The lamps were lighted in the little partitioned-off square which
served as the editorial room of the _Banner_ when John returned. He
found Seth weakly striving to write something for the editorial page,
and in substance laid the situation before him. He was not feeling very
amiably toward his young brother at the moment, and he spoke with cold
distinctness. The tone was lost upon Seth, who said wearily:
“I don’t see that it makes much difference--her refusing. What good
would it have done, if she _had_ gone to Annie? She could only tell her
that she had abandoned such and such ideas. That isn’t what counts. The
fact of importance is that she ever entertained them, that they ever
existed. To my notion, there’s nothing to do but to wait and see what
comes of Beekman’s suspicions. What do you think of them, anyway? I have
been trying to imagine what he is aiming at, but it puzzles me? What do
you think?”
“To tell the truth, I haven’t been thinking of that. My mind has been
occupied with the female aspects of the thing. I’m not impatient.
Evidently Beekman and Ansdell think they have got hold of something.
They are not the men to go off on a wild-goose chase. Very good: I can
wait until they are ready to explain. But what I can’t wait for--or bear
to think about--is poor Annie, suffering as she must be suffering to
have written that letter.”
“Yes, I’ve thought of that, too, but I’m helpless. I can’t think of
anything: I can’t do anything.”
“You don’t seem to be of much use, for a fact,” mused the brother. “I’ll
tell you what I’ll do, if you think best. To-morrow afternoon, after
I’ve seen Ansdell, or before that if he doesn’t come, I will go over and
see Annie myself. I can go over to the school-house by the back
road, and walk home with her. Perhaps by that time, too, I shall have
something tangible to explain to her. Until then, I suppose she must
continue in suspense. It is the penance she ought to do, I dare say--”
the brother added this in mildly sarcastic rebuke--“for the luxury of
being in love with such a transcendant genius as you are.”
*****
Something like an hour before this, Annie had dismissed her classes and
locked up the school-house for the night. As she did so, she mentally
wondered if she should ever have the strength to walk home.
The day had been one long-drawn out torture from its first waking
moments--indeed there seemed to have been nothing but anguish since her
interview with Isabel the previous day, not even the oblivion of sleep.
Her impulse, and her grandmother’s advice, had been to remain at home;
but she had already left the school unopened on the fatal Tuesday, in
the shock of the news of Albert’s death: to absent herself a second day
might prejudice the trustees against her. Besides, the occupation might
serve to divert her thoughts.
Perhaps the trustees were satisfied, she said to herself now, locking
the door, but there certainly had been no relief in the day’s labor. The
little children had been unwontedly stupid and trying; the older boys,
some of them almost of her own age, had never before seemed so unruly
and loutishly impertinent. Even these experiences alone would have
availed to discourage her; as it was they added the stinging of insects
to her great heartache. With some organizations, the lesser pain
nullifies the other. She seemed to have a capacity for suffering, now,
which took in, and made the most of, every element of agony, great and
small. She turned from the rusty, squat little old building and began
her journey homeward, with hanging head and a deadly sense of weakness,
physical and spiritual, crushing her whole being.
Milton Squires had been watching for her appearance for some time, from
a sheltering ridge of berry-bushes and wall beyond the school, and
he hurried now to overtake her, clumsily professing surprise at the
meeting.
“I jes happened up this way,” he said, “Dunnao _when_ I be’n up here on
this road b’fore. Never dreampt o’ seein’ yeou.”
She made answer of some sort, as unintelligible and meaningless to
herself as to him. She did not know whether it was a relief or otherwise
that he was evidently going to walk home with her. Perhaps, if she let
him do all the talking, the companionship would help her to get over the
ordeal of the return less miserably. But she could not, and she would
not, talk.
“I kind o’ thought mebbe you’d shet up schewl fer a week ’r sao,” he
proceeded, ingratiatingly, “but then agin I said to m’self ‘no siree,
she ain’t thet kine of a gal. Ef she’s got any work to dew, she jes’
does it, rain ’r shine’. Thet’s what I said. Pooty bad business,
wa’n’t it, this death of yer cousin?”
“Dreadful!” she murmured, wishing he would talk of something else.
“Yes, sir, it’s about’s bad’s they make ’em. Some queer things
’baout it tew. I s’pose yeh ain’t heerd no gossup ’baout it, hev
yeh?”
“No,” she whispered with a sinking heart; a real effort was needed to
speak the other words: “What gossip? Is there gossip?”
“Dunnao’s yeh kin call it real gossup. P’raps nobuddy else won’t
’spicion nothin’. But to me they’s some things ’baout it thet
looks darned cur’ous. Of caourse, it ain’t none o’ my business to blab
’baout the thing.”
“No, of course.”
These little words, spoken falteringly, confirmed all that Milton had
wished to learn the truth about. Over night a stupendous scheme had
budded, unfolded, blossomed in his mind. Originally his primitive
intellect had gone no further than the simple idea of committing
homicide under circumstances which would inevitably point to an
accident. The plan was clever in its very nakedness. But through some
row among the women, probably out of jealousy, the hint of murder had
been raised, and coupled with Seth’s name. If this hint ripened into a
suspicion and an inquiry, a new situation would be created, but Milton
could not see any peril in it for him, for Seth would obviously be
involved. But it would be better if no questions of murder were raised
at all, and matters were allowed to stand. This would not only
place Milton’s security beyond peradventure, but it would give him a
tremendous grip upon Annie. It was in this direction that his mind
had been working steadily since he heard of Annie’s suspicions. The
opportunity seemed to have come for placing the cap-stone of acquisition
upon the edifice of desire he had so long and patiently been rearing.
As for the poor girl, she had reasoned herself out of the suspicion of
Seth’s guilt a thousand times, only to find herself hopelessly relapsing
into the quagmire. Milton’s hints came with cruel force to drag her back
now, this time lower than ever. Even he seemed to know of it, but he
proposed to maintain silence. Of course, he _must_ be induced to keep
silent. Oh! the agony of her thoughts!
“You’n’ Seth was allus kine o’ frenly,” he proceeded. “Way back f’m
th’ time yeh was boys ’n’ gals.”
“Yes, we always were.”
“’N’ they used to say, daown to th’ corners, that yeou two was baoun’
to make a match of it.”
“There wasn’t anything in that at all!” She spoke decisively, almost
peremptorily.
“Oh, they wa’n’t, ay?” There was evident jubilation in his tone.
“Never was nothin’ in that talk, ay?”
“No, nothing.”
The pair walked along on the side of the descending road silently for
some moments. A farmer passed them, hauling a load of pumpkins up
the hill, and exchanged a nod of salutation with Milton. This farmer
remarked at his supper-table an hour later, to his wife: “I’d bet a yoke
o’ oxen thet Milton Squires is a’makin’ up to the schewl-teacher. I seed
’em walkin’ togither daown th’ hill to-night, ’n’ he was a lookin’
at her like a bear at a sap-trough. It fairly made me grit my teeth to
see him, with his broadcloth cloze, ’n’ his watch-chain, ’n’ his
on-gainly ways.” To which his helpmeet acidulously responded: “Well, I
dunnao’s she c’d dew much better. She’s gittin’ pooty well along, ’n’
fer all his ongainly ways, I don’t see but what he comes on, ‘baout’s
well’s some o’ them thet runs him daown. A gal can’t jedge much by a
man’s ways haow he’ll turn aout afterwards. _I_ thought _I’d_ got a
prize.” Whereupon the honest yeoman chose silence as the better part.
The red sun was hanging in a purplish haze over the edge of the hill as
the two descended, and the leaves from Farmer Perkins’s maples rustled
softly under their feet. Milton drew near his subject:
“I’ve be’n gittin’ on in th’ world sence yeou fust knew me, hain’t I?”
“Yes, everybody says so.”
“’N’ yit everybody don’t knaow half of it. I ain’t no han’ to tell all
I knaow. Ef some folks c’d guess th’ speckle-ations I be’n in, ‘n’ th’
cash I’ve got aout in mor’giges ’n’ sao on, it’d make ’em open their
eyes. It’s th’ still saow thet gits th’ swill, as my mother use’ to say,
’n’ I’ve be’n still enough abaout it, I guess.”
His coarse chuckle jarred on the girl’s nerves, but the importance of
placating him was uppermost in her mind, and she answered, as pleasantly
as she could:
“I’m sure I’m glad, Milton. You have worked hard all your life, and you
deserve it.”
“Yeh _air_ glad, reely naow?”
“Why yes! Why shouldn’t I be? It always pleases me to hear of people’s
prosperity.”
“But me purtic’ly?” he persisted, earnestly.
“Oh, yes,” she replied, absent-mindedly. Then the odd nature of
the question occurred to her, but she was too distrait to think
consecutively, and she added no comment to her answer.
“Well, it eases me to hear yeh say thet,” he went on, with awkward
deliberation, “fer they’s somethin’ I’ve be’n wantin’ to say to yeh fer
a long time. I don’t s’paose you reelize haow well off I am?” She did
not answer. Her mind seemed to refuse to act, and she heard only the
sound of his words. He took her reply for granted and continued:
“I c’d eena’most buy up thet farm there”--pointing over to the Fairchild
acres on the slope, now within sight--“’n’ I ain’t so all-fired sure
yit thet I won’t, nuther! But what’s th’ good o’ money, on-less yeh kin
git what yeh want with it, ay?”
The impulse of her soul-weariness was to let this aimless question pass
like the other, without reply. But she was reminded of the importance of
being pleasant to this tedious man, and so answered, entirely at random:
“What is it you want, Milton?”
“I dunnao--I’m kind o’ feared o’ puttin’ my foot in it; yeh won’t be mad
ef I tell yeh?”
“Why no, of course not. What is it?”
“Well, then,” he blurted out, “I want _yeou!_” The girl looked dumbly at
him, at first not realizing at all the meaning of his words, then held
as in a vise between the disposition to reply to him as he deserved
and the danger, the terrible danger, of angering him. There fluttered
through her senses, too, a mad kind of yearning to shriek with
laughter--born of the hysterical state of her long-oppressed nerves. She
eventually neither rebuked nor laughed, but said vacuously:
“Want _me?_”
“Ef yeou’ll marry me, I’ll make one o’ th’ fust ladies o’ Dearb’rn
Caounty aout o’ yeh. Yeh need never lay yer finger to a stitch o’ work
agin, no more’n Is’bel did, daown yander.” He spoke eagerly, with more
emotion in his strident voice than she had ever heard there before.
The difficulty of her position crushed her courage. Of course she must
say no, but how do it without affronting him? The idea of reasoning him
gently out of the preposterous wish came to her.
“This is some flying notion in your head, Milton,” she said, civilly.
“You will have forgotten it by next week.”
“Forgott’n it, ay! Yeh think sao? What ’f I told yeh I hain’t thought o’
nothin’ else fur nigh onto ten year?”
His tone was too earnest and excited to render further trifling safe.
He pulled out of an inner pocket and held up before her a little,
irregularly squared tin-type--which she recognized as having been made
in whimsical burlesque of her lineaments by an itinerant photographer
years before.
“How did you come by that?” she asked, to gain time.
“I got it fr’m th’ man thet made it, ’n’ I paid a dollar bill fer it,
tew,” he answered triumphantly, “’n’ I’ve kep it by me ever sence!”
After a pause she said, as calmly as she could: “I never dreamed that
such a thought had entered your head. Of course, it--it can’t be.”
“Why not, I’d like to knaow?” he demanded. “Don’t yeh b’lieve what I’ve
told yeh ’baout my bein’ well off?”
“That hasn’t anything to do with it. There are other reasons--a good
many other reasons.”
“What air they?” His tone was peremptory.
“I don’t know that I can explain them to you. But truly there are
so many of them--and your words took me so wholly by surprise,
that--that----”
“Yeh needn’t mince matters! I _knaow!_ Yeh hev sot yer idees on Seth!
Yeh needn’t tell me yeh hain’t!”
“I won’t talk with you at all if you shout at me in that way, and
contradict me flat when I assure you to the contrary.”
Milton paused for a moment, to consider the situation. They were
approaching the poplars now, along the lonely turnpike, and the
conversation could not be much protracted. What he had to say must
be said without delay. But what was it that he wished to say? A dozen
inchoate plans rose amorphously to the surface of his mind--to cajole
her, to strive further to impress her with his wealth, to entreat her,
to attempt to bully her. This last resource ran best with his mood, but
there were difficulties. Annie was the reverse of a cowardly girl; there
was nothing timid or tremulous about her; if he attempted to intimidate
her, the enterprise would most probably be a ridiculous failure, for
he stood too much in awe of her self-reliance and intelligence to have
confidence in his own mastery.
But stay--she was fearful about Seth. Whether it was true or not that
she had no idea of marrying her cousin, she was evidently solicitous
for his safety. An idea born of this conclusion swiftly engrafted itself
upon the hired man’s general strategy. He lifted his light, shifty eyes
from the grass of the roadside path to her face, once more, and said:
“Well, ef you’re a mine to be mean, I kin be mean tew--meaner ’n’
pussly. Ef yeh think I’m goin’ to stan’ still, ’n’ let yeou ’n’ Seth
hev it all yer aown way, yer mistaken. I’ve only got to open my maouth
to th’ Cor’ner, ’n’ whair’d _he_ be, ’n’ yeou tew?”
There was a certain indefinable suggestion of bravado in his tone which
caught Annie’s attention. It was the barest, most meagre of shadows, but
she grasped at the chance of substance behind it.
“I don’t believe you could say anything, or do anything, which would
injure him,” she said, with more confidence in her words than she felt
in her heart.
“Oh, yeh daon’t, ay!” he growled. “Ef yeh knaowed what I knaow, p’raps
yeh’d change yer teune.”
“What do you know, then? Come now, let us hear it!” She grew defiant,
with an instinctive sense that the inferior being beside her was ready
to retreat, if only she could keep up her boldness of front.
“Never yeou mind what I knaow!” he answered, evasively. “It’ll be
enough, I guess, to cook _his_ geuse, when th’ time comes.”
“Ah, I thought so!” she exclaimed. “You were simply talking to hear
yourself talk--to scare me. Well, you see now that you wasted your
breath.”
“Oh, _did_ I! Well, I won’t waste any more of it, then, till I talk to
th’ Cor’ner. I kin tell him some things ’baout who rid th’ black
mare aout thet night, after Albert’d gone. Guess thet’ll kind ’o’ fix
things!”
His slow imagination, working clumsily in the mazes of falsehood, had
carried Milton a step too far; his simple plan of substituting Seth for
himself in the events of the fatal night miscarried in a way he could
not suspect.
Annie did not answer. An exclamation had risen to her lips, but
something akin to presence of mind checked it there. Her brain seemed to
be working with lightning flashes. The black mare had played a part
in the tragedy, then; Seth had certainly not had the animal out that
evening; the rushing, almost noiseless apparition which had startled
them in the moonlight must have been the mare; it was coming from the
direction of Tallman’s; it had a rider; who could that rider have been?
and how did Milton know about it?--so the swift thoughts ran, in a
chain which seemed luminous in the relief it brought to her. These two
questions she could not answer--in her joy at the apparent exculpation
of Seth it did not seem specially important that they should be
answered--and she had self-possession enough to ask nothing about them.
It was a nice question what she should say to her companion, who was
now, without any distinct suspicions on her part, growing luridly
loathsome and repugnant in her eyes. The fear of angering him had died
away, but a vague sense that mischief might be done by arousing his
curiosity or apprehensions had come to take its place. She spoke
cautiously:
“I hope you won’t do anything rash, that you would regret afterwards.”
“They ain’t nao need o’ my doin’ nothin’, ef yeou’d only hev some sense.
But if yeou’re goin’ to be agin me, ther’s nao tellin’ what I won’t
dew,” he answered with sullen terseness.
They had come to the poplars, and Annie stopped at the stile under the
thorns.
“I shall have to leave you here,” she said.
“Then yeh won’t hev me, ay? Yeh better think twice ’fore yeh say nao!
Yeh won’t git another sich a chance--to live like a lady, ’n’ hev
ev’rything yeh want. ’N’ ef yeh dew say nao, yeh kin rest ’sured yeh
ain’t heerd th’ last of it, ner him nuther.” Milton’s little green-gray
eyes watched her face intently, and he fingered his flaring plated
watch-chain with nervous preoccupation. “What d’yeh say, yes’ ’r nao?”
“I can’t say anything more than I have said--_now_,” she answered, and,
stepping over the stile, left him.
For a long time afterward Annie’s conscience debated the justification
of that final word, the last one she ever addressed to Milton, and which
was obviously intended to keep alive a hope that she knew to be absurdly
without ground or reason. Sometimes even now she has momentary
doubts about it--but she silences cavil by whispering to herself in
unanswerable defence: “I thought then that possibly it might be needed
to help Seth--perhaps even to save him.”
She had little leisure just then, however, to devote to moral
introspection, for Samantha met her, half-way down the thorn-walk, to
excitedly tell her that her grandmother, Mrs. Warren, was very much
worse than usual.