THE FATE THAT PURSUES US
Joe Christmas was an unhappy Indian after the discovery of the ghost
flower across the Arm.
He gazed mournfully toward the big house, shook his head, and uttered a
number of times a long-drawn, musical “Ah-a-a-a,” of regret and dismay.
Then as if he were forced to it by some power he could not resist, he
gave most touching proof of his affection and respect for Vivienne.
He waited until he had seen her leave the house with the ill-omened
flowers in her hand, then he launched his canoe on the smooth, dark
waters of the Arm, and went through the blackness and softness of the
August night to the tiny cove that he had visited with Vivienne and
Armour through the day.
Upon arriving there he drew his canoe from the water, put his cap under
his arm, dropped on the ground, and took out his beads. Over and over
his prayers he went—it was not terrifying to pray with the grass under
his knees and the stars overhead, but when it came to entering the
spirit-haunted wood his heart misgave him. Yet he persevered, hobbling
over the ground till he was under the trees and among the ferns, and
finally beside the gaping rent in the leaf mould left by the abstraction
of the ghost flower.
Shuddering in every limb, and beseeching the Virgin, the Saints, and the
Great Spirit not to avenge the theft, he detached the cross from his
rosary and dropped it into the hole as an offering to the offended
spirit of the plant. Then springing to his feet he ran from out the
dreadful shadows, leaped into his canoe, and paddled quickly and in a
relieved manner, not to his camp among the spruces, but back to Pinewood
where he purposed remaining till Vivienne’s return home should convince
him that he had been successful in his effort to propitiate the spirits
on her behalf.
He stationed himself among the pines in front of the house, occasionally
leaving them to investigate the origin of sounds in other directions,
but always coming back and waiting with the patience of a trained
hunter.
Quite early in the evening two of the maids came home exchanging with
accompanying admirers various confidences that he was privileged to
hear. Subsequently the admirers went home, and the maids went to bed. He
saw the lights extinguished in their rooms, and traced Mammy Juniper as
she wandered from window to window, with a candle in her hand. At one
o’clock a sound south of the house drew him to the road beyond Pinewood.
Mr. Armour was bringing home his father, not in their own carriage, but
in a cab. With a stolid face, and much inward bewilderment, Joe saw the
shrinking old figure assisted through the gate in the wall, and put in
the cottage.
“Ole man gone crazy,” he muttered, an opinion which was confirmed when
he descended to the cottage half an hour later and saw his master
sitting at a table playing like a baby with an empty wineglass and some
teaspoons, and Dr. Camperdown, Mr. Armour, and Mammy Juniper looking at
him with facial expressions hard to describe.
A little later the two gentlemen ascended to the house, where Camperdown
left Mr. Armour and drove back to the town.
At two o’clock Joe, standing opposite the windows of the library, was
keenly watching Mr. Armour, who was quietly pacing up and down the room.
There was something wrong. Mr. Armour’s face was too white and stern for
an ordinary occasion, and where was Miss Debbiline? Joe was uneasy, yet
true to his natural instincts he waited on, for he would not ask
questions so long as he hoped to gain the information he wished by
ocular demonstration.
Three o’clock came, and Joe was just about creeping to the library
window to address Mr. Armour, when his practised ear told him that two
carriages were coming down the avenue. He drew behind a tree trunk and
watched until he saw the cabs stop before the door, and five people
leaving them and entering the house.
Ah! here at last was his worshiped Miss Debbiline, safe and well, her
eyes only a trifle heavy from her night’s dissipation. The spirits had
spared her, and he could now go happily to his camp, but first he would
take a final view of what was transpiring in the library, for to that
room would Miss Debbiline probably repair.
The delicate rose curtains waving to and fro in the night wind afforded
him a sufficient screen, and bending his supple body he lingered on,
observing what appeared even to his untutored mind to be a succession of
strange and unusual scenes.
Away at the other end of the room, with his back against the
bookshelves, stood Mr. Armour, rigid and motionless, his eyes glued to
the face of the peaceful, white-haired stranger whom Dr. Camperdown was
ushering into the room.
“Stanton, you know this man,” Joe heard Dr. Camperdown say in a harsh,
resonant voice—then his attention was distracted by a rustling near him.
Vivienne, with her finger on her lips, and holding up the train of her
white dress, was gliding like a fairy to his side. “I saw you from the
window above, Joe,” she murmured. “Let me stand beside you. Mr. Armour,”
with a catching of her breath, “will not allow me to enter the room, but
I shall go in this way presently. Do not go,” and she made a commanding
gesture as the Indian was about to creep away, “I may want you.”
“Me no stan’ beside ghos’ flower,” said Joe, gazing at the darkened
blossoms across her breast.
The agitated girl looked down at the flowers, whose dainty heads, as if
weary of asking fruitless questions, had—unperceived by her—drooped and
blackened till they were uncanny and repulsive in their appearance.
With something like a sob she caught them in her hand and threw them far
away.
“Ghos’ flower always turnum black,” said Joe, “when pickum,” then
immensely flattered at being told to remain, he stepped a little nearer
to her, and resumed his scrutiny of the room.
Mr. Armour had become disturbed. His face was no longer resolved and
apathetic, but alternately became crimson and deathly pale, and his
attention was still fixed on the undemonstrative gentleman with the
white hair, then on Dr. Camperdown, who was hurling impetuous sentences
at him.
“Suppose your fabric of respectability has fallen down—rear another
about yourself. No one blames you for this catastrophe. Can you not
accept the assurance of this man who offers your family a pardon that is
almost divine? Has he not suffered? Aye, more than you.”
“I have been stunned,” said Armour in a hollow, far-away voice. “I am
going away.”
“Coward!” exclaimed Camperdown with assumed anger. “Moral coward!”
Armour’s face brightened. Instead of resenting the offensive epithet, he
turned to his friend with a smile so humble, so touching, that
Camperdown swung himself away, muttering discomposedly, “I can make
nothing of this fellow.”
Mr. Delavigne looked compassionately at Armour. “I should have known you
anywhere,” he said in a dreamy voice; “you are like the little lad whom
I loved so much as he sat beside me at my desk, and yet you have
changed. Your expression——”
“Yes,” interrupted Camperdown furiously, “we all know why the boyish
expression went. His father—that gibbering idiot down yonder—was the one
to frighten it away. Tell us, Stanton, you suspected this bad business
from the first.”
“Only suspected,” said Armour in a firm tone. “Had I known surely——”
“But you had no proofs—we all know that,” interposed Camperdown; “and
you,” turning to Mr. Delavigne, “why did you not put yourself in
communication with Stanton through all these years?”
“Because of the unnaturalness and the uselessness of such a course,”
said Mr. Delavigne mildly.
“But he has been looking for you—has spent money. You might at least
have told him that you were alive.”
“I regret the expense; but my child—you forget her. I did not know that
she longed for her father, yet I remembered her mother’s nature. Had she
had a hint of my existence a search might have been instituted. Better
for her to think that I was dead than to link herself with one who would
disgrace her. To you,” and the elder man turned impulsively to Armour,
“my intensely grateful acknowledgments are due for your care of my
child. By the kindness of one of the most noble and admirable of men, I
have been enabled to receive accounts of her safe-keeping; occasionally,
with a heart wrung with thankfulness, to see her. Your vigilance, your
loyalty, I knew I could trust; for this latter expression, this love for
my beloved daughter, I was unprepared. I felt that I must hasten here,
yet always with the feeling that the boy of my earlier recollections
would not prove unworthy of the highest mark of my confidence. At the
moment of finding my child I am willing to lose her again for her sake
and yours.”
While Mr. Delavigne was speaking Mr. Armour’s expression had again
become one of insensibility to either pleasure or pain, and Camperdown
closely observing him went to the door and sharply ejaculated: “I can
make nothing of this Obstinacy the Second. I would give a thousand
dollars if my wife had not chosen to go orphan-hunting in the country at
this time.” Then he turned on his heel and came back into the room.
“What about Vivienne?”
“It would be a crime to link her life with my disgraced one,” said
Armour heavily. “She must forget me.”
“Is she a girl to do that?”
“To forget is the privilege of youth,” said Armour drearily. “You may
fancy that I am doing a cruel thing; ten years hence Vivienne will be
happily married to another man. You cannot tempt me,” he said with
sudden energy. “I have weighed the matter. The pang will be sharp and
short for Vivienne——”
“And for you?” said Camperdown eagerly.
“For me—it does not matter. I am going away.”
“Going to blow your brains out,” muttered Camperdown. Then he exclaimed
with increased energy: “Think of your God, your country, your promised
wife. You have been living for the good opinion of your fellow-men. Your
god Respectability is a poor, rotten thing.”
“Stanton!” exclaimed a voice from the doorway.
They all looked in that direction and saw Mrs. Colonibel, white and
haggard. “What is this I hear?” she went on, advancing into the room.
“Is your marriage broken off?”
“Yes,” he returned shortly.
“This is your doing,” she said affixing accusing eyes on Mr. Delavigne.
A smile passed over his calm face. “No, it is not; but all will be well
yet, I hope.”
Behind Mrs. Colonibel, and pushing her aside, came Judy. “What is all
this fuss about?” she cried in a peevish way; “the house in commotion
and everybody out of bed! Where is Vivienne, and who is that gentleman?”
“Judy,” said her mother, turning sharply to her, “this is Vivienne’s
father.”
“Her father!” shrieked the girl. “What does he do—where has he come
from? Stanton, you won’t give up Vivienne to him?”
“He came with Lord Vaulabel,” said Mrs. Colonibel in a high-pitched,
wrought-up voice, “who has had him ever since he left here, and Lord
Vaulabel has suspected all the time that he had been wrongly treated. He
intended to make inquiries while here. Mr. Delavigne would not allow him
to do so before now.”
“How extraordinary!” gasped Judy.
“And Vivienne has met her father,” pursued Mrs. Colonibel, “and it has
been discovered that Uncle Colonel trumped up a charge of stealing
against Mr. Delavigne because he wished to get rid of him.”
“I can well believe it,” said Judy contemptuously. “I have never had a
great opinion of Uncle Colonel.”
“And in spite of this, Mr. Delavigne says he will allow his daughter to
marry Stanton, and yet Brian sends me word that the whole thing is at an
end. Who has done it? What does it mean?”
Camperdown pointed a finger at Armour’s unhappy figure.
“The family will be broken up,” exclaimed Mrs. Colonibel, sinking into a
chair and putting up her hands to hide her miserable face.
“Stanton, old man, where are you?” and gropingly feeling his way into
the room came Valentine, exquisitely dressed and unruffled in
appearance. “I hear flying rumors, that knowing you as well as I do, I
cannot believe. The happiness that you have so long deserved is now
within your grasp. You are not going to ruin your chances?” and he threw
his arm over his brother’s shoulder.
Armour, like a hunted animal brought to bay, looked desperately at the
faces round about him. “I have a conscience,” he said brokenly; “I
cannot do this thing.”
“What thing?” said Judy cuttingly. “Do you mean that you cannot give up
your iron will, that you will thrust out the angel of the house? I tell
you for one that I sha’n’t live here if she goes. Who is going to
support us in our disgrace? Who will comfort us I would like to know? I
shall never go out; I will starve myself; I will die”; and giving way to
a fit of angry sullenness the girl threw herself down beside her mother.
“Joe,” said Vivienne softly, “my time has come. Help me in through this
window.”
Armour had watched the door, but he had not thought of the window, and
yet he did not really fancy that Vivienne would transgress his strict
command that she should not seek an interview with him but should wait
for a letter that he would write to her.
When he saw her coming toward him he retreated against the wall, and
averted his eyes from the mingled love and compassion of her glance.
“Stanton,” she murmured, stretching out her hand to take his shrinking
one.
“Do not touch me,” he said hoarsely.
She turned her back on him and faced the other people present. There was
no mistaking the joy and triumph of her glance.
“Come,” exclaimed Camperdown, “she will manage him. Let us all get out
of this,” and he began to hurry the other spectators from the room.
However, impetuous as he was, he found himself suddenly brought to a
standstill by the entrance of Mammy Juniper, who swept upon him like a
whirlwind, candlestick in hand, her black eyes almost starting from her
night-capped head, her padded dressing gown flying back from her excited
figure. “Praise the Lord! Rejoice greatly! Shout, O daughter of
Jerusalem, salvation has come to the house. The iniquity of Ephraim is
discovered that he may repent.... How great is the goodness of the Lord!
How great is his beauty! Corn shall make the young men cheerful and new
wine the maids. The prisoners of hope are released. I took unto me two
staves, the one I called Beauty and the other I called Bands, and fed
the flock——”
“And we’ll hear the rest of your rhapsody in the hall,” said Camperdown
seizing the old woman kindly but forcibly by the shoulders. “You’re very
eloquent but slightly discomposing. Come now, give us a stave about the
poor Assyrians. Some of them are out of bondage too, now that your
worthy master is laid low,” and he politely invited Mammy Juniper to the
back hall, where he listened for a few minutes to her trumpetings, and
then went home without addressing another word to the other members of
the excited family.
The fascinated Joe could not make up his mind to leave the window even
when Armour and Vivienne were left alone. In intense interest he
listened to Vivienne’s caressing accents as she addressed the unhappy,
agitated man before her.
“So you wish me to go away?” she said.
“Yes,” he muttered, “I do. Go now while I have the strength to say it. I
am a ruined man.”
“Dearer to me in your ruin than in your prosperity,” she murmured; “will
you, can you drive me from you?”
“Yes,” he ejaculated with white lips, and leaning one hand against the
wall to steady himself, “I can. Go.”
“Good-bye, then,” she said softly. “I am too proud a woman to force a
man to keep his promise. Good-bye,” and she sauntered slowly away.
But that glance over her shoulder! The Indian choked back a barbaric
explosion of laughter as he saw it and watched Armour hurrying after her
so quickly, that he caught his foot in the silken train of her gown,
with a cry of irrepressible love and despair, “I cannot let you go.”
Then there was a long silence. “All right now,” muttered Joe gleefully.
“He much huggum and kissum. He no go crazy like ole man. He marryum in
church with flowers and girls to wearum white,” and quietly obliterating
himself among the shadows of the house, he went in peace and contentment
to his camp.