With a stride Paul caught up with her. “What are you driving at?”
“I shall never marry you.”
He laughed.
She turned upon him. “You laugh – you have no idea what it is to me! I think of you day and night, I have longed to have you in my arms – on my heart. No, don’t touch me; it is only that I won’t have you believe that I don’t know what love is, that I don’t love you. Why, once at Port aux Pins, I walked miles at night because I was so mad with jealousy; and I found you playing whist! If I could only have known beforehand – if I could only have seen you once, just once, Ferdie might have done what he chose with Cicely; I shouldn’t have stirred!”
“Yes, you would,” said Paul.
“No, I shouldn’t have stirred; you might as well know me as I am. What I despise myself for now is, that I haven’t the force to make an end of it, to relieve you of the thought of me – at least as some one living. But as long as you are alive, Paul – ” She looked at him with her eyes full of tears.
“You don’t know what you are talking about,” said Paul, sternly. “You will live, and as my wife; we will be married here at Romney to-morrow.”
“Would you really marry me here?” said Eve, the light of joy coming into her wan face.
“It’s a tumble-down old place, I know. But won’t it do to be married in?”
“Oh, it is so much harder when you seem to forget, – when for the moment you really do forget! But of course I know that it could not last.”
“What could not last?”
She moved away a step or two. “If I should marry you, you would hate me. Not in the beginning. But it would come. For Ferdie was your brother, and I did kill him; nothing can alter these facts – not even love. At first you wouldn’t remember; then, gradually, he would come back to you; you would think of the time when you were boys together, and you would be sorry. Then, gradually, you would realize that I killed him; whenever I came near you, you would see – ” Her voice broke, but she hurried on. “You said I was brave to do it, and I was. You said it was heroic, and it was. Yet all the same, he was your brother; and I killed him. In defence of Cicely and the baby? Nothing makes any difference. I killed him, and you would end by hating me. Yet I shouldn’t be able to leave you; once your wife, I know that I should stay on, even if it were only to fold your clothes, – to touch them; to pick up the burnt match-ends you had dropped, and your newspapers; to arrange the chairs as you like to have them. I should be weak, weak – I should follow you about. How you would loathe me! It would become to you a hell.”
“I’ll take care of that,” said Paul; “I’ll see to my own hells; at present I’m thinking of something very different. We will be married to-day, and not wait for to-morrow; I will take you away to-night.”
Eve looked at him. – “Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying?”
“Yes, I heard it; it was rubbish.” But something in her face impressed him. “Eve, you are not really going to throw me over for a fancy like that?”
“No; for the horrible truth.”
“My poor girl, you are all wrong, you are out of your mind. Let us look at only one side of it: what can you do in the world without me and my love as your shield? Your very position (which you talk too much about) makes me your refuge. Where else could you go? To whom? You speak of staying with Cicely. But Cicely – about Ferdie – is a little devil. The boy will never be yours, she will not give him to you; and, all alone in the world, how desolate you will be! You think yourself strong, but to me you are like a child; I long to take care of you, I should guard you from everything. And there wouldn’t be the least goodness in this on my part; don’t think that; I’m passionately in love with you – I might as well confess it outright.”
Eve quivered as she met his eyes. “I shall stay with Cicely.”
“You don’t care whether you make me suffer?”
“I want to save you from the far greater suffering that would come.”
“As I told you before, I’ll take care of that,” said Paul. “You needn’t be so much concerned about what my feelings will be after you are my wife – I know what they will be. Women are fools about that sort of thing – what the future husband may or may not feel, may or may not think; when he has got the woman he loves, he doesn’t think about her at all; he thinks about his business, his affairs, his occupations, whatever he has to do in the world. As to what he feels, he knows. And she too. There comes an end to all her fancies, and generally they’re poor stuff.” Drawing her to him, he kissed her. “That’s better than a fancy! Now we will walk back to the house; there is a good deal to do if we are to be married this afternoon – as we certainly shall be; by this time to-morrow it will be an old story to you – the being my wife. And now listen, Eve, let me make an end of it; Ferdie was everything to me, I don’t deny it; he was the dearest fellow the world could show, and I had always had the charge of him. But he had that fault from boyhood. The time came when it endangered Cicely’s life and that of her child; then you stepped forward and saved them, though it was sure to cost you a lifetime of pain. I honor you for this, Eve, and always shall. Poor Ferdie has gone, his death was nobody’s fault but his own; and it wasn’t wholly his own, either, for he had inherited tendencies which kept him down. He has gone back to the Power that made him, and that Power understands his own work, I fancy; at any rate, I am willing to leave Ferdie to Him. But, in the meantime, we are on the earth, Eve, we two, – and we love each other; let us have all there is of it, while we are about it; in fact, I give you warning, that I shall take it all!”
Two hours later, Paul came back from the mainland, where he had been making the necessary arrangements for the marriage, which was to take place at five o’clock; so far, he had told no one of his intention.
A note was handed to him. He opened it.
“It is of no use. In spite of all you have said, I feel sure that in time you could not help remembering. And it would make you miserable beyond bearing.
“Once your wife, I should not have the strength to leave you – as I can now.
EVE.”
XXXIII
THE judge was waiting for the steamer at Warwick Landing. Attired in white duck, with his boy Pomp (Pomp was sixty) waiting respectfully in the background, he was once more himself. As the steamer drew near, he bowed with all his old courtliness, and he was immediately answered by the agitated smile of a lady on the deck, who, with her shawl blowing off and her veil blowing out, was standing at the railing, timid in spite of her fifty-three years. It could be no one but Miss Leontine, who had come over from Gary Hundred, with her maid, to pay a visit to her dear Sabrina at Romney. The maid was a negro girl of thirteen, attired in a calico dress and sun-bonnet; she did nothing save strive to see how far she could straddle on the deck, whose flat surface seemed to attract her irresistibly. Miss Leontine carried her own travelling-bag. Occasionally she would say: “Clementine, shush! draw yourself together immediately.” But Clementine never drew herself.
The judge assisted his guest to disembark – she ambled across the plank, holding his hand; they drove to Romney in the one-seated wagon, the judge acting as charioteer. Pomp and the maid were supposed to walk.
“Clementine, whatever you do, don’t cling on behind,” said Miss Leontine, turning her head once or twice unseemingly, to blink at the offender. But Clementine clung all the way; and brayed at intervals.
The judge, in his present state of joy, almost admired Miss Leontine, – she was so unlike Parthenia Drone! “Ah, my dear Miss Wingfield, how changed is society in these modern days!” he said, flicking the flank of the mule. “In my time who ever heard a lady’s voice three feet away? Who ever knew her opinions – if she had any? Who ever divined, at least in the open air, the texture of her cheek, modestly hidden under her bonnet, or saw more than the tip of her slipper under the hem of her robe? Now women think nothing of speaking in public – at least at the North; they attend conventions, pass resolutions, appear in fancy-dress at Fourth of July parades; their bonnets for the most part” (not so Miss Leontine’s) “are of a brazen smallness; and their feet, if I may so express it, are the centre of every room! When I was young, the most ardent suitor could obtain as a sign of preference, only a sigh; – at most some startled look, some smile, some reppurtee. All was timidity – timidity and retirement.”
Miss Leontine, in her gratification at this description of her own ideal, clasped her hands so tightly together under her shawl that her corset-board made a long red mark against her ribs in consequence.
As they came within sight of the house, a figure was walking rapidly across the lawn. “Is that Mr. Singleton?” inquired Miss Leontine. “Dear Nannie wrote that they would come over to-day.”
“No, that’s not Singleton; Singleton’s lame,” said the judge.
“And yet it looks so much like him,” murmured Miss Leontine, with conviction, still peering, with the insistence of a near-sighted person.
“It’s a man named Watson,” said the judge, decidedly.
Watson was a generic title, it did for any one whom the judge could not quite see. He considered that a name stopped unnecessary chatter, – made an end of it; if you once knew that it was Watson or Dunlap, you let it alone.
In reality the figure was that of Paul Tennant. After reading Eve’s note he crushed the sheet in his hand, and turned towards the house with rapid stride. There was no one in the hall; he rang the parlor bell.
“Do you know where Miss Bruce is?” he asked, when Powlyne appeared.
“In her room, marse, I spex.”
“Go and see. Don’t knock; listen.” He paced to and fro until Powlyne came back.
“Ain’t dere, marse. Nor yet, periently, she ain’t in de house anywhuz; spex she’s gone fer a walk.”
“Go and find out if any one knows which way she went.”
But no one had seen Eve.
“Where is Mrs. Morrison?”
“She’s yere, safe enough. I know whur she is,” answered Powlyne. “Mis’ Morrison she’s down at de barf-house, taken a barf.”
“Is any one with her?”
“Dilsey; she’s dere.”
“Go and ask Dilsey how soon Mrs. Morrison can see me.”
Powlyne started. As she did not come back immediately, he grew impatient, and went himself to the bath-house. It was a queer little place, a small wooden building, near the sound. It seemed an odd idea to bathe there, in a tank filled by a pump, when, twenty feet distant, stretched the lagoon, and on the other side of the island the magnificent sea-beach, smooth as a floor.
Paul knocked. “How soon can Mrs. Morrison see me?”
“She’s troo her barf,” answered Dilsey’s voice at the crack. “Now she’s dess a-lounjun.”
“Tell her who it is; – that it’s important.”
In another moment Dilsey opened the door, and ushered him into the outer room. It was a square apartment, bare and rough, lighted only from above; its sole article of furniture was a divan in the centre; an inner door led to the bath-room beyond. Upon the divan Cicely was lying, her head propped by cushions, the soft waves of her hair loose on her shoulders. Delicate white draperies, profusely trimmed with lace, enveloped her, exhaling an odor of violets.
“Cicely, where is Eve?” demanded Paul.
“Wait outside, Dilsey,” said Cicely. Then, when the girl had disappeared, “She has gone to Charleston,” she answered.
“And from there?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did she start!”
“Two hours ago.”
– “Immediately after leaving me,” Paul reflected, audibly.
“Yes.”
“But there’s no steamer at this hour.”
“One of the field hands rowed her up to Mayport; there she was to take a wagon, and drive inland to a railway station.”
“She could only hit the Western Road.”
“Yes; but she can make a connection, farther on, which will enable her to reach Charleston by to-morrow night.”
“I shall be twelve hours behind her, then; the first steamer leaves this evening. You are a traitor, Cicely! Why didn’t you let me know?”
“She did not wish it.”
“I know what she wishes.”
“Yes, she loves you – if you mean that. But – I agree with her.”
“Agree with her how?”
“That the barrier is too great. You would end by hating her,” said Cicely.
“I’m the judge of that! If any one hates her, it is you; you constantly torture her, you are merciless.”
“She shot my husband.”
“She shot your murderer! Another moment and Ferdie might have killed you.”
“And if I preferred it? At any rate, she had no right to interfere,” cried Cicely, springing up.
“Why were you running away from him, then, if you preferred it? You fled to her room, and asked for help; you begged her to come out with you.”
“It was on account of baby,” answered Cicely, her voice like that of a little girl, her breast beginning to heave.
“And she saved your child’s life a second time – on Lake Superior.”
“I know it – I know it. But you cannot expect – ”
“I expect nothing; you are absolutely unreasonable, and profoundly selfish.”
“I’m not selfish. I only want to make her suffer!” cried Cicely, with sparkling eyes.
Paul looked at her sternly. “In that dress you appear like a courtesan; and now you talk like one. It is a good thing my brother was taken off, after all – with such a wife!”
Cicely sank down at his feet. “Oh, don’t say that, Paul; it is not true. All this – these are the things that are underneath, they are the things that touch me; you never see them when I am dressed. It is only that I always liked to be nice for him; that is the reason I had all this lace; and I keep it up, because I want him to think of me always as just the same; yes, even when I am old. For I know he does think of me, and he sees me too; he is often here. Listen, – I can’t help hating Eve, Paul. But it only comes in little whiffs, now and then. Supposing I had shot her, could you like me, after that?” She rose, holding up her hands to him pleadingly. “In one way I love Eve.”
“Yet you let her go! Heaven knows where she is now.”
He turned his head away sharply. But she saw his tears. “No, Paul,” she cried, terrified, “she isn’t dead – if you mean that; she told me once, ‘As long as he is in the world, I want to live!’”
“Well – I shall go after her,” said Paul, controlling himself. He turned towards the door.
Cicely followed him. “Say good-by to me.” She put up her face.
He touched her forehead with his lips. Then he held her off for a moment, and looked at her. “Poor child!” he said.
He returned to the house for his travelling-bag; he remembered that he had left it in the parlor upon his arrival, five hours before.
The pleasant, shabby room, as he opened the door, held a characteristic group: Miss Sabrina, gliding about with plum-cake; the judge, pouring cherry-bounce; Mistress Nannie Singleton, serenely seated, undergoing the process of being brushed by Clementine and Powlyne, who made hissing sounds like hostlers, and, standing on one foot in a bent attitude, held out behind a long leg. Rupert Singleton, seated in the largest arm-chair, was evidently paying compliments to Miss Leontine, who, gratified and embarrassed, and much entangled with her wineglass, her gloves, and her plate of cake, hardly knew, to use a familiar expression, whether she was on her head or her heels. Not that Miss Sabrina would have mentioned her heels; to her, heels, shins, and ribs did not exist, in a public way; they were almost medical terms, belonging to the vocabulary of the surgeon.
“I beg your pardon; I think I left my bag here,” said Paul.
“I had it taken to your room,” answered Miss Sabrina, coming forward. “Powlyne, go with Mr. Tennant.”
“Let her bring it down, please; I am leaving immediately,” said Paul, shaking hands with his hostess in farewell.
The judge followed him out. “Leaving, did you say? But you’ve only just come.”
“I am going to Charleston. – I must follow Miss Bruce without a moment’s delay.”
“Has she gone!” There was a gleam of triumph in the old Georgian’s eyes as he said this. “You will find Charleston a very pleasant place,” he added, politely.
XXXIV
“DRIVE to the New York steamer.”
“She’s off, boss. Past her time.”
“Drive, I tell you.”
The negro coachman cracked his whip, his two rawboned steeds broke into a gallop; the loose-jointed landau behind clattered and danced over the stones.
“Faster,” said Paul.
The negro stood up, he shook the reins over the backs of his team with a galloping motion that corresponded with the sound of their feet; in addition, he yelled without intermission. They swayed round corners, they lurched against railings and other carriages; every head turned, people made way for them as for a fire-engine; at last they reached the harbor, and went clattering down the descent to the dock. Here there met them the usual assemblage of loiterers, who were watching the steamer, which was already half a mile distant, churning the blue water into foam behind her, her nose pointed straight towards Sumter.
Paul watched the line of her smoke for a moment; then he got out of his carriage, paid the coachman mechanically, told him to take his luggage to the Charleston Hotel, and walked away, unconscious alike of the mingled derision and sympathy which his late arrival had drawn from the group – boys with market-baskets, girls with baby-wagons, slouching mulattoes with fishing-tackle, and little negroes of tender age with spongy lips and bare prehensile toes, to whose minds the departure of the steamer was a daily drama of intensest interest and excitement.
There was nothing to be done until evening, when he could take the fast train to New York. Paul went to the Battery; but noticed nothing. A band from the arsenal began to play; immediately over all the windows of the tall old houses which looked seaward the white shades descended; Northern music was not wanted there. He went up Meeting Street; and noticed nothing. Yet on each side, within sight, were picturesque ruins, and St. Michael’s spire bore the marks of the bomb-shells of the siege. He opened the gate of the church-yard of the little Huguenot church and entered; the long inscriptions on the flat stones were quaint, but he did not read them. He walked into the country by the shaded road across the neck. Then he came back again. He strolled hither and thither, he stared at the old Manigault House. Finally, at three o’clock, he went to the hotel.
Half an hour later an omnibus came up; waiters in white and bell-boys with wisp-brushes rushed out, dusty travellers descended; Paul, standing under the white marble columns, looked on. He still stood there after the omnibus had rolled away, and all was quiet, so quiet that a cat stole out and crossed the street, walking daintily on its clean white paving-stones, and disappearing under a wall opposite.
A figure came to the doorway behind, Paul became conscious that he was undergoing inspection; he turned, and scanned the gazer. It proved to be a muscular, broad-shouldered man of thirty-five, with a short yellow beard and clumsy features, which were, however, lighted by keen blue eyes; his clothes were dusty, he carried a travelling-bag; evidently he was one of the travellers who had just arrived, coming from the Northern train. A bell-boy came out and looked up and down the colonnade; then, with his wisp-brush, he indicated Paul.
“Dat’s him, sah. – You was a-asking.”
“All right,” said the traveller. Putting his travelling-bag on a bench, he walked up to Paul. “Think I know you. Mr. Tennant, isn’t it – Port aux Pins? Saw your name on the book. I’m Dr. Knox – the one who was with your brother.”
Paul’s face changed, its fixed look disappeared. “Will you come to my room?”
“In twenty minutes. I must have a wash first, and something to eat. Be here long?”
“I go North at six o’clock.”
“All right, I’ll look sharp, then; we’ll have time.”
In twenty minutes he appeared at Paul’s door. The door was open, revealing the usual bachelor’s room, with one window, a narrow bed, a washstand, one chair, a red velvet sofa, with a table before it; the bed was draped in white mosquito netting; the open window looked down upon a garden, where were half a dozen negro nurses with their charges – pretty little white children, overdressed, and chattering in the sweet voices of South Carolina.
“Curious that I should have run against you here, when this very moment I am on my way to hunt you up,” said Knox, trying first the chair, and then the sofa. “I landed twenty-four hours ago in New York; been off on a long yachting excursion; started immediately after your brother’s death, – perhaps Miss Abercrombie told you? Whole thing entirely unexpected; had to decide in ten minutes, and go on board in an hour, or lose the chance; big salary, expenses paid; couldn’t afford to lose it. I’d have written before starting, if it had been possible; but it wasn’t. And after I was once off, my eyes gave way suddenly, and I had to give them a rest. It wasn’t a thing to write, anyway; it was a thing to tell. There was nothing to be done in any case, and such kind of news will keep; so I decided that as soon as I landed, I’d come down here and find out about you and Miss Abercrombie; then I was going up to Port aux Pins – or wherever you were – to see you.”
“I suppose you can tell me – in three words – what all this is about,” said Paul, who had not seated himself.
“Yes, easy. What do you suppose was the cause of your brother’s death?”
“Pistol-shot,” Paul answered, curtly.
“No, that was over, I had cured him of that; I telegraphed you that the wound wasn’t dangerous, and it wasn’t. No, sir; he died of a spree – of a series of ’em.”
Paul sat down.
“I say, have some brandy? No? Well, then I’ll go on, and get it over. But don’t you go to thinking that I’m down on Ferdie; I’m not, I just loved that fellow; I don’t know when I’ve seen anybody that took me so. I was called to him, you know, after those negroes shot him. ’Twasn’t in itself a vital wound; only a tedious one; the difficulty was fever, but after a while we subdued that. Of course I saw what was behind, – he had had an attack of something like delirium tremens; it was that which complicated matters. Well, I went over there every day, sometimes twice a day; I took the biggest sort of interest in the case, and, besides, we got to be first-rate chums. I set about doing everything I could for him, not only in the regular line of business, but also morally, as one may call it; as a friend. You see, I wanted to open his eyes to the danger he was in; he hadn’t the least conception of it. He thought that it was only a question of will, and that his will was particularly strong; —that sort of talk. Well, after rather a slow job of it, I pronounced him cured – as far as the wound was concerned; all he needed was rest. Did he take it? By George, sir, he didn’t! He slipped off to Savannah, not letting me know a gleam of it, and there he was joined by – I don’t know whether you have heard that there was a woman in the case?”
Paul nodded.
“And she wasn’t the only one, though she supposed she was. From the first, the drink got hold of him again. And this time it killed him, – he led an awful life of it there for days. As soon as I found out that he had gone – which wasn’t at once, as I had given up going over there regularly – I chased up to Savannah after him as fast as I could tear, – I had the feeling that he was going to the devil! I couldn’t find him at first, though I scoured the town. And when I did, he was past helping; – all I could do was to try to get him back to Romney; I wanted him to die decently, at home, and not up there among those – Well, sir, he died the next day. I couldn’t tell those women down there – Miss Abercrombie, Mrs. Singleton, and her aunt, Miss Peggy. They were all there, of course, and crying; but they would have cried a great deal worse if they had known the truth, and, as there was nothing to be gained by it for any one, it seemed cruel to tell them. For good women are awful fools, you know; they are a great deal harder than we are; they think nothing of sending a man to hell; they’re awfully intolerant. ’Tany rate, I made up my mind that I’d say nothing except to you, leaving it to you to inform the wife or not, as you thought best. Then, suddenly, off I had to go on that yachting expedition. But as soon as I landed I started; and, here I am – on the first stage of the journey.”
Paul did not speak.
“I say, do you take it so hard, then?” said Knox, with an embarrassed laugh.
Paul got up. “You have done me the greatest service that one man can do another.” He put out his hand.
Knox, much relieved, gave it a prolonged shake. “Faults and all, he was the biggest kind of a trump, wasn’t he? Drunkards are death to the women – to the wives and mothers and sisters; but some of ’em are more lovable than lots of the moral skinflints that go nagging about, saving a penny, and grinding everybody but themselves. The trouble with Ferdie was that he was born without any conscience, just as some people have no ear for music; it was a case of heredity; and heredity, you know – ”
“You needn’t excuse him to me,” said Paul.