"I said I would not write. And I will not, after I once know that your
refusal has been sent. It does not seem to me that I am asking much, it
cannot long be kept a secret in any case, and, in my opinion, should not
be. Let Aunt Katrina write me what has happened; she won't do _you_ any
too much justice--you can be sure of that! I left Gracias that same day,
as I said I would. I have come back here and gone to work again; a man
can always do that."
This letter of Winthrop's was from New York. He had been there two
weeks, and there were now but ten days left of the month which Margaret
had said her husband had allowed for her answer. He did not speak of
this in his letter; but it engrossed all his thoughts.
On the day when he could have had a reply from East Angels, there was no
letter from the South. He waited twenty-four hours to allow for delays
or accident.
Still nothing.
Margaret did not then intend to reply; it was a case where she would
have written immediately (or asked Aunt Katrina to write), if she had
intended to reply at all.
"I am not worthy even to be spoken to, it seems; I am the mud under her
feet. But it shall not be so easy as she thinks!"
He took the next train bound for Washington, Richmond, and the St.
John's River. It was the third time he had made the long journey within
the space of four weeks.
He was in such a fever now--fever of irritation and anxiety--that he
did not any longer try to keep up his trust in her, to be certain, as he
had endeavored to be during the intervening time, that she had been
influenced by what he had said, or by her own more deliberate
reflections, and that in any case, whether he was to be informed of it
or kept in ignorance, she was not going back to Lanse. It now seemed to
him possible that, in her strange self-sacrificing sense of duty, she
might go. He ground his teeth at the thought.
The leisurely train was crossing the pine lands of North Carolina,
making such long waits at grassy little stations to take on wood that
those passengers who had a taste for botany had time to explore the
surrounding country for flowers. A new thought came to him; it was that
he need not have counted so carefully the days of the month, or depended
upon that; perhaps she had not waited for the whole time to pass,
perhaps she had gone to Fernandina, was already there. Meanwhile--the
train crept.
"Oh, can you tell me--will I reach Fayetteville before dark?" said a
girl behind him. He knew it was a girl by the voice. She was speaking,
apparently, to some one who shared her seat.
This person, an older woman (again judging by the tone), was well
informed as to the methods of reaching Fayetteville, the trains, and the
hours. This matter settled, they went on talking.
"I have been up in the mountains teaching," the older woman presently
remarked.
"Oh," said the girl, sympathetically (falling inflection).
"I have been there a year, and I trust when I came away I left light
behind."
"_Oh_ yes."
"At present I have no situation, though I have one in view. They are
most anxious to have me, but I say to myself, '_Will_ I do the most good
there? Is it a place where my influence will carry the most weight?' For
we should all do the best we can with our talents, it is a duty; I do
the best I can with mine."
"Oh _yes_, I reckon so. And you speak so beautifully too. Perhaps you've
spoken?--I mean before people?"
"Never in public," answered the other voice, reprovingly; "to my
pupils, but never in public. I think a woman should always keep her life
secluded, she should be the comfort and the ornament of a purely private
home. _We_ do not exhibit our charms--which should be sacred to the
privacy of the boudoir--in the glare of lecture-rooms; _we_ prefer to
be, and to _remain_, the low-voiced, retiring mothers of a race of giant
sons whom the Muse of History will immortalize in the characters of
soldier, statesman, and divine."
"Oh yes," said the girl's voice again, in good-natured, if inattentive,
acquiescence.
Winthrop glanced back. The young girl was charmingly pretty, with a
sweet indifference in her eyes. The older woman--she was over fifty--was
of a martial aspect, broad-shouldered, large-boned, and tall; her upper
lip was that of a warrior, her high cheek-bones had an air of resolute
determination. Comfort and ornament of a purely private home, as she had
just proclaimed herself, it seemed almost as if her powers would be
wasted there; she was a woman to lead an army through a breach without
flinching. The giant sons in her case were presumably imaginary, for she
gave her name to her companion as they parted: "Miss Louisa Mearns--they
_call_ me Lulette." Her voice was very soft and sweet.
"Southerner, of course, with those lovely tones," was Winthrop's mental
comment as she passed, stepping rather delicately, and, tall as she was,
without any stride. "But she's got a thorough soul of Maine, though she
doesn't dream of it. There must have been transmigration somewhere among
her ancestors." And then from sheer weariness and restlessness he went
into another car.
His feeling was that this train would be in North Carolina a week. But
it got on. It traversed South Carolina and Georgia, it passed through
the cotton country, it crossed beautiful rivers rolling slowly towards
the sea, then it made a wide detour round Okefinokee swamp, and at last
brought him again to the margin of the broad St John's. It seemed to him
that half a lifetime had passed since he left it.
He reached East Angels in the afternoon. Cindy appeared. Yes, Mrs.
Rutherford and Mrs. Harold were both at home; they were in Mrs.
Rutherford's sitting-room up-stairs. But when she had preceded him and
opened the door of that apartment, only Aunt Katrina was there.
"Mercy, Evert! where did you come from?" she exclaimed, in a key rather
higher than her usual calm tones. It seemed to him that she looked
frightened.
"From New York, of course. You are alone? Where is Margaret?" He spoke
abruptly.
"Oh, she's _here_," responded Aunt Katrina, quickly, in a reassuring
voice.
But her emphasis told him that it might not be "here" long, it might be
some other word. Would that word be "Fernandina?"
At any rate, Margaret was not yet gone.
"What do you mean by 'here?' She's not in the room."
"She doesn't spend every moment with me; I want _some_ time for my own
reading and--and meditation. She's in the garden, or the drawing-room, I
suppose--somewhere about."
"Aunt Katrina, tell me in so many words--is she going back to Lanse?"
"Why--er--why, yes, I believe so." Aunt Katrina's voice fairly faltered.
"You have had a hand in this: you have urged her."
"Well, Evert, she's Lanse's wife, you know."
"Where is she?"
"I have told you already that I don't know."
"Not gone?" he said, with quick-returning suspicion.
"Oh dear no! What are you thinking of?"
"I'm thinking that I cannot trust either of you! When is she going,
then?"
"Well, there has been a good deal about that. Back and forth, you know;
letters and--"
"_When?_" he repeated, imperatively.
"To-morrow," answered Aunt Katrina, in almost the same tone as his own.
"How you do storm, Evert!"
But he had left the room before her words were finished.
Margaret was not in the drawing-room, she was not in the garden. He met
Pablo. "Do you know where Mrs. Harold is?" he said.
"She's in der yorrange grove, sah. I ben dar myse'f looken' arter der
place a little, as I has ter, en I see her dar." Pablo meant the old
grove--his grove; the new grove was on the other side of the house, and
was as ugly as a new grove always is. Down to this hour old Pablo had
never become satiated with the delight of working in the old grove at
his own pleasure and according to southern methods alone; poor little
Melissa Whiting's voice had long been stilled, but Pablo was rioting
yet.
The old grove was in bloom. It was not so productive now as it had been
in Mrs. Thorne's day, but it was more beautiful; Pablo's rioting had not
included steady labor of any sort, there had been no pruning, and very
little digging; the aisles were green and luxuriant, the ground
undisturbed. The perfume of the blossoms filled the air; on some of the
trees blossoms and ripe fruit were hanging together.
Winthrop walked on under the bright foliage and bride-like bloom. But
there was no sign of Margaret.
"Of course she would not be here," he thought, "or at least she would
not stay; it's far too sweet."
At length he saw her light dress. She was not in the grove, as he had
thought; she was in a glade beyond it. Here there was an old nondescript
pillar, crowned by a clumsy vase. She was leaning against this ornament,
with her back to the grove; one arm lay across the top. She wore no
gloves, and he could see her pretty hand with its single ring, the band
of plain gold. In front of her there was the low curb of an old well,
overgrown with jessamine; she appeared to be looking at it.
His footsteps had made no sound on the soft earth, he came upon her
before she discovered him.
"I don't think you can be much surprised to see me," he said; "you have
waited here to the last hour of your allotted time. You might have gone
days ago, and then I should not have seen you at all; but you have
waited. It looks quite as if you expected me to come, as if you wished
to give me one more final thrust before you joined your excellent
husband. Of course I deserve nothing better."