The morning after dawned sunless and chill. The sky was a pale leaden,
below which darker masses of clouds scurried. The wind blew strong,
steady, resistless. At breakfast they all sat shivering.
"Have Pete start fires," said King William to Charlotte, "and you had
better move Mrs. Garnier over to my room before night." For there were
not fire-places in all the rooms.
It was a dreary morning every way. The breakfast was poor and scant.
Aunt Mandy defended herself. "Ev'y thing done give out," she declared.
"Mis' Charlotte been so occapied she done forgot to order things f'om
town."
Convicted, Charlotte looked at Willy, then hastily took the defensive.
"Mandy ought to have reminded me," she declared.
"No, _ma'am_," responded Mandy. "I done quit this thing uv tellin' an'
havin' you say things give out too soon."
Willy sat stony. The Captain shivered. One realized all at once that
he was an old man. "The thermometer is at forty-six, King," he
remarked.
"Yes," said the son, "and falling."
All morning it fell. At noon it registered forty degrees. The wind
still swept a gale that whistled and shrieked at the corners of the
house, and the three women passed the morning in Charlotte's room,
shivering about the open fire-place. Pete spent his day chopping and
bringing in arm-loads of fat pine wood. All the sense of
dissatisfaction with Aden returned. Desolate grey sand is a hideous
exchange for sward, and orange trees look like toys from a Noah's ark.
At dinner there was a furrow between King's straight, dark brows.
"It's thirty-eight," he told his father, "and falling. It's clearing,
too."
Afterwards he was talking to Pete in the hall.
"No, sir," reiterated Pete, "we's too far below the line, ain't never
heard of sech a thing down here."
At four o'clock King came in to say he was going to town. "It's down
to thirty-four," he told his father. "I'm going in and telegraph up
the river for reports."
"And what then, son?" asked the Captain. "What can you do?"
It was a hitherto unexperienced danger threatening Aden. But youth
cannot sit and wait. Alexina, from the window in Charlotte's room, saw
King William fling himself on his horse at the gate and gallop off.
The wind had ceased. The live-oaks on either side of the old iron gate
stood motionless, their moss hanging in dreary, sombre lengths. There
was no sound of bird or insect. And it was cold--cold. Alexina had a
jacket over her woollen dress, for Aden houses are not built for cold,
which poured in at casements, beneath doors, at keyholes. Molly, on
the couch drawn up to the fire, coughed and coughed again. Alexina
went to her. "I'm cold," she complained; "and how dreary it is."
It had cleared and the sky was a pale, chilly blue. The sun set in a
yellow pallor. The night fell.
King came in and warmed his hands at the parlour fire. Alexina and
Charlotte had come down now.
"Thirty-two," he told his father, "and falling."
Neither the Captain nor his son ate much supper, but near-sighted
Charlotte, absorbed in things at hand, seemed unconscious of anything
more amiss than discomfort from the cold. After supper the son
disappeared.
Molly was coughing sadly. They had moved her bed across to Willy's
sitting-room, and a fire crackled on the stone hearth; but it was to
be one of the nights when she would not sleep, or but fitfully, and
when Celeste and Alexina would not sleep either. At nine o'clock they
persuaded her to bed.
"But talk, Malise, you and mammy talk. I don't have chance to think
when people keep on talking; and, mammy, rub my hands; it helps, to
have some one rub them."
At ten she wanted a drink of water. Alexina went to the window where
she had set a tumbler outside. The night was still and clear, the
stars glittering. The moon would rise soon now. How large the grove
showed itself from this south window, stretching away to the southwest
around the curving shores of Nancy. As Alexina opened the window she
shivered, despite the heavy wool of her white wrapper. As she took in
the glass--was it? Yes, over the surface of the water radiated a
ferny, splintery film, which was ice.
Molly, feverish and restless, drank it thirstily, and said it was
good, but it roused her so that she began to talk again.
"He said I couldn't prevent his praying for me," she was harping on
the minister. "For my soul," she laughed uneasily. "I told him to let
my soul alone. It's perfectly funny, Malise, that I've got to be
prayed over when I don't want to be."
The night wore on. Celeste was nodding, even while her brown hands
went on rubbing up and down the slim white wrist and arm.
The wood on the andirons broke and fell apart. The room grew shadowy.
"Build it up, Malise," begged Molly; "I like it light."
There was no more wood up-stairs. It was past twelve o'clock and the
house was still. Alexina opened the door into the hall. A lamp in case
of need, because of Molly, was burning on a stand. Alexina had
remembered that there was wood piled on the parlour hearth. Her
slippers were noiseless.
Down-stairs she paused, then tip-toed to the front door. The big
thermometer and barometer in one hung against a side of the recess and
could be seen through the glass side-lights. It was bright moonlight
now, the shadows of the rose vine clear cut on the porch floor. She
looked at the thermometer.
She looked again.
It had come, then, what never had come to Aden before. From the talk
of the day she had gleaned enough to know that the fruit hanging on
William Leroy's trees was but so much sodden, worthless pulp.
She turned back towards the parlour where the firelight was flickering
out the doorway, then stopped. He was in his father's chair before the
hearth. His elbow was on his knee and the hand on which his chin was
propped was clenched. The flame flared up. His face was haggard and
harsh.
She fled back up-stairs. Molly had fallen asleep, Celeste was
nodding.
The girl shut the door and dropped in a little heap on the bearskin
before the fire. She was shivering, but in her eyes, fixed on the
embers, was a yearning, brooding light that made them beautiful. Then
suddenly she hid her face in her hands, her head bowed on her knees,
and began to sob.