THE GARMENTS OF ANOTHER
Left alone, Josephine St. Auban at last attempted to pull herself
together. With the instinct of a newly caged animal, she made a
little tour of the room. First she noted the depth of the windows,
their height above the ground. No escape there, that was
sure--unless one, cat-like, could climb down this light ladder up
which the ivy ran between the cornice and the ground. No, it was a
prison.
In the room itself were good yet simple furnishings. The wall
paper was of a small and ancient figuring. In places it hung torn.
The furniture was old mahogany, apparently made in an earlier
generation. An engraving or so hung askew upon the wall, a broken
bust stood on a bracket. The tall tester bed, decorated with a
patchwork silken covering, showed signs of comfort, but was neither
modern nor over neat. The room was not furnished in poverty, but
its spirit, its atmosphere, its feeling, lacked something, a woman
could have told what.
She pushed back the heavy dresser, but the wall was without opening
behind it. She looked for the key to the door, and was glad to
find the lock in order. For the first time now she laid off her
bonnet, unfastened her wrap. With a hand which trembled she made
some sort of attempt at toilet, staring into the mirror at a face
scarcely recognized as her own. The corners of its mouth were
drooping plaintively. A faint blue lay beneath the eyes.
She faced the fact that she must pass the night alone. If it is at
night that the shadows fall upon the soul, then most of all does
woman, weak and timorous animal, long for some safe and accustomed
refuge place, for a home; and most of all does she shrink from
unfamiliar surroundings. Yet she slept, wearied to exhaustion.
The night was cool, the air fresh from the mountains coming in
through the opened window, and bringing with it calm.
Dawn came. A chirping cedar bird, busy in the near-by shrubbery,
wakened her with a care-free note. She started up and gazed out
with that sudden wonder and terror which at times seize upon us
when we awake in strange environment. Youth and vitality resumed
sway. She was alive, then. The night had passed, then. She was
as she had been, herself, her own, still. The surge of young blood
came back in her veins. The morning was there, the hills were
there, the world was there. Hope began once more with the throb of
her perfect pulse. She stretched a round white arm and looked down
it to her hand. She held up her fingers against the light, and the
blood in them, the soul in them, showed pink and clean between.
Slowly she pushed down the patchwork silk. There lay her splendid
limbs and body. Yes, it was she, it was herself, her own. Yes,
she would live, she would succeed, she would win! All of which, of
course, meant to her but one thing--escape.
A knock came at the door, really for the third time, although for
the first time heard. Old Sally entered, bearing her tray, with
coffee.
"Now you lay right still whah you is, Ma'am," she began. "You-all
wants a li'l bit o' coffee. Then I'll bring you up some real
breakfus'--how you like yuah aigs? Ma'am, you suttinly is lookin'
fine dis mawnin'. I'll fetch you yuah tub o' watah right soon now."
In spite of herself Josephine found herself unable to resist
interest in these proceedings. After all, her prison was not to be
without its comforts. She hoped the eggs would be more than two.
The old serving woman slowly moved about here and there in the
apartment, intent upon duties of her own. While thus engaged,
Josephine, standing femininely engaged before her glass, chanced to
catch sight of her in the mirror. She had swiftly slipped over and
opened the door of a wardrobe. Over her arm now was some feminine
garment.
"What have you there?" demanded Josephine, turning as swiftly.
"Jus' some things I'se gwine take away to make room for you, tha'ss
all, Ma'am."
Josephine approached and took up in her own hands these evidences
of an earlier occupancy of the room. They were garments of a day
gone by. The silks were faded, dingy, worn in the creases from
sheer disuse. Apparently they had hung untouched for some time.
[Illustration: They were garments of a day gone by.]
"Whose were these, Sally?" demanded Josephine.
"I dunno, Ma'am. I'se been mos'ly in the kitchen, Ma'am."
Josephine regarded her closely. No sign of emotion showed on that
brown mask. The gray brows above the small eyes did not flicker.
"I suppose these may have belonged to Mr. Dunwody's mother," said
Josephine carelessly.
"Yassam!"
"His sister?"
"Yassam!"
"Or his wife, perhaps?"
"Yassam, ef they really wuz one."
"Was there ever?" demanded Josephine sharply.
"Might a-been none, er might a-been a dozen, fur's I know. Us
folks don' study much 'bout whut white folks does."
"You must have known if there was any such person about--you've
been here for years. Don't talk nonsense!"
Temptation showed on Sally's face. The next instant the film came
again over the small brown eyes, the mask shut down again, as the
ancient negro racial secretiveness resumed sway. Josephine did not
ask for what she knew would be a lie.
"Where is my own maid, Jeanne?" she demanded. "I am anxious about
her."
"I dunno, Ma'am."
"Is she safe--has she been cared for?"
"I reckon she's all right."
"Can you bring her to me?"
"I'll try, Ma'am."
But breakfast passed and no Jeanne appeared. From the great house
came no sounds of human occupancy. Better struggle, conflict, than
this ominous waiting, this silence, here in this place of infamy,
this home of horror, this house of some other woman. It was with a
sense of relief that at length she heard a human voice.
Outside, beneath the window, quavering sounds rose. The words were
French, Canadian French, scarce distinguishable to an ear trained
only in the Old World. It was an old man singing, the air perhaps
that of some old chanson of his own country, sung by villagers long
before:
"Souvenirs du jeune age
Sont gravis dans mon coeur,
Quand je pense au village,
Revenant du bonheur--"
The old voice halted, at length resuming, idly: "_Quand je
pense--quand je pense_." Then after humming the air for a little
time it broke out as though in the chorus, bold and strong:
"Rendes-moi ma patrie, ou laisses-moi mourir!"
The words came to her with a sudden thrill. What did they not mean
to the alien, to the prisoner, to the outcast, anywhere in all the
world! "Give me back my country, or let me die!"
She stepped to the window and looked down. An old man, brown, bent
and wrinkled, was digging about the shrubbery, perhaps preparing
some of the plants for their winter sleep. He was clad in leather
and linsey, and seemed ancient as the hills. He resumed his song.
Josephine leaned out from the casement and softly joined in the
refrain:
"Rendez-moi ma patrie, ou laissez-moi mourir!"
[Illustration: An old man, brown, bent and wrinkled]
The old man dropped his spade. "_Mon Dieu_!" he exclaimed, and
looked all about, around, then at last up.
"Ah! _Bon jour_, Mademoiselle!" he said, smiling and taking off his
old fur cap. "You spik also my language, Mademoiselle?"
"_Mais oui_, Monsieur," rejoined Josephine; and addressed him
further in a few sentences on trivial topics. Then, suddenly
resolved, she stepped out of her own room, passed softly down the
stair, out through the wide central hall, and so, having
encountered no one, joined the ancient man on the lawn. It chanced
he had been at labor directly in front of one of the barred lower
windows. He now left his spade and stepped apart, essaying now a
little broken English.
"You seeng my song al_so_, Mademoiselle? You like the old song
from Canadian village, aye? I seeng heem many tam, me."
"Who are you?" demanded Josephine.
"Me, I am Eleazar, the ol' trap' man. Summers, I work here for
Monsieur Dunwodee. Verr' reech man, Monsieur Dunwodee. He say,
'Eleazar, you live here, all right.' When winter come I go back in
the heel, trap ze fur-r, Madame, ze cat, ze h'ottaire, ze meenk,
sometime ze coon, also ze skonk. Pret' soon I'll go h'out for trap
now, Mademoiselle."
"How long have you been here, Eleazar?" she asked.
"Many year, Mademoiselle. In these co'ntree perhaps twent'--thirt'
year, I'll don' know."
"Were you here when the lady lived here?" she demanded of him
directly.
He frowned at this suddenly. "I'll not know what you mean,
Mademoiselle."
"I mean the other lady, the wife of Mr. Dunwody."
"My faith! Monsieur Dunwody he'll live h'alone here, h'all tam."
She affected not to understand him. "How long since she was here,
Eleazar?" she demanded.
"What for you'll talk like those to me? I'll not know nossing,
Mademoiselle. I'll not even know who is Mademoiselle, or why
she'll been here, me. I'll not know for say, whether 'Madame,'
whether 'Mademoiselle.' _Mais_ 'Mademoiselle'--_que je pense_."
She looked about her hastily. "I'm here against my wish, Eleazar.
I want to get away from here as soon as I can."
He drew away in sudden fright. "I'll not know nossing at all, me,"
he reiterated.
"Eleazar, you like money perhaps?"
"Of course, yes. _Tout le monde il aime l'argent_."
"Then listen, Eleazar. Some day we will walk, perhaps. How far is
it to Cape Girardeau, where the French people live?"
"My son Hector he'll live there wance, on Cap' Girardeau. He'll
make the tub, make the cask, make the bar_rel_. Cap' Girardeau,
oh, perhaps two--t'ree day. Me, I walk heem once, maybe so feefty
mile, maybe so seexty mile, in wan day, two-t'ree a little more
tam, me. I was more younger then. But now my son he'll live on
St. Genevieve, French place there, perhaps thirtee mile. Cap'
Girardeau, seventy-five mile. You'll want for go there?" he added
cunningly.
"Sometime," she remarked calmly. Eleazar was shrewd in his own
way. He strolled off to find his spade.
Before she could resume the conversation Josephine heard behind her
in the hall a step, which already she recognized. Dunwody greeted
her at the door, frowning as he saw her sudden shrinking back at
sight of him.
"Good morning," he said. "You have, I hope, slept well. Have you
and Eleazar here planned any way to escape as yet?" He smiled at
her grimly. Eleazar had shuffled away.
"Not yet."
"You had not come along so far as details then;" smilingly.
"You intruded too soon."
"At least you are frank, then! You will never get away from here
excepting on one condition."
She made no answer, but looked about her slowly. Her eyes rested
upon a little inclosed place where some gray stones stood upright
in the grass; the family burial place, not unusual in such
proximity to the abode of the living, in that part of the country
at the time.
"One might escape by going there!" she pointed.
"They are my own, who sleep there," he said simply but grimly. "I
wish it might be your choice; but not now; not yet. We've a lot of
living to do yet, both of us."
She caught no note of relenting in his voice. He looked large and
strong, standing there at the entrance to his own home. At length
he turned to her, sweeping out his arm once more in a gesture
including the prospect which lay before them.
"If you could only find it in your heart," he exclaimed, "how much
I could do for you, how much you could do for me. Look at all
this. It's a home, but it's just a desert--a desert--the way it is
now."
"Has it always been so?"
"As long as I can remember."
"So you desire to make all life a desert for me! It is very noble
of you!"
Absorbed, he seemed not to hear her. "Suppose you had met me the
way people usually meet--and you some time had allowed me to come
and address you--could you have done that, do you reckon?" He
turned to her, an intent frown on his face, unsmiling.
"That's a question which here at least is absurd," she replied.
"You spoke once of that other country, abroad,--" he broke off,
shaking his head. "Who are you? I don't feel sure that I even
know your name as yet."
"I am, as you have been told, Josephine, Countess St. Auban. I am
French, Hungarian, American, what you like, but nothing to you. I
came to this country in the interest of Louis Kossuth. For that
reason I have been misunderstood. They think me more dangerous
than I am, but it seems I am honored by the suspicions of Austria
and America as well. I was a revolutionist yonder. I am already
called an abolitionist here. Very well. The name makes little
difference. The work itself--"
"Is that how you happened to be there on the boat?"
"I suppose so. I was a prisoner there. I was less than a chattel.
I was a piece of property, to be staked, to be won or lost at
cards, to be kidnapped, hand-cuffed, handled like a slave, it
seems. And you've the hardihood to stand here and ask me who I am!"
"I've only that sort of hardihood, Madam, which makes me ride
straight. If I had observed the laws, I wouldn't have you here
now, this morning."
"You'll not have me long. If I despise you as a man without
chivalry, I still more do so because you've neither ambition nor
any sense of morals."
"You go on to improve me. I thank you, Mademoiselle--Eleazar was
right. I heard him. I like you as 'Mademoiselle.'"
"What difference?" she flared out. "We are opposed at all angles
of the human compass. There is no common meeting ground between
us. Let me go."
He looked at her full in the face, his own features softened,
relenting for a time, as though her appeal had touched either his
mental or his moral nature. Then slowly, as he saw the excellence
of her, standing there, his face dropped back into its iron mold.
"You are a wonderful woman," he said, "wonderful. You set me on
fire--and it's only eight o'clock in the morning. I could crush
you--I could tear you to pieces. I never saw your like, nor ever
shall. Let you go? Yes! When I'm willing to let my blood and
soul go. Not till then. If I were out in that graveyard, with my
bones apart, and your foot crossed my grave, I'd get up and come,
and live again with you--live--again. I say, I could live again,
do you hear me?"
She broke out into a torrent of hot speech. He did not seem to
hear her. "The wrong of it," said he, "is that we should fight
apart and not together. Do as you like for to-day. Be happy as
you can. Let's live in the present, as we were, at least for
to-day. But to-night--"
He turned swiftly, and left her, so that she found left unsaid
certain questions as well as certain accusations she had stored for
this first meeting.