THE PRODIGAL
At Midfields that evening the late moonlight poured a flood of radiance
on the wide columned porch with its climbing roses where Echo sat on
the step, chin in hand, absorbed in her own thought. She was alone.
Nancy had slipped off to bed, her mother had retired to her room and
her father to the quiet of the library and his reading.
From the kitchens she could hear the muffled clash of table-silver and
the strident voice of Aunt Emily the cook, grumbling at Nelson:
"Yo'-all hurry erlong wid dem ar fawks, now! Speck ah's gwine wait
heah all _night_, yo' triflin' trash, yo'? Yo' heah me--yo' ain'
blind! What yo' 'spose Marse Bev'ly _pay_ yo' fo', anyhow?" From far
down the road, beyond the gates, she could hear the faint twang of a
guitar and the refrain of strolling, darky voices:
"Reign! Reign! Reign-a mah Lawd!
Reign, Marse Jesus, reign!
Reign salvation in-a mah soul,
Reign, Marse Jesus, reign!"
These died away with the sharp, eager bark of a dog. Then at length
distinguishable sounds faded and there was only the deep, somnolent
peace of the southern night, with the scent of the roses wreathing the
garden with their intense, mystical odour--only the faint stirring of
little leaves playing hide-and-seek with their shadows, and the thin,
fairy tone-carpet woven by the myriad looms of night insects for near
whispers to tread on.
Since that homeward ride she had had no time to ponder upon the event
of the day. At dinner the trial had been touched upon but casually.
Now that she was alone, however, it had rushed uppermost in her
thought. It was not that Harry Sevier had lost the verdict: but his
speech had seemed to her, in the tension of the crisis, with a man's
honour and liberty at stake, inconsequential and almost flippant. And
in the measure of her disappointment she had realised anew the depth of
her regard for him. Again and again she pictured the scene in the
courtroom but each time her thought returned upon itself, baffled and
puzzled.
At length, with a long breath that was almost a sigh, she stirred, and
rising, passed into the library where the Judge sat in the arm-chair by
his reading lamp. "You're a disgraceful night-owl," she said, "and I
refuse to keep you in countenance any longer."
He smiled at her. "That's right, Sorrel-Top! It's time for
beauty-sleep if you and Nancy are off to ride in the morning. Just
give me my eye-shade, will you, before you go?"
She brought the green crescent and snapped it on his forehead. "There!
You haven't told me how you like my dress to-night. It's a new one."
He looked. "It's beautiful."
She turned about before him. "I do choose well sometimes, don't I?"
"You do everything well, my dear." In his tone now was a quaint and
curious humility which always touched her when she discerned
it--something of utter fondness and dependance--and she smoothed his
iron-grey hair, one of her characteristic endearments, as she kissed
him good night.
Upstairs Echo opened the door of her room softly. It was hung in
blue--that shade which one sees in a Gainsborough ribbon, a Romney sash
or a Reynolds sky--and its furniture was of simple white, with large
pink dahlias trailing over the chintz window-curtains and
chair-cushions. In the dim night-light the triple mirror of the
dresser reflected the carven four-post bed, in one of whose pillows
Nancy's dark head was already buried.
"Is that you, Echo?"
"Yes, it's I. Were you asleep already?"
"Almost," yawned Nancy. "I _shall_ be in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
Has Chilly come home yet?"
"No, not yet."
"Do you think he's really at the club, Echo?"
"Of course I do."
"Men are so queer!" sighed Nancy, drowsily. "We had such a lovely
evening--all except Chilly's not being there."
Echo slipped off her gown and drew out the pins from her hair, letting
it fall in a shimmering cloud to her waist. Then in the moon-light she
drew a deep chair before the open window and began to brush out that
wonderful mass of stirring gold that curled and waved about her bare,
round shoulders. Below her the garden lay, a mass of olive shadows,
wound in cloudy golds and misty greens, sprinkled with moon-dust and
drenched with the dizzying scent of roses and honeysuckle. All was
lapped in the utter quiet of the night--only the swift wing of a
night-bird shook the darker clump of ivy that marked the sun-dial. A
long time she sat there, the brush parting and smoothing the bronze
mesh with long sweeping movements, gazing into the whisper-haunted
gloom and listening to the measured breathing of the girl behind her
that seemed to form a rhythmical current for her own thoughts.
All at once in the hush there came the clashing of the gate at the foot
of the drive and jovial "good-byes," mingled with a hilarious voice
asseverating that its owner had had "the time of his young life."
She bit her lip. "It's Chilly!" she whispered, with a frowning look
over her shoulder.
She listened intently. There was the crunch of an uncertain step on
the gravel, the sound of a stumble from the porch--then the slamming of
the front door.
The dulled sound reverberated through the old house. It roused Nancy
and she sat upright in the drift of silken coverlets, her eyes heavy
with sleep. "Is it Chilly?"
"Yes. He has just come in."
"Is he--?"
"I'm afraid so, dear."
The younger girl caught her breath. "Oh, I hope your father has gone
to bed. He's so hard on him!"
Echo turned. "How can he be otherwise?" she said, sadly. "It's so
often and often it happens, nowadays. Won't you try and influence him?
He cares for you, darling!"
Nancy's hands were clasped tight about her knees. She stirred
uneasily. "How can I, Echo? A boy has to have a little bit of a good
time once in awhile. I wouldn't want him to be a molly-coddle! He
won't be any the worse for it when he gets older and settled down."
"The worse for it!" The words fell sadly. "Don't you think he is the
worse for it already? He's making no progress with his law-study and
he's been two years out of college, now. There's nothing to blame but
his drinking--and the company he keeps. What will be the end of it?
Oh, Nancy, you have a responsibility. Every woman has with some one
man. If women only wouldn't countenance it as they do!"
"But, Echo--you talk as if Chilly was--as if you thought he was doing
something disgraceful. Why, he's a gentleman; he _couldn't_ be
anything but that, no matter what he did!"
Echo came to the bed and sat down beside the other. In her filmy
night-gown, wound in the mist of her loosened gold shadowed hair she
looked like some ethereal thing in the moonlight.
"Ah, that's just what so many say! That a gentleman is a gentleman
whether he is drunk or sober! It's not so with other things. Is a
gentleman a gentleman whether he lies, or cheats at cards, or not?
Isn't there to be any standard, really? Don't you see that there never
will be any penalty--as far as drinking is concerned--until women
_make_ it? Listen, Nancy. The year I came out, I went to a dance--my
first big one. There was a boy there who followed me about all over
the floor. He wanted me to dance with him, and he was--he could hardly
walk. At first I was frightened, but at last I grew angry. I asked a
lady why he was not asked to leave the floor. She seemed quite
astonished and indignant. 'But,' she said, 'don't you know who he
_is_? That's the son of General Moultrie!' It was Cale Moultrie. You
know what became of him, don't you?"
"Yes." Nancy's voice was muffled. "But Chilly--"
"Oh, my dear, there was a time when Cale drank no more than the others,
and everybody liked him--as they do Chilly. It's coming to be the same
with him, I'm afraid. There's no penalty for him yet because he's
Chisholm Allen--because he's father's son!"
She stopped, caught by the sound of a sob. In another moment her arms
were around the frail little body and the flower-like face was pressed
hard against her breast.
"I don't care if he _is_ d-d-dissipated," said Nancy passionately.
"I'd rather have him come to me d-d-drunk than any other man sober!
He's just Ch-Ch-Chilly, all the same!"