces, watching her departure, and visibly envying the captain, who called out orders loudly from the upper deck—orders which were needed; for the river was crowded with craft of all kinds, and many manœuvres were necessary before the long steamer could turn herself and reach the open lake. She passed out at last between two piers, down which boys ran as fast as they could, racing with the engine to see which should reach the end first. At last they were away, and the noises ceased; there was only the regular throb of the machinery, the sound of the water churned by the screw. The sun was setting; Eve looked at the receding shores—the spires of Cleveland on the bluffs which rise from the Cuyahoga, the mass of roofs extending to the east and the west, bounded on the latter side by the pine-clad cliffs of Rocky River. After the splendid flaming sunset, the lake grew suddenly dark; it looked as vast and dusky as the ocean. Cicely sprang up. “I know I shall never come back across all this water!—I know I never, never shall!”
“Yes, you will, little girl,” answered her grandfather, fondly.
“I don’t mind. But I can’t stay here and think! They must be doing something in there—all those people we saw in the cabin; I am going in to see.” She went within, and Eve followed her; the nurse carried Jack after his mother. But the judge remained where he was; he sat with one hand laid over the other on the top of his cane. He looked at the dark lake; his feeling was, “What is to become of us?”
Within, all was animation; the tables had been pushed together by a troop of hurrying darkies in white aprons, and now the same troop were bringing in small open dishes, some flat and some bowl-like, containing an array of food which included everything from beefsteak to ice-cream. The passengers occupying the sofas watched the proceedings; then, at the sound of a tap on the gong, they rose and seated themselves on the round stools which did duty as chairs.
“Come,” said Cicely, “let us go too.” She seated herself; and again Eve patiently followed her. Cicely tasted everything and ate nothing. Eve neither tasted nor ate; she drank a glass of water. When the meal was over she spoke to one of the waiters, and gave him a fee; ten minutes later she carried out to the old man on the deck, with her own hands, a tray containing freshly cooked food, toast and tea; she arranged these on a bench under the hanging lamp (for the deck at the stern was covered); then she drew up a chair. The judge had not stirred.
“Won’t you come?” said Eve, gently. “I have brought it for you.”
The judge rose, and, coming to the improvised table, sat down. He had not thought that he could touch anything, but the hot tea roused him, and before he knew it he was eating heartily. “Do you know, I—I believe I was cold,” he said, trying to laugh. “Yes—even this warm night!”
“I think we are all cold,” Eve answered; “we are all numbed. It will be better when we get there—wherever it is.”
The judge, warmed and revived, no longer felt so dreary. “You are our good angel,” he said. And, with his old-fashioned courtesy, he bent his head over her hand.
But Eve snatched her hand away and fled; she fairly ran. He looked after her in wonder.
Within, the tables had again been cleared, and then piled upon top of one another at one end of the saloon; in front of this pile stretched a row of chairs. These seats were occupied by the orchestra, the same negro waiters, with two violins and a number of banjoes and guitars.
“Forward one; forward two—
De engine keeps de time;
Leabe de lady in de centre,
Bal-unse in er line,”
sang the leader to the tune of “Nelly Bly,” calling off the figures of the quadrille in rhymes of his own invention. Three quadrilles had been formed; two thin women danced with their bonnets on; a tall man in a linen duster and a short man in spectacles bounded about without a smile, taking careful steps; girls danced with each other, giggling profusely; children danced with their mothers; and the belle of the boat, a plump young woman with long curls, danced with two youths, changing impartially after each figure, and throwing glances over her shoulder meanwhile at two more who stood in the doorway admiring. The throb of the engine could be felt through the motion of the twenty-four dancers, through the clear tenor of the negro who sang. Outside was the wide lake and the night.
Sitting on one of the sofas, alone, was Cicely. She was looking at the dancers intently, her lips slightly parted. Eve sat down quietly by her side.
“Oh, how you follow me!” said Cicely, moving away.
Then suddenly she began to laugh. “See that man in the linen duster! He takes such mincing little steps in his great prunella shoes. See him smile! Oh! oh!” She pressed her handkerchief over her lips to stifle her spasmodic laughter. But she could not stifle it.
“Come,” said Eve, putting her arm round her. Their state-room was near, she half carried her in. Light came through the gilded grating above. Cicely still laughed, lying in the lower berth; Eve undressed her; with soothing touch she tried to calm her, to stop her wild glee.
“He turned out his toes in those awful prunella shoes!” said Cicely, breaking into another peal of mirth.
“Hush, dear. Hush.”
“I wish you would go away. You always do and say the wrong thing,” said Cicely, suddenly.
“Perhaps I do,” answered Eve, humbly enough.
Jack was asleep in the upper berth; she herself (as she would not leave them) was to occupy an improvised couch on the floor. But first she went out softly, closing the door behind her; she was going to look for her other charge. The judge, however, had gone to bed, and Eve came back. The dancing had ceased for the moment; a plump young negro was singing, and accompanying himself on the guitar; his half-closed eyes gazed sentimentally at the ceiling; through his thick lips came, in one of the sweetest voices in the world,
“No one to love,
None to cay-ress;
Roam-ing alone through
This world’s wilderness—”
Eve stood with her hand on her door for an instant looking at him; then she looked at the listening people. Suddenly it came over her: “Perhaps it is all a dream! Perhaps I shall wake and find it one!”
She went in. Cicely was in her lethargic state, her hands lying motionless by her sides, her eyes closed. Eve uncoiled her own fair hair and loosened her dress; then she lay down on her couch on the floor.
But she could not sleep; with the first pink flush of dawn she was glad to rise and go out on deck to cool her tired eyes in the fresh air. The steamer was entering the Detroit River; deep and broad, its mighty current flowed onward smoothly, brimming full between its low green banks; the islands, decked in the fresh verdure of early summer, looked indescribably lovely as the rising sun touched them with gold; the lonely gazer wished that she might stop there, might live forever, hide forever, in one of these green havens of rest. But the steamer did not pause, and, laggingly, the interminable hours followed one another through another day. They were now crossing Lake Huron, they were out of sight of land; the purity of the cool blue water, ruffled by the breeze into curls of foam, made a picture to refresh the weariest vision. But Eve looked at it unseeingly, and Cicely did not look at all; the judge, too, saw nothing—nothing but Cicely. There had been no letter at Cleveland; for tidings they must still wait. Cicely had written a few lines to Paul Tennant, announcing their arrival. But to Eve it seemed as if they should never arrive, as if they should journey forever on this phantom boat, journey till they died.
At last Lake Huron was left behind; the steamer turned and went round the foaming leap of the St. Mary’s River, the Sault Sainte Marie (called by lake-country people the Soo), and entered Lake Superior. Another broad expanse of water like a sea. At last, on the fifth day, Port aux Pins was in sight, a spot of white amid the pines. They were all assembled at the bow—Cicely, Eve, the judge, and Porley with little Jack; as the pier came into view with the waiting group of people at its end, no one spoke. Nearer and nearer, now they could distinguish figures; nearer and nearer, now they could see faces. Cicely knew which was Paul immediately, though she had never seen him. The judge took the knowledge from her eyes. Now people began to call to friends on the pier. Now the pier itself touched the steamer’s side, the gangways were put out, and persons were crossing; in another minute a tall man had joined them, and, bending his head, had kissed Cicely.
“Mr. Tennant?” the judge had asked.
“Yes,” answered Paul Tennant. He was looking at Cicely, trying to control a sudden emotion that had surprised him,—a man not given to emotions; he turned away for a moment, patting Jack’s head. “She is so young!” he murmured to the judge.
“Paul,” said Cicely, coming to them, “you have heard from Ferdie? There are letters?”
“No, I haven’t heard lately. There are two letters for you, but they are not in his handwriting.”
“Are they here?”
Paul’s eyes turned rapidly, first to the judge, then to Eve. Eve’s eyes answered him.
“Is it far? Let us go at once.” And Cicely turned towards the stairs.
“It’s at the other end of the town; I’ve a wagon waiting.”
Cicely was already descending. She crossed the gangway with rapid step; she would not wait for their meagre luggage. “Take me there at once, please; the wagon can come back for the others.”
“I must go too,” said Eve. The tone of her voice was beseeching.
“Get in, then,” said Cicely. “Paul, take us quickly, won’t you?” In her haste she seized the reins and thrust them into his hands. She would not sit down until he had taken his seat.
“I will send the wagon back immediately,” Paul said to the judge. Then, seeing the lost look of the old planter, he called out: “Hollis! Here a moment.”
A thin man with gray hair detached himself from the group of loungers on the pier, and hurried towards them.
“Judge Abercrombie, this is Mr. Christopher Hollis,” said Paul; “he lives here, and he is a great friend of mine. Hollis, will you help about the baggage? I’m coming back immediately.”
They drove away, but not before Cicely had asked Paul to let her sit beside him; Eve was left alone on the back seat.
“I wanted to sit beside you, Paul; but I’m afraid I can’t talk,” Cicely said. She put the back of her hand under her chin, as if to support her head; she looked about vaguely—at the street, the passing people.
“That’s right, don’t say anything; I like it better. You must be terribly tired,” answered Paul, reassuringly.
They stopped before a white cottage. Upon entering, Paul gave an inquiring glance at Eve; then he left the room, and came back with two letters.
Cicely tore them open.
Eve drew nearer.
In another instant Cicely gave a cry which rang through the house. “He is hurt! Some one has shot him—has shot him!” Clutching the pages, she swayed forward, but Paul caught her. He laid her upon a couch; with his large, strong hands he placed a cushion under her head.
Eve watched him. She did not help him. Then she came to the sofa. “Is he dead, Cicely?” she asked, abruptly.
Cicely looked at her. “You want him to be!” Springing up suddenly, like a little tigress, still clutching her letters, she struck Eve with her left hand. Her gloved palm was soft, but, as she had exerted all her strength in the blow, the mark across Eve’s cheek was red.
“Never mind,” said Eve, hastily, as Paul started forward; “I am glad she did it.” Her eyes were bright; the red had come into her other cheek; in spite of the mark of the blow, her face looked brilliant.
Cicely had fallen back; and this time she had lost consciousness.