The morning Blair heard his sentence from his mother, Elizabeth spent
in her parlor in the hotel, looking idly out of the window at the tawny
current of the river covered with its slipping sheen of oil. Steamboats
were pushing up and down or nosing into the sand to unload their
cargoes; she could hear the creak of hawsers, the bang of gangplanks
thrown across to the shore, the cries and songs of stevedores sweating
and toiling on the wharf that was piled with bales of cotton, endless
blue barrels of oil, and black avalanches of coal. She did not think of
Blair's ordeal; she was not interested in it. She was not interested in
anything. Sometimes she thought vaguely of the letter which had never
been and would never be written to David, and sometimes of that message
from him which she had not yet been able to hear from Miss White's
lips; but for the most part she did not think of anything. She was
tired of thinking. She sat huddled in a chair, staring dully out of the
window; she was like a captive bird, moping on its perch, its poor
bright head sinking down into its tarnished feathers. She was so
absorbed in the noise and confusion of traffic that she did not hear a
knock. When it was repeated, she rose listlessly to answer it, but
before she reached the door it opened, and her uncle entered. Elizabeth
backed away silently. He followed her, but for a moment he was silent,
too--it seemed to Robert Ferguson as if youth had been wiped out of her
face. Under the shock of the change in her, he found for a moment
nothing to say. When he spoke his voice trembled--with anger, she
thought. "Mrs. Richie wrote me that I must come and see you. I told her
I would have nothing to do with you."
Elizabeth sat down without speaking.
"I don't see what good it does to come," he said, staring at the tragic
face. "Of course you know my opinion of you." She nodded. "So why
should I come?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I--I'm here. And you may come home sometimes, if you want to.
Miss White is willing to see you, I believe."
"Thank you, Uncle Robert."
As she spoke the door of the elevator in the hall clanged shut, and the
next moment Blair entered. He carried a loose twist of white paper in
his arms, and when, at the sight of Robert Ferguson, he tossed it down
on the table it fell open, and the fragrance of roses overflowed into
the room. Raging from the lash of his mother's tongue, he had rushed
back to the hotel to tell Elizabeth what had happened, but in spite of
his haste he stopped on the way to get her some flowers. He did not
think of them now, nor even of his own wrongs, for here was Robert
Ferguson attacking her! "Mr. Ferguson," he said, quietly, but reddening
to his temples, "of course you know that in the matter of Elizabeth's
hasty marriage I am the only one to blame. But though you blame me, I
hope you will believe that I will do my best to make her happy."
[Illustration: "OF COURSE YOU KNOW MY OPINION OF YOU"]
"I believe," said Elizabeth's uncle, "that you are a damned scoundrel."
He took up his hat and began to smooth the nap on his arm; then he
turned to Elizabeth--and in his heart he damned Blair Maitland more
vigorously than before: the lovely color had all been washed away by
tears, the amber eyes were dull, even the brightness of her hair seemed
dimmed. It was as if something had breathed upon the sparkle and
clearness; it was like seeing her through a mist. So, barking fiercely
to keep his lip from shaking, he said: "And I hope you understand,
Elizabeth, I have no respect for you, either."
She looked up with faint surprise. "Why, of course not."
"I insist," Blair said, peremptorily, "that you address my wife with
respect or leave her presence."
Mr. Ferguson put his hat down on the table, not noticing that the roses
spotted it with their wet petals, and stared at him. "Well, upon my
word!" he said. "Do you think I need _you_ to instruct me in my duty to
my niece?" Then, with sudden, cruel insight, he added, "David Richie's
mother has done that." As he spoke he bent over and kissed Elizabeth.
Instantly, with a smothered cry, she clung to him. There was just a
moment when, her head on his breast, he felt her soft hair against his
cheek--and a minute later, she felt something wet on her cheek. They
had both forgotten Blair. He slunk away and left them alone.
Robert Ferguson straightened up with a jerk. "Where--where--where's my
hat!" he said, angrily; "she said I was hard. She doesn't know
everything!" But Elizabeth caught his hand and held it to her lips.
When Blair came back she was quite gentle to him; yes, the roses were
very pretty; yes, very sweet. "Thank you, Blair," she said; but she did
not ask him about his interview with his mother; she had forgotten it.
He took the stab of her indifference without wincing; but suddenly he
was comforted, for when he began to tell her what his mother was going
to do, she was sharply aroused. She lifted her head--that spirited head
which in the old days had never drooped; and looked at him in absolute
dismay. Blair was being punished for a crime that was more hers than
his!
"Oh," she said, "it isn't fair! I'm the one to blame; it isn't fair!"
The indignation in her voice made his heart leap. "Of course it isn't
fair. But Elizabeth, I would pay any price to know that you were my
wife." He tried to take her hand, but she pushed him aside and began to
pace about the room.
"It isn't right!" she said; "she sha'n't treat you so!" She was almost
like the old, furious Elizabeth in that gust of distress at her own
responsibility for an injustice to him. But Blair dared to believe that
her anger was for his sake, and to have her care that he should lose
money made the loss almost welcome. He felt, through his rage at his
mother, a thrill of purpose, a desire to amount to something, for
Elizabeth's sake--which, if she could have known it, might have
comforted Sarah Maitland, sitting in her dreary bedroom, her face
hidden in her hands.
"Dearest, what do I care for her or her money?" he cried out; "_I have
you!_"
Elizabeth was not listening to him; she was thinking what she could do
to save him from his mother's displeasure. "I'll go and see her, and
tell her it was my fault," she said to herself. She had a vague feeling
that if she could soften Mrs. Maitland she and Blair would be quits.
She did not tell him of her purpose, but the mere having a purpose made
her face alert, and it seemed to him that she identified herself with
him and his interests. His eager denial of her self-accusation that she
had injured him, his ardent impulse to protect her from any remorse, to
take all the blame of a possible "mistake" on his own shoulders,
brought an astonishing unselfishness into his face. But Elizabeth would
not let him blame himself.
"It was all my fault," she insisted. "I was out of my head!"
At that he frowned sharply--"when you are eaten up with jealousy," his
mother had said. Oh, he did not need his mother to tell him what
jealousy meant: Elizabeth would not have married him if she had not
been 'out of her head'! "She still thinks of him," he said to himself,
as he had said many, many times in these two months of marriage--months
of alternate ecstasies and angers, of hopes and despairs. As for her
indignation at the way he had been treated, it meant nothing personal,
after all. In his disappointment he went out of the room in hurt
silence and left her to her thoughts of "him." This was the way most of
their talks ended.
But Elizabeth's indignation did not end. In the next two days, while
Mrs. Maitland was in Philadelphia making her naive offer to David, she
brooded over the situation. "I won't have Blair punished for my sins,"
she said to herself; "I won't have it!" Her revolt at an injustice was
a faint echo of her old violence. She had no one to talk to about it;
Nannie was too shy to come to see her, and Miss White too tearful to be
consulted. But she did not need advice; she knew what she must do. The
afternoon following Mrs. Maitland's return from Philadelphia she went
to see her. . . . She found Nannie in the parlor, sitting forlornly at
her drawing-board. Nannie had heard, of course, from Blair, the details
of that interview with his mother, and in her scared anger she planned
many ways of "making Mamma nice to Blair," but she had not thought of
Elizabeth's assistance. She took it for granted that Elizabeth would
not have the courage to "face Mamma."
"I have come to see Mrs. Maitland," Elizabeth said. "Is she in the
dining-room?"
Nannie quailed. "Oh, Elizabeth! How do you dare? But do go; and make
her forgive him. She wouldn't listen to me. And after all, Elizabeth,
you know that _you_--"
"Yes, I'm the one," Elizabeth said, briefly; and went swiftly across
the hall. She stood for a moment by Sarah Maitland's desk unnoticed.
"Mrs. Maitland!" Elizabeth's voice was peremptory. Blair's mother put
her pen down and looked up over her spectacles. "Oh--Elizabeth?"
"Mrs. Maitland, I came to tell you that you must not be angry at Blair.
It was all my fault."
"I guess, as I told your uncle, it was the pot and the kettle,
Elizabeth."
"No, no! I was angry, and I was--willing."
"Do you think it excuses Blair if you did throw yourself at his head?"
Elizabeth, who had thought that no lesser wound than the one she had
dealt herself could hurt her, flinched. But she did not defend herself.
"I think it does excuse him to some extent, and that is why I have come
to ask you to forgive him."
"Oh," said Mrs. Maitland, and paused; then with most disconcerting
suddenness, sneezed violently and blew her nose; "bless you, I've
forgiven him."
"Then," said Elizabeth, with a gasp of relief, "you won't disinherit
him!"
"Disinherit him? What's that got to do with forgiving him? Of course I
will disinherit him,--or rather, I have. My will is made; signed,
sealed. I've left him an income of a thousand dollars a year. That will
keep you from starvation. If Blair is worth more he'll earn more. If he
isn't, he can live on a thousand dollars--as better men than he have
done. Or he can go to the workhouse;--your uncle can take care of you.
I reckon I've paid taxes in this county long enough to entitle my son
to go to the workhouse if he wants to."
"But Mrs. Maitland," Elizabeth protested, hotly, "it isn't fair, just
because I--I let him marry me, to punish him--"
Mrs. Maitland struck her fist on the arm of her chair. "You don't know
what you are talking about! I am not 'punishing' him; that's the last
thing I was thinking of. If there's any 'punishing' going on, I'm the
one that's getting it. Listen, Elizabeth, and I'll try to explain--you
look as if you had some sense, so maybe you can understand. Nannie
couldn't; she has no brains. And Blair wouldn't--I guess he has no
heart. But this is how it is: Blair has always been a loafer--that's
why he behaved as he did to you. Satan finds some mischief still, you
know! So I'm cutting off his allowance, now, and leaving him
practically penniless in my will, to stop his loafing. To make him
work! He'll have to work, to keep from starving; and work will make a
man of him. As for you, you've done an abominable thing, Elizabeth; but
it's _done_! Now, turn to, and pay for your whistle: do your duty! Use
your influence to induce Blair to work. That's the best way to make up
for the injury you've done him. As for the injury he's done you, I hope
the Lord will send you some children to make up for that. Now, my--my
dear, clear out! clear out! I've got my work to do."
Elizabeth went back to Nannie's parlor, stinging under her
mother-in-law's candor. That she was able to feel it showed that her
apathy was wearing off. At any rate, the thought of the "injury" she
had done Blair, which she took to be the loss of fortune, strengthened
her sometimes wavering resolution to stay with him. She did not tell
him of this interview, or of its effect upon her, but she told her
uncle--part of it. She went to him that night, and sitting down on a
hassock at his feet, her head against his knee, she told him how Blair
was to be punished for her crime--she called it a crime. Then, in a low
voice, she told him, as well as she could, just how the crime had been
committed.
"I guessed how it was," he said. And they were silent for a while. Then
he broke out, huskily: "I don't care a hang about Blair or his mother's
will. He deserves all he gets--or won't get, rather! But, Elizabeth,
if--if you want to be free--"
"Uncle Robert, what I want isn't of any importance any more."
"I talked it over as a supposititious case with Howe the other day, and
he said that if Blair would agree, possibly--mind you, only
_possibly_;--a divorce could be arranged."
She sunk her head in her hands; then answered in a whisper: "Uncle, I
did it. I've got to see it through."
After a minute's silence he put his hand on her soft hair. "Bully for
you, Elizabeth," he said, brokenly. Then, to escape from the emotional
demand of the moment, he began to bark: "You are outrageously careless
about money. How on earth a girl, who has been brought up by a man, and
so might be expected to have some sense in such matters, can be so
careless, I don't understand! You've never asked me about that legacy.
I've put the money in the bank. Your bank-book is there on my table."
Elizabeth was silent. That money! Oh, how could she ever touch it? But
in view of Mrs. Maitland's decision it was perfectly obvious that
ultimately she would have to touch it. "Blair can live on it." she
thought--it was a relief to her to stab herself with words;--"_Blair_
'can live on it for two years.'"