Through the grove of oaks a single lighted window glimmered now
red, now yellow, as lamplight struggled with firelight inside,
and Maria, walking rapidly through the dark, felt that the
comfortable warmth shining on the panes was her first welcome
home. The night had grown chilly, and she gathered her wraps
closely together as she hastened along the gravelled drive and
ran up the broad stone steps to the closed door. There was no
answer to her knock, and, finding that the big silver handle of
the door turned easily, she entered the hall and passed
cautiously through the dusk that enveloped the great staircase.
Her foot was on the first step, when a stream of light issued
suddenly from the dining-room, and, turning, she stood for an
instant hesitating upon the threshold. A lamp burned dimly in the
center of the old mahogany table, where a scant supper for two
had been hastily laid. In the fireplace a single hickory log sent
out a shower of fine sparks, which hovered a moment in the air
before they were sucked up by the big stone chimney. The room was
just as Maria had left it six years before, and yet in some
unaccountable fashion it seemed to have lost the dignity which
she remembered as its one redeeming feature. Nothing was changed
that she could see--the furniture stood in the same places, the
same hard engravings hung on the discoloured walls--but as she
glanced wonderingly about her she was aware of a shock greater
than the one she had nerved herself to withstand. It was, after
all, the atmosphere that depressed her, she concluded with her
next thought--the general air of slovenly unrefinement revealed
in the details of the room and of the carelessly laid table.
While she still hesitated uncertainly on the threshold, the
pantry door opened noiselessly and Miss Saidie appeared, carrying
a glass dish filled with preserved watermelon rind. At sight of
Maria she gave a start and a little scream, and the dish fell
from her hands and crashed upon the floor.
"Sakes alive! Is that you, Maria?"
Hastily crossing the room, Maria caught the little woman in her
arms and kissed her twice.
"Why, you poor thing! I've frightened you to death," she said,
with a laugh.
"You did give me a turn; that's so," replied Miss Saidie, as she
wiped the moisture from her crimson face. "It's been so long
since anybody's come here that Malindy--she's the only servant
we've got now--was actually afraid to answer your knock. Then
when I came in and saw you standing by the door, I declare it
almost took my breath clean away. I thought for a moment you were
a ghost, you looked so dead white in that long, black dress."
"Oh, I'm flesh and blood, never fear," Maria assured her. "Much
more flesh and blood, too, than I was when I went away--but I've
made you spill all your preserves. What a shame!"
Miss Saidie glanced down a little nervously. "I must wipe it up
before Brother Bill comes in," she said; "it frets him so to see
a waste."
Picking up a dust-cloth she had left on a chair, she got down on
her knees and began mopping up the sticky syrup which trickled
along the floor. "He hates so to throw away anything," she
pursued, panting softly from her exertions, "that if he were to
see this I believe it would upset him for a week. Oh, he didn't
use to be like that, I know," she added, meeting Maria's amazed
look; "and it does seem strange, for I'm sure he gets richer and
richer every day--but it's the gospel truth that every cent he
makes he hugs closer than he did the last. I declare, I've seen
him haggle for an hour over the price of salt, and it turns him
positively sick to see anything but specked potatoes on the
table. He kinder thinks his money is all he's got, I reckon, so
he holds on to it like grim death."
"But it isn't all he has. Where's Will?"
Miss Saidie shook her head, with a glance in the direction of the
door.
"Don't mention him if you want any peace," she said, rising with
difficulty to her feet. "Your grandpa has never so much as laid
eyes on him sence he gave him that little worn-out place side by
side with Sol Peterkin--and told him he'd shoot him if he ever
caught sight of him at the Hall. You've come home to awful worry,
thar's no doubt of it, Maria."
"Oh, oh, oh," sighed Maria, and, tossing her hat upon the sofa,
pressed her fingers on her temples. With the firelight thrown
full on the ivory pallor of her face, the effect she produced was
almost unreal in its intensity of black and white--an absence of
colour which had in it all the warmth and the animation we are
used to associate with brilliant hues. A peculiar mellowness of
temperament, the expression of a passionate nature confirmed in
sympathy, shone in the softened fervour of her look as she bent
her eyes thoughtfully upon the flames.
"Something must be done for Will," she said, turning presently.
"This can't go on another day."
Miss Saidie caught her breath sharply, and hastened to the head
of the table, as Fletcher's heavy footsteps crossed the hall.
"For heaven's sake, be careful," she whispered warningly, jerking
her head nervously from side to side.
Fletcher entered with a black look, slamming the door heavily
behind him, then, suddenly catching sight of Maria, he stopped
short on the threshold and stared at her with hanging jaws.
"I'll be blessed if it ain't Maria!" he broke out at last.
Maria went toward him and held out her cheek for his kiss.
"I've surprised you almost as much as I did Aunt Saidie," she
said, with her cheerful laugh, which floated a little strangely
on the sullen atmosphere.
Catching her by the shoulder, Fletcher drew her into the circle
of the lamplight, where he stood regarding her in gloomy silence.
"You've filled out considerable," he remarked, as he released her
at the end of his long scrutiny. "But thar was room for it,
heaven knows. You'll never be the sort that a man smacks his lips
over, I reckon, but you're a plum sight better looking than you
were when you went away."
Maria winced quickly as if he had struck her; then, regaining her
composure almost instantly, she drew back her chair with a casual
retort.
"But I didn't come home to set the county afire," she said. "Why,
Aunt Saidie, what queer, coarse china! What's become of the
white-and-gold set I used to like?"
A purple flush mounted, slowly to Miss Saidie's forehead.
"I was afraid it would chip, so I packed it away," she explained.
"Me and Brother Bill ain't used to any better than this, so we
don't notice. Things will have to be mighty fine now, I reckon,
since you've got back. You were always particular about looks, I
remember."
"Was I?" asked Maria curiously, glancing down into the plate
before her. For the last few years she had schooled herself to
despise what she called the "silly luxuries of living," and yet
the heavy white cup which Miss Saidie handed her, and the sound
of Fletcher drinking his coffee, aroused in her the old poignant
disgust.
"I don't think I'm over particular now," she added pleasantly,
"but we may as well get out the other china tomorrow, I think."
"You won't find many fancy ways here--eh, Saidie?" inquired
Fletcher, with a chuckle. "Thar's been a precious waste of
victuals on this place, but it's got to stop. I ain't so sure you
did a wise thing in coming back," he finished abruptly, turning
his bloodshot eyes on his granddaughter.
"You aren't? Well, I am," laughed Maria; "and I promise you that
you shan't find me troublesome except in the matter of china."
"Then you must have changed your skin, I reckon."
"Changed? Why, I have, of course. Six years isn't a day, you
know, and I've been in many places." Then, as a hint of interest
awoke in his eyes, she talked on rapidly, describing her years
abroad and the strange cities in which she had lived. Before she
had finished, Fletcher had pushed his plate away and sat
listening with the ghost of a smile upon his face.
"Well, you'll do, I reckon," he said at the end, and, pushing
back his chair, he rose from his place and stamped out into the
hall.
When he had gone into his sitting-room and closed the door behind
him, Miss Saidie nodded smilingly, as she measured out the
servant's sugar in a cracked saucer. "He's brighter than I've
seen him for days," she said; "and now, if you want to go
upstairs, Malindy has jest lighted your fire. She had to carry
the wood up while we were at supper, so Brother Bill wouldn't see
it. He hates even to burn a log, though they are strewn round
loose all over the place."
Maria, was feeding Agag on the hearth, and she waited until he
had finished before she took up her hat and wraps and went toward
the door. "Oh, you needn't bother to light me," she said, waving
Miss Saidie back when she would have followed. "Why, I could find
my way over this house at midnight without a candle." Then, with
a cheerful "Goodnight," she called Agag and went up the dusky
staircase.
A wood fire was burning in her room, and she stood for a moment
looking pensively into the flames, a faint smile sketched about
her mouth. Then throwing off her black dress in the desire for
freedom, she clasped her hands above her head and paced slowly up
and down the shadowy length of the room. In the flowing measure
of her walk; in the free, almost defiant, movement of her
upraised arms; and in the ample lines of her throat and bosom,
which melted gradually into the low curves of her hips, she might
have stood for an incarnation of vital force. One felt
instinctively that her personality would be active rather than
passive--that the events which she attracted to herself would be
profoundly emotional in their fulfilment.
Notwithstanding the depressing hour she had just passed, and the
old vulgarity which had shocked her with a new violence, she was
conscious, moving to and fro in the shadows, of a strange
happiness--of a warmth of feeling which pervaded her from head to
foot, which fluttered in her temples and burned like firelight in
her open palms. The place was home to her, she realised at last,
and the surroundings of her married life--the foreign towns and
the enchanting Italian scenery--showed in her memory with a
distant and alien beauty. Here was what she loved, for here was
her right, her heritage--the desolate red roads, the luxuriant
tobacco fields, the primitive and ignorant people. In her heart
there was no regret for any past that she had known, for over the
wild country stretching about her now there hung a romantic and
mysterious haze.
A little later she was aroused from her reverie by Miss Saidie,
who came in with a lighted lamp in her hand.
"Don't you need a light, Maria? I never could abide to sit in the
dark."
"Oh, yes; bring it in. There, put it on the bureau and sit down
by the fire, for I want to talk to you. No, I'm not a bit tired;
I am only trying to fit myself again in this room. Why, I don't
believe you've changed a pin in the pincushion since I went
away."
Miss Saidie dusted the top of the bureau with her apron before
she placed the tall glass lamp upon it.
"Thar warn't anybody to stay in it," she answered, as she sat
down in a deep, cretonne-covered chair and pushed back the
hickory log with her foot. "I declare, Maria, I don't see what
you want to traipse around with that little poor-folksy yaller
dog for. He puts me in mind of the one that old blind nigger up
the road used to have."
"Does he?" asked Maria absently, in the voice of one whose
thoughts are hopelessly astray.
She was standing by the window, holding aside the curtain of
flowered chintz, and after a moment she added curiously: "There's
a light in the fields, Aunt Saidie. What does it mean?"
Crossing the room, Miss Saidie followed the gesture with which
Maria pointed into the night.
"That's on the Blake place," she said; "it must be Mr.
Christopher moving about with his lantern."
"You call him Mr. Christopher?"
"Oh, it slipped out. His father's name was Christopher before
him, and I used to open the gate for him when I was a child. Many
and many a time the old gentleman's given me candy out of his
pocket, or a quarter to buy a present, and one Christmas he
brought me a real wax doll from the city. He wasn't old then, I
can tell you, and he was as handsome as if he had stepped out of
a fashion plate. Why, young Mr. Christopher can't hold a candle
to him for looks."
"He was a gentleman, then? I mean the old man."
"Who? Mr. Christopher's father? I don't reckon thar was a freer
or a finer between here and London."
Maria's gaze was still on the point of light which twinkled
faintly here and there in the distant field.
"Then how, in heaven's name, did he come to this?" she asked, in
a voice that was hardly louder than a whisper.
"I never knew; I never knew," protested Miss Saidie, going back
to her chair beside the hearth. "Brother Bill and he hate each
other worse than death, and it was Will's fancy for Mr.
Christopher that brought on this awful trouble. For a time, I
declare it looked as if the boy was really bewitched, and they
were together morning, noon, and night. Your grandpa never got
over it, and I believe he blames Mr. Christopher for every last
thing that's happened--Molly Peterkin and all."
"Molly Peterkin?" repeated Maria inquiringly. "Why, how absurd!
And, after all, what is the matter with the girl?" Dropping the
curtain, she came over to the fire, and sat listening attentively
while Miss Saidie told, in spasmodic jerks and pauses, the
foolish story of Will's marriage.
"Your grandpa will never forgive him--never, never. He has turned
him out for good and all, and he talks now of leaving every cent
of his money to foreign missions."
"Well, we'll see," said Maria soothingly. "I'll go over there to-
morrow and talk with Will, and then I'll try to bring grandfather
to some kind of reason. He can't let them starve, rich as he is,
there's no sense in that--and if the worst comes, I can at least
share the little I have with them. It may supply them with bread,
if Molly will undertake to churn her own butter."
"Then your money went, too?"
"The greater part of it. Jack was fond of wild schemes, you know.
I left it in his hands." She had pronounced the dead man's name
so composedly that Miss Saidie, after an instant's hesitation,
brought herself to an allusion to the girl's loss.
"How you must miss him, dear," she ventured timidly; "even if he
wasn't everything he should have been to you, he was still your
husband."
"Yes, he was my husband," assented Maria quietly.
"You were so brave and so patient, and you stuck by him to the
last, as a wife ought to do. Then thar's not even a child left to
you now."
Maria turned slowly toward her and then looked away again into
the fire. The charred end of a lightwood knot had fallen on the
stones, and, picking it up, she threw it back into the flames.
"For a year before his death his mind was quite gone," she said
in a voice that quivered slightly; "he had to be taken to an
asylum, but I went with him and nursed him till he died. There
were times when he would allow no one else to enter his room or
even bring him his meals. I have sat by him for two days and
nights without sleeping, and though he did not recognise me, he
would not let me stir from my place."
"And yet he treated you very badly--even his family said so."
"That is all over now, and we were both to blame. I owed him
reparation, and I made it, thank God, at the last."
As she raised her bare arms to the cushioned back of her chair
Miss Saidie caught a glimpse of a deep white scar which ran in a
jagged line above her elbow.
"Oh, it is nothing, nothing," said Maria hastily, clasping her
hands again upon her knees. "That part of my life is over and
done with and may rest in peace. I forgave him then, and he
forgives me now. One always forgives when one understands, you
know, and we both understand to-day--he no less than I. The chief
thing was that we made a huge, irretrievable mistake--the mistake
that two people make when they think that love can be coddled and
nursed like a domestic pet--when they forget that it goes wild
and free and comes at no man's call. Folly like that is its own
punishment, I suppose."
"My dear, my dear," gasped Miss Saidie, in awe-stricken sympathy
before the wild remorse in Maria's voice.
"I did my duty, as you call it; I even clung to it desperately,
and, much as I hated it, I never rebelled for a single instant.
The nearest I came to loving him, I think, was when, after our
terrible life together, he lay helpless for a year and I was with
him day and night. If I could have given him my strength then,
brain and body, I would have done it gladly, and that agonised
compassion was the strongest feeling I ever had for him." She
broke off for a long breath, and sat looking earnestly at the
amazed little woman across from her. "You could never
understand!" she exclaimed impetuously, "but I must tell you--I
must tell you because I can't live with you day after day and
know that there is an old dead lie between us. I hate lies, I
have had so many of them, and I shall speak the truth hereafter,
no matter what comes of it. Anything is better than a long,
wearing falsehood, or than those hideous little shams that we
were always afraid to touch for fear they would melt and show us
our own nakedness. That is what I loathe about my life, and that
is what I've done with now forever. I am myself now for the first
time since I was born, and at last I shall let my own nature
teach me how to live."
Her intense pallor was illumined suddenly by a white flame,
whether from the leaping of some inner emotion or from the
sinking firelight which blazed up fitfully Miss Saidie could not
tell. As she turned her head with an impatient movement her black
hair slipped its heavy coil and spread in a shadowy mass upon her
bared shoulders.
"I'm sure I don't know how it is," said Miss Saidie, wiping her
eyes. "But I can't see that it makes any difference whether you
were what they call in love or not, so long as you were a good,
well-behaved wife. I don't think a man troubles himself much
about a woman's heart after he's put his wedding ring on her
finger; and though I know, of course, that thar's a lot of
nonsense spoken in courtship, it seems to me they mostly take it
out in talking. The wives that I've seen are generally as anxious
about thar setting hens as they are about thar husband's hearts,
and I reckon things are mighty near the same the world over."
Without noticing her, Maria went on feverishly, speaking so low
at times that the other almost lost the words.
"It is such a relief to let it all out," she said, with a long,
sighing breath, "and oh! if I had loved him it would have been so
different--so different. Then I might have saved him; for what
evil is strong enough to contend against a love which would have
borne all things, have covered all things?"
Rising from her chair, she walked rapidly up and down, and
pausing at last beside the window, lifted the curtain and looked
out into the night.
"I might have saved him; I know it now," she repeated slowly: "or
had it been otherwise, even in madness I would not have loosened
my arms, and my service would have been the one passionate
delight left in my life. They could never have torn him from my
bosom then, and yet as it was--as it was--" She turned quickly,
and, coming back, laid her hand on Miss Saidie's arm. "It is such
a comfort to talk, dear Aunt Saidie," she added, "even though you
don't understand half that I say. But you are good--so good; and
now if you'll lend me a nightgown I'll go to bed and sleep until
my trunks come in the morning." Her voice had regained its old
composure, and Miss Saidie, looking back as she went for the
gown, saw that she had begun quietly to braid her hair.