“You can leave her to me now,” Eve went on. “Of course what she said last means that he is not dead!” she added, with a long breath.
“Dead?” said Paul Tennant. “Poor Ferdie dead? Never!”
Eve had knelt down; she was chafing Cicely’s temples. “Then you care for him very much?” she asked, looking at him for a moment over her shoulder.
“I care for him more than for anything else in the world,” said the brother, shortly.
XIII.
IT was the afternoon of the same day.
“I shall go, grandpa,” said Cicely; “I shall go to-night. There’s a boat, somebody said.”
“But, my dear child, listen to reason; Sabrina does not say that he is in danger.”
“And she does not say that he is out of it.”
The judge took up the letter again, and, putting on his glasses, he read aloud, with a frown of attention: “‘For the first two days Dr. Daniels came over twice a day’”—
“You see?—twice a day,” said Cicely.
—“‘But as he is beginning to feel his age, the crossing so often in the row-boat tired him; so now he sends us his partner, Dr. Knox, a new man here, and a very intelligent person, I should judge. Dr. Knox comes over every afternoon and spends the night’”—
“You see?—spends the night,” said Cicely.
—“‘Going back early the following morning. He has brought us a nurse, an excellent and skilful young man, and now we can have the satisfaction of feeling that our poor Ferdie has every possible attention. As I write, the fever is going down, and the nurse tells me that by to-morrow, or day after to-morrow, he will probably be able to speak to us, to talk.’”
“I don’t know exactly how many days it will take me to get there,” said Cicely, beginning to count upon her fingers. “Four days—or is it three?—to Cleveland, where I take the train; then how many hours from there to Washington? You will have to make it out for me, grandpa; or rather Paul will; Paul knows everything.”
“My poor little girl, you haven’t had any rest; even now you have only just come out of a fainting-fit. Sabrina will write every day; wait at least until her next letter comes to-morrow morning.”
“You are all so strange! Wouldn’t you wish me to see him if he were dying?” Cicely demanded, her voice growing hard.
“Of course, of course,” replied the old man, hastily. “But there is no mention of dying, Sabrina says nothing that looks like it; Daniels, our old friend—why, Daniels would cross twenty times a day if he thought there was danger.”
“I can’t argue, grandpa. But I shall go; I shall go to-night,” Cicely responded.
She was seated on a sofa in Paul Tennant’s parlor, a large room, furnished with what the furniture dealer of Port aux Pins called a “drawing-room set.” The sofa of this set was of the pattern named tête-à-tête, very hard and slippery, upholstered in hideous green damask. Cicely was sitting on the edge of this unreposeful couch, her feet close together on a footstool, her arms tight to her sides and folded from the elbows in a horizontal position across the front of her waist. She looked very rigid and very small.
“But supposing, when you get there, that you find him up,—well?” suggested the judge.
“Shouldn’t I be glad?” answered Cicely, defiantly. “What questions you ask!”
“But we couldn’t be glad. Can’t you think a little of us?—you are all we have left now.”
“Aunt Sabrina doesn’t feel as you do—if you mean Aunt Sabrina; she would be delighted to have me come back. She likes Ferdie; it is only you who are so hard about him.”
“Sabrina doesn’t know. But supposing it were only I, is my wish nothing to you?” And the old man put out his hand in appeal.
“No,” answered Cicely, inflexibly. “I am sorry, grandpa; but for the moment it isn’t, nothing is anything to me now but Ferdie. And what is it that Aunt Sabrina doesn’t know, pray? There’s nothing to know; Ferdie had one of his attacks—he has had them before—and I came away with Jack; that is all. Eve has exaggerated everything. I told her I would come here, come to Paul, because Ferdie likes Paul; but I never intended to stay forever, and now that Ferdie is ill, do you suppose that I will wait one moment longer than I must? Of course not.”
The door opened and Eve came in. Cicely glanced at her; then she turned her eyes away, looking indifferently at the whitewashed wall.
“She is going to take the steamer back to-night,” said the judge, helplessly.
“Oh no, Cicely; surely not to-night,” Eve began. In spite of the fatigues of the journey, Eve had been a changed creature since morning; there was in her eyes an expression of deep happiness, which was almost exaltation.
“There is no use in explaining anything to Eve, and I shall not try,” replied Cicely. She unfolded her arms and rose, still standing, a rigid little figure, close to the sofa. “I love my husband, and I shall go to him; what Eve says is of no consequence, because she knows nothing about such things; but I suppose you cared for grandma once, didn’t you, grandpa, when she was young? and if she had been shot, wouldn’t you have gone to her?”
“Cicely, you are cruel,” said Eve.
“When grandpa thinks so, it will be time enough for me to trouble myself. But grandpa doesn’t think so.”
“No, no,” said the old man; “never.” And for the moment he and his grandchild made common cause against the intruder.
Eve felt this, she stood looking at them in silence. Then she said, “And Jack?”
“I shall take him with me, of course. That reminds me that I must speak to Porley about his frocks; Porley is so stupid.” And Cicely turned towards the door.
Eve followed her. “Another long journey so soon will be bad for Jack.”
“There you go again! But I shall not leave him with you, no matter what you say; useless, your constant asking.” She opened the door. On the threshold she met Paul Tennant coming in.
He took her hand and led her back. “I was looking for you; I have found a little bed for Jack; but I don’t know that it will do.”
“You are very good, Paul, but Jack will not need it. I am going away to-night; I have only just learned that there is a boat.”
“We don’t want to hear any talk of boats,” Paul answered. He drew her towards the sofa and placed her upon it. “Sit down; you look so tired!”
“I’m not tired; at least I do not feel it. And I have a great deal to do, Paul; I must see about Jack’s frocks.”
“Jack’s frocks can wait. There’s to be no journey to-night.”
“Yes, there is,” said Cicely, with a mutinous little smile. Her glance turned towards her grandfather and Eve; then it came back to Paul, who was standing before her. “None of you shall keep me,” she announced.
“You will obey your grandfather, won’t you?” Paul began, seriously.
The judge got up, rubbing his hands round each other.
“No,” Cicely answered; “not about this. Grandpa knows it; we have already talked it over.”
“You are wrong; you ought not to be willing to make him so unhappy.”
“Never mind about that, Tennant; I’ll see to that,” said the judge. He spoke in a thin old voice which sounded far away.
Paul looked at him, surprised. Then his glance turned towards Eve. “Miss Bruce too; I am sure she does not approve of your going?”
“Oh, if I should wait for Eve’s approval!” said Cicely. “Eve doesn’t approve of anything in the world except that she should have Jack, and take him away with her, Heaven knows where. She hasn’t any feelings as other people have; she has never cared for anybody excepting herself, and her brother, and I dare say that when she had him she tried to rule him, as she tries now to rule me and every one. She is jealous about him, and that makes her hate Ferdie: perhaps you don’t know that she hates Ferdie? She does; she was sorry this morning, absolutely sorry, when she heard that, though he was dreadfully hurt, he wasn’t dead.”
“Oh, Cicely!” said Eve. She turned away and walked towards one of the windows, her face covered by her hands.
Paul’s eyes followed her. Then they came back to Cicely. “Very well, then, since it appears to be left to me, I must tell you plainly that you cannot go to-night; we shall not allow it.”
“We!” ejaculated Cicely. “Who are we?”
“I, then, if you like—I alone.”
“What can you do? I am free; no one has any authority over me except Ferdie.” Paul did not reply. “You will scarcely attempt to keep me by force, I suppose?” she went on.
“If necessary, yes. But it will not be necessary.”
“Grandpa would never permit it. Grandpa?” She summoned him to her side with an imperious gesture.
The old man came towards her a step or two. Then he left the room hurriedly.
Cicely watched him go, with startled eyes. But she recovered herself, and looked at Paul undaunted.
“Why do you treat me so, Cicely?” he said. “I care about Ferdie as much as you do; I have always cared about him,—hasn’t he ever told you? There never were two boys such chums; and although, since he has grown up, he has had others, I have never had any one but him; I haven’t wanted any one. Is it likely, then, that I should try to set you against him?—that I should turn against him myself?—I ask you that.”
“It is setting me against him not to let me go to him. How do we know that he is not dying?” Her voice was quiet and hard.
“We know because the letters do not speak of danger; on the contrary, they tell us that the ball has been extracted, and that the fever is going down. He will get well. And then some measures must be taken before you can go back to him; otherwise it would not be safe.”
“And do I care about safe? I should like to die if he did!” cried Cicely, passionately. She looked like a hunted creature at bay.
“And your child; what is your idea about him?”
“That’s it; take up Eve’s cry—do! You know I will never give up baby, and so you both say that.” She sank down on the sofa, her head on her arms, her face hidden.
Her little figure lying there looked so desolate that Eve hurried forward from the window. Then she stopped, she felt that Cicely hated her.
“I say what I think will influence you,” Paul was answering. “Ferdie has already thrown the boy about once; he may do it again. Of course at such times he is not responsible; but these times are increasing, and he must be brought up short; he must be brought to his senses.” He went to the sofa, sat down beside her, and lifted her in his arms. “My poor little sister, do trust me. Ferdie does; he wrote to me himself about that dreadful time, that first time when he hurt you; isn’t that a proof? I will show you the letter if you like.”
“I don’t want to see it. Ferdie and I never speak of those things; there has never been an allusion to them between us,” replied Cicely, proudly.
“I can understand that. You are his wife, and I am only his big brother, to whom he has always told everything.” He placed her beside him on the sofa, with his arm still round her. “Didn’t you know that we still tell each other everything,—have all in common? I have been the slow member of the firm, as one may say, and so I’ve stayed along here; but I have always known what Ferdie was about, and have been interested in his schemes as much as he was.”
“Yes, he told me that you gave him the money for South America,” said Cicely, doubtfully.
“That South American investment was his own idea, and he deserves all the credit of it; he will make it a success yet. See here, Cicely: at the first intimation that he is worse, I should go down there myself as fast as boat and train could carry me; I’ve telegraphed to that Dr. Knox to keep me informed exactly, and, if there should be any real danger, I will take you to him instantly. But I feel certain that he will recover. And then we must cure him in another way. The trouble with Ferdie is that he is sure that he can stop at any moment, and, being so sure, he has never really tried. The thing has been on him almost from a boy, he inherits it from his father. But he has such a will, he is so brilliant—”
“Oh, yes! isn’t he?” said Cicely, breathlessly.
—“That he has never considered himself in danger, in spite of these lapses. Now there is where we must get hold of him—we must open his eyes; and that is going to be the hard point, the hard work, in which, first of all, you must help. But once he is convinced, once the thing is done, then, Cicely, then”—
“Yes, then?”
—“He will be about as perfect a fellow as the world holds, I think,” said Paul, with quiet enthusiasm. He stooped and kissed her cheek. “I want you to believe that I love him,” he added, simply.
He got up, smiling down upon her,—“Now will you be a good girl?” he said, as though she were a child.
“I will wait until to-morrow,” Cicely answered, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Come, that’s a concession,” said Paul, applaudingly. “And now won’t you do something else that will please me very much?—won’t you go straight to bed?”
“A small thing to please you with,” Cicely answered, without a smile; “I will go if you wish. I should like to have you know, Paul, that I came to you of my own choice,” she went on; “I came to you when I would not go anywhere else; Eve will tell you so.”
“Yes,” assented Eve from her place by the window.
“Well, I’m glad you had some confidence,” Paul responded; “I must try to give you more. And now who will—who will see to you? Does that wool-headed girl of yours know anything?”
He looked so anxious as he said this that Cicely broke into a faint laugh. “I haven’t lost my mind; I can see to myself.”
“But I thought you Southerners— However, Miss Bruce will help you.” He looked at Eve.
“I am afraid Cicely is tired of me,” Eve answered, coming forward. “All the same, I know how to take care of her.”
“Yes, she took care of me all the way here,” remarked Cicely, looking at Eve coldly. “She needs to be taken care of herself,” she went on, in a dispassionate voice; “she has hardly closed her eyes since we started.”
“I feel perfectly well,” Eve answered, the color rushing to her face in a brilliant flush.
“I don’t think we need borrow any trouble about Miss Bruce, she looks the image of health,” observed Paul (but not as though he admired the image). “I am afraid your bedrooms are not very large,” he went on, again perturbed. “There are two, side by side.”
“Cicely shall have one to herself; Jack and I will take the other,” said Eve.
“Where is Jack?” demanded Cicely, suddenly. “What have you done with him, Eve?”
Paul opened the door. “Polly!” he cried, in a voice that could have been heard from garret to cellar. Porley, amazed by the sound, came running in, with Jack in her arms. Paul looked at her dubiously, shook his head, and went out.
Cicely took her child, and began to play all his games with him feverishly, one after the other.
Jack was delighted; he played with all his little heart.
XIV.
FOUR days had passed slowly by. “What do you think, judge, of this theory about the shooting,—the one they believe at Romney?” said Paul, on the fifth morning.
“It’s probable enough. Niggers are constitutionally timid, and they always have pistols nowadays; these two boys, it seems, had come over from the mainland to hide; they had escaped from a lock-up, got a boat somewhere and crossed; that much is known. Your brother, perhaps, went wandering about the island; if he came upon them suddenly, with that knife in his hand, like as not they fired.”
“Ferdie was found lying very near the point where your boat was kept.”
“And the niggers might have been hidden just there. But I don’t think we can tell exactly where our boat was; Cicely doesn’t remember—I have asked her.”
“Miss Bruce may have clearer ideas.”
“No; Eve seems to have a greater confusion about it than Cicely even; she cannot speak of it clearly at all.”
“Yes, I have noticed that,” said Paul.
“I suppose it is because, at the last, she had it all to do; she is a brave woman.”
Paul was silent.
“Don’t you think so?” said the judge.
“I wasn’t there. I don’t know what she did.”
“You’re all alike, you young men; she’s too much for you,” said the judge, with a chuckle.
“Why too much? She seems to me very glum and shy. When you say that we are all alike, do you mean that Ferdie didn’t admire her, either? Yet Ferdie is liberal in his tastes,” said the elder brother, smiling.
But the judge did not want to talk about Ferdie. “So you find her shy? She did not strike us so at Romney. Quiet enough—yes. But very decidedly liking to have her own way.”
Paul dismissed the subject. “I suppose those two scamps, who shot him, got safely away?”
“Yes, they were sure to have run off on the instant; they had the boat they came over in, and before daylight they were miles to the southward probably; I dare say they made for one of the swamps. In the old days we could have tracked them; but it’s not so easy now. And even if we got them we couldn’t string them up.”
“You wouldn’t hang them?”
“By all the gods, I would!” said the planter, bringing his fist down upon the table with a force that belonged to his youth.
“Ferdie may have attacked them first, you know.”
“What difference does that make? Damnation, sir! are they to be allowed to fire upon their masters?”
“They did not fire very well, these two; according to Dr. Knox, the wound is not serious; his despatch this morning says that Ferdie is coming on admirably.”
“Yes, I suppose he is,” said the old man, relapsing into gloom.
“As soon as he is up and about, I am going down there,” Paul went on; “I must see him and have a serious talk. Some new measures must be taken. I don’t think it will be difficult when I have once made him see his danger; he is so extraordinarily intelligent.”
“I wish he were dull, then,—dull as an owl!” said the judge, with a long sigh.
“Yes, regarded simply as husbands, I dare say the dull may be safer,” responded Paul. “But you must excuse me if I cannot look upon Ferdie merely as the husband of your daughter; I expect great things of him yet.”
“Granddaughter. If her father had lived—my boy Duke—it would have been another story; Duke wouldn’t have been a broken old man like me.” And the judge leaned his head upon his hand.
“I beg your pardon, sir; don’t mind my roughness. It’s only that I’m fond of Ferdie, and proud of him; he has but that one fault. But I appreciate how you feel about Cicely; we must work together for them both.”
Paul had risen, and was standing before him with outstretched hand. “Thank you; you mean well,” said the judge. He had let his hand be taken, but he did not look up. He felt that he could never really like this man—never.
“I am to understand, then, that you approve of my plan?” Paul went on, after a short silence. “Cicely to stay here for the present—the house, I hope, is fairly comfortable—and then, when Ferdie is better, I to go down there and see what I can do; I have every hope of doing a great deal! Oh, yes, there’s one more thing; you needn’t feel obliged to stay here any longer than you want to, you know; I can see to Cicely. Apparently, too, Miss Bruce has no intention of leaving her.”
“I shall stay, sir—I shall stay.”
“On my own account, I hope you will; I only meant that you needn’t feel that you must; I thought perhaps there was something that called you home.”
“Calls me home? Do you suppose we do anything down there nowadays with the whole coast ruined? As for the house, Sabrina is there, and women like illness; they absolutely dote on medicines, and doctors, and ghastly talking in whispers.”
“Very well; I only hope you won’t find it dull, that’s all. The mine isn’t bad; you might come out there occasionally. And the steamers stop two or three times a day. There’s a good deal going on in the town, too; building’s lively.”
“I am much obliged to you.”
“But you don’t care for liveliness,” pursued Paul, with a smile. “I am afraid there isn’t much else. I haven’t many books, but Kit Hollis has; he is the man for you. Queer; never can decide anything; always beating round the bush; still, in his way, tremendously well read and clever.”
“He appears to be a kind of dry-nurse to you,” said the judge, rising.
Paul laughed, showing his white teeth. He was very good-natured, his guest had already discovered that.
The judge was glad that their conversation had come to an end. He could no longer endure dwelling upon sorrow. Trouble was not over for them by any means; their road looked long and dark before them. But for the moment Cicely and her child were safe under this roof; let them enjoy that and have a respite. As for himself, he could—well, he could enjoy the view.
The view consisted of the broad lake in front, and the deep forest which stretched unbroken towards the east and the west. The water of the lake was fresh, the great forest was primeval; this made the effect very unlike that of the narrow salt-water sounds, and the chain of islands, large and small, with their gardens and old fields. The South had forgotten her beginnings; but here one could see what all the new world had once been, here one could see traces of the first struggle for human existence with the inert forces of nature. With other forces, too, for Indians still lived here. They were few in number, harmless; but they carried the mind back to the time of sudden alarms and the musket laid ready to the hand; the days of the block-house and the guarded well, the high stockade. The old planter as he walked about did not think of these things. The rough forest was fit only for rough-living pioneers; the Indians were but another species of nigger; the virgin air was thin and raw,—he preferred something more thick, more civilized; the great fresh-water sea was abominably tame, no one could possibly admire it; Port aux Pins itself was simply hideous; it was a place composed entirely of beginnings and mud, talk and ambition, the sort of place which the Yankees produced wherever they went, and which they loved; that in itself described it; how could a Southern gentleman like what they loved?
And Port aux Pins was ugly. Its outlying quarters were still in the freshly plucked state, deplumed, scarred, with roadways half laid out, with shanties and wandering pigs, discarded tin cans and other refuse, and everywhere stumps, stumps. Within the town there were one or two streets where stood smart wooden houses with Mansard-roofs. But these were elbowed by others much less smart, and they were hustled by the scaffolding of the new mansions which were rising on all sides, and, with republican freedom, taking whatever room they found convenient during the process. Even those abodes which were completed as to their exteriors had a look of not being fully furnished, a blank, wide-eyed, unwinking expression across their façades which told of bare floors and echoing spaces within. Always they had temporary fences. Often paths of movable planks led up to the entrance. Day after day a building of some sort was voyaging through Port aux Pins streets by means of a rope and windlass, a horse, and men with boards; when it rained, the house stopped and remained where it was, waiting for the mud to dry; meanwhile the roadway was blocked. But nobody minded that. All these things, the all-pervading beginnings, the jokes and slang, the smell of paint, and always the breathless constant hurry, were hateful to the old Georgian. It might have been said, perhaps, that between houses and a society uncomfortable from age, falling to pieces from want of repairs, and houses and a society uncomfortable from youth, unfurnished, and encumbered with scaffolding, there was not much to choose. But the judge did not think so; to his mind there was a great deal to choose.
As the days passed, Christopher Hollis became more and more his companion; the judge grew into the habit of expecting to see his high head, topped with a silk hat, put stealthily through the crevice of the half-open door of Paul’s dining-room (Hollis never opened a door widely; whether coming in or going out, he always squeezed himself through), with the query, “Hello! What’s up?” There was never anything up; but the judge, sitting there forlornly, with no companion but the local newspaper (which he loathed), was glad to welcome his queer guest. Generally they went out together; Port aux Pins people grew accustomed to seeing them walking down to the end first of one pier, then of the other, strolling among the stumps in the suburbs, or sitting on the pile of planks which adorned one corner of the Public Square, the long-legged, loose-jointed Kit an amusing contrast to the small, precise figure by his side.
“I say, he’s pretty hard up for entertainment, that old gentleman of yours,” announced Hollis one day, peering in through the crevice of the door of Paul Tennant’s office in the town.
“I depended on you to entertain him,” answered Paul without lifting his head, which was bent over a ledger.
“Well, I’ve taken him all over the place, I’ve pretty nearly trotted his legs off,” Hollis responded, edging farther in, the door scraping the buttons of his waistcoat as he did so. “And I’ve shot off all my Latin at him too—all I can remember. I read up on purpose.”
“Is he such a scholar, then?”
“No, he ain’t. But it does him good to hear a little Horace in such an early-in-the-morning, ten-minutes-ago place as this. See here, Paul; if you keep him on here long he won’t stand it—he’ll mizzle out. He’ll simply die of Potterpins.”
“I’m not keeping him. He stays of his own accord.”
“I don’t believe it. But, I say, ain’t he a regular old despot though! You ought to hear him hold forth sometimes.”
“I don’t want to hear him.”
“Well, I guess he don’t talk that way to you, on the whole. Not much,” said Hollis, jocularly.
And Paul Tennant did not look like a man who would be a comfortable companion for persons of the aggressive temperament. He was tall and broad-shouldered; not graceful like Ferdie, but powerful. His neck was rather short; the lower part of his face was strong and firm. His features were good; his eyes, keen, gray in hue. His hair was yellow and thick, and he had a moustache and short beard of the same yellow hue. No one would have called him handsome exactly. There was something of the Scandinavian in his appearance; nothing of the German. His manner, compared with Ferdie’s quick, light brilliancy, was quiet, his speech slow.
“Have you been thinking about that proposition—that sale?” Hollis went on.
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do?”
“It’s done. I’ve declined.”
“What! not already? That’s sudden, ain’t it?”
Paul did not answer; he was adding figures.
“Have you been over the reasons?—weighed ’em?”
“Oh, I leave the reasons to you,” said Paul, turning a page.
Hollis gave his almost silent laugh. But he gave it uneasily. “Positively declined? Letter gone?”
“Yes.”
“Oh; well!” He waited a moment; then, as Paul did not speak, he opened the door and edged himself out without a sound.
Ten minutes later his head reappeared with the same stealth. “Oh, I thought I’d just tell you—perhaps you don’t know—the mail doesn’t go out to-day until five o’clock: you can get that letter back if you like.”
“I don’t want it back.”
“Oh; well.” He was gone again.
Outside in the street he saw the judge wandering by, and stopped him. “That there son-in-law of yours—” he began.
“Son-in-law?” inquired the judge, stiffly.
“Whatever pleases you; step-sister.”
“Mr. Tennant is the half-brother of the husband of my granddaughter.”
“’T any rate, that man in there, that Paul, he’s so tremendously rash there’s no counting on him; if there’s anything to do he goes and does it right spang off without a why or a wherefore. He absolutely seems to have no reasons!—not a rease!”
“I cannot agree with you. To me Mr. Tennant seems to have a great many.”
“But you haven’t heard about this. Come along out to the Park for a walk, and I’ll tell you.”
He moved on. But the judge did not accompany him. A hurrying mulatto, a waiter from one of the steamers, had jostled him off the narrow plank sidewalk; at the same moment a buggy which was passing, driven at a reckless speed, spattered him with mud from shoulder to shoe.
“Never mind, come on; it’ll dry while you’re walking,” suggested Hollis from the corner where he was waiting.
The judge stepped back to the planks; he surveyed his befouled person; then he brought out a resounding expletive—half a dozen of them.
“Do it again—if it’ll ease you off,” called Kit, grinning. “When you’re blessing Potterpins, I’m with you every time.”
The judge rapped the planks with his cane. “Go on, sir! go on!” he said, violently.
Hollis went loafing on. And presently the judge caught up with him, and trotted beside him in silence.
“Well, that Paul now, as I was telling you, I don’t know what to make of him,” said Hollis, returning to his topic. “I think I know him, and then, suddenly he stumps me. Once he has made up his mind to anything—and it does not take long—off he goes and does it, I tell you! He does it.”
“I don’t know what he does; his conversation has a good deal of the sledge-hammer about it,” remarked the judge.
“So it has,” responded Hollis, delighted with the comparison; he was so delighted that he stopped and slapped his thigh. “So it has, by George!—convincing and knock-you-down.” The judge walked on. He had intended no compliment. “To-day, now, that fellow has gone and sent off a letter that he ought to have taken six months to think over,” Hollis continued. “Told you about his Clay County iron?”
“No.”
“Well, he was down there on business—in Clay County. It was several years ago. He had to go across the country, and the roads were awful—full of slew-holes. At last, tired of being joggled to pieces, he got out and walked along the fields, leaving the horse to bring the buggy through the mud as well as he could. By-and-by he saw a stone that didn’t look quite like the others, and he gave it a kick. Still it didn’t look quite like, so he picked it up. The long and short of it was that it turned out to be hematite iron, and off he went to the county-seat and entered as much of the land as he could afford to buy. He hasn’t any capital, so he has never been able to work it himself; all his savings he has invested in something or other in South America. But the other day he had a tip-top offer from a company; they wanted to buy the whole thing in a lump. And that’s the chance he has refused this identical morning!” The judge did not reply. “More iron may be discovered near by, you know,” Hollis went on, warningly, his forefinger out. His companion still remained silent. “He may never have half so good an offer in his whole life again!”
They had now reached the Park, a dreary enclosure where small evergreens had been set out here and there, together with rock-work, and a fountain which did not play. The magnificent forest trees which had once covered the spot had all been felled; infant elms, swathed in rags and tied to whitewashed stakes, were expected to give shade in fifteen or twenty years. There were no benches; Hollis seated himself on the top of a rail-fence which bordered the slight descent to the beach of the lake; the heels of his boots, caught on a rail below, propped him, and sent his knees forward at an acute angle.
“There were all sorts of side issues and possibilities which that fellow ought to have considered,” he pursued, ruminatively, his mind still on Paul’s refusal. “There were other things that might have come of it. It was an A number one chance for a fortune.” The judge did not answer. “For a fortune,” repeated Hollis, dreamily, gazing down at him from his perch. No reply. “A for-chun!”
“Da-a-a-m your fortune!” said the judge, at the end of his patience, bringing out the first word with a long emphasis, like a low growl from a bull-dog.
Hollis stared. Then he gave his silent laugh, and, stretching down one long arm, he laid it on the old man’s shoulder soothingly. “There, now; we are awful Yankees up here, all of us, I’m afraid; forever thinking of bargains. Fact is, we ain’t high-minded; you can’t be, if you are forever eating salt pork.” The judge had pulled himself from the other’s touch in an instant. But Hollis remained unconscious of any offence.
”‘At the battle of the Nile I was there all the while;
I was there all the while at the battle of the Nile.’”
he chanted.
”‘At the bat— ’
“Hello, isn’t that Miss Bruce coming down the beach? Yes, sure-ly; I know her by the way she carries her head.” Detaching his boot-heels from the rail, he sprang down, touching the ground with his long legs wide apart; then, giving his waistcoat a pull over the flatness below it, he looked inquiringly at the judge.
But that gentleman ignored the inquiry. “It is time to return, I reckon,” he remarked, leading the way inflexibly towards the distant gate and the road.
Hollis followed him with disappointed tread. “She won’t think us very polite, skooting off in this fashion,” he hazarded.
The judge vouchsafed him no reply. It was one thing for this backwoodsman to go about with him; it was another to aspire to an acquaintance with the ladies of his family. Poor Hollis aspired to nothing; he was the most modest of men; all the same it would never have occurred to him that he was not on an equality with everybody. They returned to Port aux Pins by the road.
The beach was in sight all the way on the left; Eve’s figure in three-quarter length was visible whenever Hollis turned his head in that direction, which was often. She gained on them. Then she passed them.
“She’s a tip-top walker, isn’t she? I see her coming in almost every day from ’way out somewhere—she doesn’t mind how far. Our ladies here don’t walk much; they don’t seem to find it interesting. But Miss Bruce, now—she says the woods are beautiful. Can’t say I have found ’em so myself.”
“Have you had any new cases lately?” inquired the judge, coldly.
“Did that Paul tell you I was a lawyer? Was once, but have given up practising. I’ve got an Auction and Commission store now; never took you there because business hasn’t been flourishing; sometimes for days together there’s been nothing but the skeleton.” The judge looked at him. “I don’t mean myself! Say, now, did you really think I meant myself?” And he laughed without a sound. “No, this is a real one; it was left with me over a year ago to be sold on commission—medical students, or a college, you know. Man never came back—perhaps he’s a skeleton himself in the lake somewhere—so there it hangs still; first-class, and in elegant condition. To-day there are six bonnets to keep it company; so we’re full.”
They were now entering the town. Presently, at a corner, they came suddenly upon Eve; she was waiting for them. “I saw you walking in from the Park, so I came across to join you,” she said.
Hollis showed his satisfaction by a broad smile; he did not raise his hat, but, extracting one of his hands from the depths of his trousers pocket, he offered it frankly. “You don’t mind a longish walk, do you? You look splendid.”
“We need not take you further, Mr. Hollis,” said the judge. “Your time must be valuable to you.”
“Not a bit; there’s no demand to-day for the bonnets—unless the skeleton wants to wear ’em.”
“Is it an exhibition?” asked Eve, non-comprehendingly.
“It’s my store—Auction and Commission. Not crowded. It’s round the next corner; want to go in?” And he produced a key and dangled it at Eve invitingly.
“By all means,” said Eve.
It was evident that she liked to be with him. The judge had perceived this before now.
Hollis unlocked a door, or rather two doors, for the place had been originally a wagon shop. A portion of the space within was floored, and here, between the two windows, the long white skeleton was suspended, moving its legs a little in the sudden draught.
“Here are the bonnets,” said Hollis. “They may have to go out to the mines. You see, it’s part of a bankrupt stock. Not but what they ain’t first-class;—remarkably so.” He went to a table where stood six bandboxes in a row; opening one of them, he took out a bonnet, and, freeing it from its wrappings, held it anxiously towards Eve, perched on one of his fingers.
“Are you trying to make Miss Bruce buy that old rubbish?” said a voice at the door. It was Paul Tennant’s voice.
“Old?” said Hollis, seriously. “Why, Paul, I dare say this here bonnet was made in Detroit not later than one year ago.”
“If I cannot buy it myself,” said Eve, “I might take it out to the mines for you, Mr. Hollis, and sell it to the women there; I might take out all six.” She spoke gayly.
“You’d do it a heap better than I could,” Hollis declared, admiringly.
“Let me see, I can try.” She opened a bandbox and took out a second bonnet. This she began to praise in very tropical language; she turned it round, now rapidly, now slowly; she magnified its ribbons, its general air. Finally, taking off her round-hat, she perched it on her own golden braids, and, holding the strings together under her chin, she said, dramatically: “What an effect!” She did not smile, but her eyes shone. She looked brilliant.
The judge stared, amazed. Hollis, contorting himself like an angle-worm in his delight, applauded. Paul looked on tranquilly.
“Whatever the rest of you may do, I must be going,” said the judge, determinedly. He went towards the door, each short step sounding on the planks.
“So must I,” said Eve. “Wait until I put back the bonnets.” With deft hands she returned them to their boxes, Paul and Hollis looking on. Then they all went out together, Hollis relocking the door.
“I was on my way home,” said Paul, “and I suppose you were too? Hollis, won’t you come along?”
He went on in advance with Eve, Hollis following with the unwilling judge, whose steps were still like little taps with a hammer.
The cottage was on the outskirts of the town. To walk thither took twenty minutes.
XV.
PAUL had succeeded in keeping Cicely tranquil by a system of telegraphic despatches and letters, one or the other arriving daily; each morning Ferdie’s wife received a few lines from Romney, written either by Miss Sabrina or the nurse; after she had read her note, she let herself be borne along indifferently on the current of another Port aux Pins day.
The Port aux Pins days were, in themselves, harder for the judge than for Cicely. For Cicely remained passive; but the old judge could not be passive to things he hated so intensely. At last, by good-fortune, Hollis found something that placated him a little; this was fishing, fishing for trout; not the great rich creature of the lakes, which passes under that name, but that exquisite morsel, the brook-trout. The judge had gone off contentedly, even happily, in search of this delicate prey; he and Hollis had explored the trout-streams of the two neighboring rivers. A third river, at a greater distance, was reported richer than any other; one morning they reached it, not only the two fishermen, but Cicely also, and Eve and Paul. They had crossed by steamer to a village on the north shore, an old fur-trading post; here they had engaged canoes and two Indians, and had spent a long day afloat on the clear wild stream. Its shores were rocky, deeply covered to the water’s edge with a dark forest of spruce-trees; the branchlet trout-brooks, therefore, had been hard to find under the low-sweeping foliage. But in this search, Hollis was an expert; with his silk hat tipped more than ever towards the back of his head, he kept watch, and he and the judge were put ashore several times in the course of the day, returning smiling and amiable whether they brought trout or not, with the serene contentment of fishermen. The others remained in the canoes, those light birch-bark craft of the American red-men, which, for grace and beauty, have never been surpassed. Two red-men were paddling one of them at present; they were civilized red-men, they called themselves Bill and Jim. But, under their straw hats, hung down their long straight Indian hair, and the eagle profiles seemed out of place above the ready-made coats and trousers. On their slender feet they wore beaded moccasins. Paul Tennant and Hollis also wore moccasins, and the judge had put on his thinnest shoes; for the birch-bark canoe has a delicate floor.
The boat paddled by the Indians carried Cicely, Porley and Jack, and the judge; the second held only three persons—Eve, Hollis, and Paul Tennant. Paul was propelling it alone, his paddle touching the water now on one side, now on the other, lifted across as occasion required as lightly as though it had been a feather. Cicely was listless, Paul good-natured, but indifferent also—so it seemed to Eve; and Eve herself, though she remained quiet (as the judge had described her), Eve was at heart excited. These thick dark woods without a path, without a sound, the wild river, the high Northern air which was like an intoxicant—all these seemed to her wonderful. She breathed rapidly; she glanced at the others in astonishment. “Why don’t they admire it? Why doesn’t he admire it?” she thought, looking at Paul.
Once the idea came suddenly that Paul was laughing at her, and the blood sprang to her face; she kept her gaze down until the stuff of her dress expanded into two large circles in which everything swam, so that she was obliged to close her eyes dizzily.
And then, when at last she did look up, her anger and her dizziness had alike been unnecessary, for Paul was gazing at the wooded shore behind her; it was evident that he had not thought of her, and was not thinking of her now.
This was late in the day, on their way back. A few minutes afterwards, as they entered the lake, she saw a distant flash, and asked what it was.
“Jupiter Light,” said Paul. “It’s a flash-light, and a good one.”
“There’s a Jupiter Light on Abercrombie Island, too,” Eve remarked.
“It’s a common enough name,” Paul answered; “the best-known one is off the coast of Florida.”
The Indians passed them, paddling with rushing, rapid strokes.
“They’re right; we shall be late for the steamer if we don’t look out,” said Paul. “You can help now if you like, Kit.”
He and Hollis took off their coats, and the canoe flew down the lake under their feathery paddles; the water was as calm as a floor. Eve was sitting at the bow, facing Paul. No one spoke, though Hollis now and then crooned, or rather chewed, a fragment of his favorite song:
”‘At the battle of the Nile I was there all the while—’”
The little voyage lasted half an hour.
They reached the village in time for the steamer, and soon afterwards not only Jack and Porley, but Cicely, the judge, and Hollis, tired after their long day afloat, had gone to bed. When Cicely sought her berth Eve also sought hers, the tiny cells being side by side. Since their arrival at Port aux Pins, Cicely had become more lenient to Eve; she was not so cold, sometimes she even spoke affectionately. But she was very changeable.
To-night, after a while, Eve tapped at Cicely’s door. “Are you really going to bed so early?”
“I am in bed already.”
“Do you want anything? Isn’t there something I can bring you?”
“No.”
Eve went slowly back to her own cell. But the dimness, the warm air, oppressed her; she sat down on a stool behind her closed door, the excitement of the day still remaining with her. “Is it possible that I am becoming nervous?—I, who have always despised nervousness?” She kept saying to herself, “I will go to bed in a few minutes.” But the idea of lying there on that narrow shelf, staring at the light from the grating, repelled her. “At any rate I will not go on deck.”
Ten minutes later she opened her door and went out.
The swinging lamp in the saloon was turned down, the place was empty; she crossed the short half-circle which led to the stern-deck, and stepped outside. There was no moon, but a magnificent aurora borealis was quivering across the sky, now an even band, now sending out long flakes of light which waved to and fro. Before she looked at the splendid heavens, however, she had scanned the deck. There was no one there. She sat down on one of the benches.
Presently she heard a step, some one was approaching. There was a gleam of a cigar; a man’s figure; Paul.
“Is that you? I thought there would be no one here,” she said.
“We are the only passengers,” Paul answered. “But, as there are six of us, you cannot quite control us all.”
“I control no one.” (“Not even myself!” she thought.)
“You will have your wish, though you ought not to; despots shouldn’t be humored. You will have the place to yourself in a few moments, because I shall turn in soon—the time to finish this cigar—if you don’t mind the smoke?”
“No, I don’t mind,” she answered, a chill of disappointment creeping slowly over her.
“Hasn’t it been jolly?” Paul said, after a moment: he had seated himself on a stool near her bench. “I do love to be out like this, away from all bother.”
“Do you? I thought you didn’t.”
The words were no sooner out than she feared he would say, “Why?” And then her answer (for of course she must say something; she could not let him believe that she had had no idea)—her answer would show that she had been thinking about him.
But apparently Paul was not curious, he did not ask. “It’s very good for Cicely too; I wish I could take her oftener,” he went on. “Her promise to stay on here weighs upon her heavily. I don’t know whether she would have kept her word with me or not; but you know, of course, that Ferdie himself has written, telling her that she must stay?”
“No.”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“She tells me nothing!” replied Eve. “If she would only allow it, I would go down there to-morrow. I could be the nurse; I could be the housekeeper; anything.”
“You’re not needed down there, they have plenty of people; we want you here, to see to her.”
“One or the other of them;—I hope they will always permit it. I can be of use, perhaps, about Jack.”
“You are too humble, Miss Bruce; sometimes you seem to be almost on your knees to Cicely, as though you had done her some great wrong. The truth is the other way; she ought to be on her knees to you. You brought her off when she hadn’t the force to come herself, poor little woman! And you did it boldly and quickly, just as a man would have done it. Now that I know you, I can imagine the whole thing.”
“Never speak of that time; never,” murmured Eve.
“Well, I won’t, then, if you don’t like it. But you will let me say how glad I am that you intend to remain with her, at least for a while. You will see from this that I don’t believe a word of her story about your dislike for my brother.”
“There is nothing I would not do for him!”
“Yes, you like to do things; to be active. They tell me that you are fond of having your own way; but that is the very sort of person they need—a woman like you, strong and cool. After a while you would really like Ferdie, you couldn’t help it. And he would like you.”
“It is impossible that he should like me.” She rose quickly.
“You’re going in? Well, fifteen hours in the open air are an opiate. Should you care to go forward first for a moment? I can show you a place where you can look down below; there are two hundred emigrants on board; Norwegians.”
She hesitated, drawing her shawl about her.
“Take my arm; I can guide you better so. It’s dark, and I know the ins and outs.”
She put her hand upon his arm.
He drew it further through. “I don’t want you to be falling down!”
They went forward along the narrow side. Conversation was not easy, they had to make their way round various obstacles by sense of feeling; still Eve talked; she talked hastily, irrelevantly. When she came to the end of her breath she found herself speaking this sentence: “I like your friend Mr. Hollis so much!”
“Yes, Kit is a wonderful fellow; he has extraordinary talent.” He spoke in perfect good faith.
“Oh, extraordinary?” said Eve, abandoning Hollis with feminine versatility, as an obscure feeling, which she did not herself recognize, rose within her.
“If you don’t think so, it’s because you don’t know him. He is an excellent classical scholar, to begin with; he has read everything under the sun; he is an inventor, a geologist, and one of the best lawyers in the state, in spite of his notion about not practising.”
“You don’t add that he is an excellent auctioneer?”
“No; that he is not, I am sorry to say; he is a very bad one.”
“Yet it is the occupation which he has himself selected. Does that show such remarkable talent? Now you, with your mining—” She stopped.
“I didn’t select mining,” answered Paul, roughly, “and I’m not particularly good at it; I took what I could get, that’s all.”
They had now reached the forward deck. Two men belonging to the crew were sitting on a pile of rope; above, patrolling the small upper platform, was the officer in charge; they could not see him, but they could hear his step. To get to the bow, they walked as it were up hill; they reached the sharp point, and looked down over the high, smooth sides which were cutting the deep water so quietly. Eve’s glance turned to the splendid aurora quivering and shining above.
“This T. P. Mayhew is an excellent boat,” remarked Paul, who was still looking over the sides. “But, as to that, all the N. T. boats are good.”
“N. T.?”
“Northern Transportation.” He gave a slight yawn.
“Tell me about your iron,” said Eve, quickly. (“Oh, he will go in! he is going in!” was her thought.)
“It isn’t mine—I wish it was; I’m only manager.”
“I don’t mean the mine here; I mean your Clay County iron.”
“What do you know about that?” said Paul, surprised.
“Mr. Hollis told me; he said you had declined an excellent offer, and he was greatly concerned about it; he told me the reasons why he did not agree with you.”
“It must have been interesting! But that all happened some time ago; didn’t you know that he had come round to my view of it, after all?”
“No.”
“Yes, round he came; it took him eight days. He has got such a look-on-all-sides head that, when he starts out to investigate, he tramps all over the sky; if he intends to go north, he goes east, west, and south first, so as to make sure that these are not the right directions. However, on the eighth day in he came, squeezing himself through a crack, as usual, and explained to me at length the reasons why it was better, on the whole, to decline that offer. He had thought the matter out to its remotest contingencies—some of them went over into the next century! It was remarkably clear and well argued; and of course very satisfactory to me.”
“But in the meantime you had already declined, hadn’t you?”
“Yes. But it was a splendid piece of following up. I declare, I always feel my inferiority when I am with people who can really talk—talk like that!”
“Oh!” said Eve, in accents of remonstrance. Her tone was so eloquent that Paul laughed. He laughed to himself, but she heard it, or rather she felt it; she drew her hand quickly from his arm.
“Don’t be vexed. I was only laughing to see how—”
“How what?”
“How invariably you women flatter.”
“I don’t.” She spoke hurriedly, confusedly.
“You had better learn, then,” Paul went on, still laughing; “I’m afraid that when we’re well stuffed with it we’re more good-natured. Shall I take you back to the stern? I’m getting frightfully sleepy; aren’t you?”
On the way back she did not speak.
When they reached the stern-deck, “Good-night,” he said, promptly opening the door into the lighted saloon.
She looked up at him; in her face there was an inattention to the present, an inattention to what he was saying. Her eyes scanned his features with a sort of slow wonder. But it was a wonder at herself.
“You had better see that the windows are closed,” said Paul. “There’s going to be a change of wind.”
XVI.
EVE’S cheeks showed a deep rose bloom; she was no longer the snow-white woman whom near-sighted Miss Sabrina had furtively scanned upon her arrival at Romney six months before. She was still markedly erect, but her step had become less confident, her despotic manner had disappeared. Often now she was irresolute, and she had grown awkward—a thing new with her; she did not know how to arrange her smallest action, hampered by this new quality.
But since the terrible hour when Ferdie had appeared at the end of the corridor with his candle held aloft and his fixed eyes, life with her had rushed along so rapidly that she had seemed to be powerless in its current. The first night in Paul’s cottage, in her little room next to Cicely’s, she had spent hours on her knees by the bedside pouring forth in a flood of gratitude to Some One, Somewhere—she knew no formulas of prayer—that she had been delivered from the horror that had held her speechless through all the long journey. Ferdie was living! She repeated it over and over—Ferdie was living!
At the time there had been no plan; she had stepped back into her room to get the pistol, not with any purpose of attack, but in order not to be without some means of defence. The pistol was one of Jack’s, which she had found and taken possession of soon after her arrival, principally because it had been his; she had seen him with it often; with it he himself had taught her to shoot. Then at the last, when Jack’s poor little boy had climbed up by the boat’s seat, and the madman had made that spring towards him, then she had—done what she did. She had done it mechanically; it had seemed the only thing to do.
But, once away, the horror had come, as it always does and must, when by violence a human life has been taken. She had dropped the pistol into the Sound, but she could not drop the ghastly picture of the dark figure on the sand, with its arms making two or three spasmodic motions, then becoming suddenly still. Was he dead? If he was, she, Eve Bruce, was a murderer, a creature to be imprisoned for life,—hanged. How people would shrink from her if they knew! And how monstrous it was that she should touch Cicely! Yet she must. Cain, where is thy brother? And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. Would it come to this, that she should be forced at last to take her own life, in order to be free from the horror of murder? These were the constant thoughts of that journey northward, without one moment’s respite day or night.
But deliverance had come: he was alive! God was good after all, God was kind; he had lifted from her this pall of death. He was alive! He was alive!
“Oh, I did not do it! I am innocent! That figure has gone from the sand; it got up and walked away!” She laughed in the relief, the reaction, and buried her face in the pillow to stifle it. “Cicely will not know what I am laughing at; she will wonder. I need never tell her anything now, because the only men who were suspected have got safely away. She is safe, little Jack is safe, and Ferdie is not dead; he is alive—alive!” So swept on through the night the tide of her immense joy. For the next day and the next, for many days after, this joy surged within her, its outward expression being the flush, and the brilliant light in her eyes.
Eve Bruce had a strongly truthful nature, she was frank not only with others, but with herself; she possessed the unusual mental quality (unusual in a woman) of recognizing facts, whether they were agreeable or not; of living without illusions. This had helped to give her, perhaps, her brusque manner, with its absence of gentleness, its scanty sweetness. With her innate truthfulness, it was not long before this woman perceived that there was another cause contributing to the excitement that was quickening her breath and making life seem new. The discovery had come suddenly.
It had been arranged that on a certain day they should walk out to the mine, Paul, the judge, Hollis, and herself. When the time came, Hollis appeared alone, Paul was too busy to leave the office. They walked out to the mine. But Eve felt her feet dragging, she was unaccountably depressed. Upon her return, as she came in sight of the cottage, she remembered how happy she had been there the day before, and for many days. What had changed? Had she not the same unspeakable great cause for joy? For what reason did the day seem dull and the sky dark? And then the truth showed itself: it was because Paul Tennant was not there; nothing else.
Another woman would have veiled it, would not have acknowledged the fact even to herself; for women have miraculous power of really believing only what they wish to believe; for many women facts, taken alone, do not exist. But Eve had no such endowments. She had reached her room; she pushed to the door and stood there motionless; after two or three minutes she sank into the nearest chair; here she sat without stirring for some time. Then she rose, went down the stairs, and out again. It was six o’clock, but there were still two hours of daylight; she hurried towards the nearest border of forest, and, just within its fringe, she began walking rapidly to and fro, her hands, clasped together, hanging before her, her eyes on the ground. She did not come back until nightfall.
As she entered she met Paul.
“I was coming to hunt for you. Where have you been?” He spoke with surprise.
Eve looked at him once. Then she turned away. What a change in herself! Now she understood Cicely. Now she understood—yes, she understood everything—the things she had always despised—pettiness, jealousy, impossible hopes, disgrace, shame.
“I was afraid Cicely would be alarmed,” Paul went on.
And Eve was not offended that it was Cicely of whom he was thinking. It had not yet occurred to her that he could think of her.
She went in search of Cicely, who had nothing to say to her; then, excusing herself, she retreated to her room. Here she took off her dress and began to unbraid her hair. Then the thought came to her that Paul would go to the parlor about this time, that he would play a game of chess, perhaps, with the judge; hastily repairing the disorder she had made, she rearranged the braids, felt in the rough closet for her evening shoes, put them on, and went down-stairs again with rapid step.
Cicely made no remark as she came in; Paul and the judge were playing their game, with Hollis looking on. Eve took a book and sat reading, or apparently reading, at some distance. “Oh, how abject this is! How childish, how sickening!” Anger against herself rose hotly; under its sting she felt her strength returning. She sat there as long as the others did. “I will not make a second scene by going out” (but no one had noticed her first). She answered Paul’s good-night coldly. But when she was back in her room again, when there was no more escape from its four walls until morning, then she found herself without defences, without pretexts, face to face with the fact that she loved this man, this Paul Tennant, with all her heart. It was a surprise as great as if she had suddenly become blind, or deaf, or mad—“stricken of God,” as people call it. “I am stricken. But I am not sure it is of God!” That she, no longer a girl, after all these years untouched by such feelings—that she, with her clear vision and strong will (she had always been so proud of her will), should be led captive in this way by a stranger who cared nothing for her, who did not even wish to capture—it was a sort of insanity. She paced her room to and fro as she had paced the fringe of woods. She stretched out her hands and looked at them as though they had been the hands of some one else; she struck one of them upon her bare arm; she was so humiliated that she must hurt something; that something should be herself. “If he should ever care for me, I would refuse him,” she repeated, in bitter triumph. Immediately the thought followed, “He will never care!”
“I do not love him really,” she kept repeating. “I am not well; it will pass.” But while she was saying this, there came a glow that contradicted her, a glow before whose new sway she was helpless. “Oh, I do! I loved him the first day I saw him. What is that old phrase?—I love the ground he walks on.” She buried her face in her hands.
“How strange! I am happier than I have ever been in my life before; I didn’t know that there was such happiness!” A door seemed to open, showing a way out of her trouble, a way which led to a vision of subtle sweetness—her life through the future with this passion hidden like a treasure in her heart, no one to know it, no one to suspect its existence. “As I am to be nothing to him, as I wish to be nothing to him, I shall not care whom he loves; that is nothing to me.” Upon this basis she would arrange her life.
But it is not so easy to arrange life. Almost immediately she began to suffer, a species of suffering, too, to which she was unused: trifles annoyed her like innumerable stings—she was not able to preserve her calm; as regarded anything important, she could have been herself, or so she imagined; but little things irritated her, and the days were full of little things. She rebelled against this nervousness, but she could not subdue it; and gradually the beautiful vision of her life, as she had imagined it, faded away miserably in a cloud of petty exasperations and despair. After wretched hours, unable to endure her humiliation longer, she resolved to conquer herself at any cost, to set herself free; she could not go away, because she would not leave Cicely; there was still her brother’s child; but here, on the spot, she would overcome this feeling that had taken possession of her and changed her so that she did not know herself. “I will!” she said. It was a vow; her will was the strongest force of her being.
This very will blinded her, she was too sure of it. She was in earnest about wishing and intending to win in her great battle. But she forgot the details.
These are some of the details:
The one time of day when Paul was neither at the mine nor in his office was at sunset; twice she went through a chain of reasoning to prove to herself that she had a necessary errand at that hour at one of the stores; both times she met him. She had heard Paul say that he liked to see women sew; she was no needlewoman; but presently she began to embroider an apron for Jack (with very poor success). Paul was no reader; he looked through the newspapers once a day, and when it rained very hard in the evening, and there was nothing else to do, occasionally he took up his one book; for he had but one, at least so Hollis declared; at any rate he read but one; this one was Gibbon. The only edition of the great history in the little book-store of Port aux Pins was a miserably printed copy in paper covers. But a lady bought it in spite of its blurred type.
Finally this same lady went to church. It was on a Sunday afternoon, the second service; she came in late, and took a seat in the last pew. When had Eve Bruce been to church before? Paul went once in a while. And it was when she saw his head towering above the heads of the shorter people about him, as the congregation rose to repeat the creed—it was then suddenly that the veil was lifted and she saw the truth: this was what she had come for.
She did not try to deny it, she comprehended her failure. After this she ceased to struggle, she only tried to be quiet. She lived from day to day, from hour to hour; it was a compromise. “But I shall not be here long; something will separate us; soon, perhaps in a few weeks, it will have come to an end, and then I may never see him again.” So she reasoned, passively.
About this time Cicely fell ill. The Port aux Pins doctor had at length given a name to her listlessness and her constantly increasing physical weakness; he called it nervous prostration (one of the modern titles for grief, or an aching heart).
“What do you advise?” Paul had asked.
“Take her away.”
Two days later they were living under tents at Jupiter Light.
“We cannot get off this evening; it is perfectly impossible,” the judge had declared, bewildered by Paul’s sudden decision, not knowing as yet whether he agreed with it or not, and furthermore harried by the arrival of tents, provisions, Indians, cooks, and kettles, the kettles invading even the dining-room, his especial retreat.
“Oh, we shall go; never you fear,” said Hollis, who was hard at work boxing up an iron bedstead. “At the last moment Paul will drive us all on board like a flock of sheep.”
And, at nine o’clock that night, they did embark, the judge, who had given up comprehending anything, walking desperately behind the others; Hollis, weighed down with rods and guns, and his own clothing escaping from newspapers; a man cook; a band of Indians; Porley and Jack; Eve; and, last of all, Cicely, tenderly carried in Paul’s arms. In a week the complete change, the living under canvas in the aromatic air of the pines, produced a visible effect; Cicely began to recover her lost vitality; the alarming weakness disappeared. Every day there came her letter or despatch, one of the Indians going fifteen miles for it, in a canoe; the message was always favorable, Ferdie was constantly improving. All was arranged, Paul was to go southward in July. He and Cicely had frequent talks (talks which Paul tried to make as cheerful as possible); perhaps, next winter, they should all be living together at Port aux Pins; that is, in case it should be thought best to give up Valparaiso, after all. Cicely read and re-read the letters; she always kept the last one under her dress on her heart; for the rest she floated in the canoe, and she played with Jack, who bloomed with health to that extent that he was called the Porpoise. The judge, happy in the improvement of his darling little girl, fished; snarled with Hollis; then fished again. Hollis, always attired in his black coat, showed positive genius in the matter of broiling. And Paul came and went as he was able. As he could not be absent long from the mine, he made the journey to Port aux Pins every three days, leaving Hollis in charge at the camp during his absence. One day Hollis also was obliged to go to Port aux Pins. And while he was there he attended an evening party. This entertainment he described for Cicely’s amusement upon his return. For she was the central person to them all; they gathered round her, they obeyed eagerly her slightest wish; when she laughed, they laughed also, they were so glad to see life once more animating her white little face; it was for this that Hollis prolonged his story, and quoted Shakespeare; he would have stood on his head if it would have made her smile.