The days went by, and it was now late in October. Mrs. Averill waited at
the foot of the stairs. “Will she live?” she said, as she met Dr.
Eskridge, a war-worn old Confederate surgeon.
“Yes,” he said, “unhappily she will live.” He had known and liked
Constance. “What she will be or what she will do when this wild hysteria
is over, no one can say. Now she knows nothing.”
“I was with her all last night, doctor. At times she lay in a stupor; at
others she talked, laughing, about her child, and said, over and over,
‘It must be called George.’”
“Poor lady, that hope is at an end.”
“Yes; and more’s the pity.”
“I still think that her sister should not see her.”
“She understands that,” said Mrs. Averill. “A most sensible, thoughtful
young woman, and so considerate. My poor husband is distressed beyond
measure. I did not think there was possible for him any other sorrow on
earth except my death, and I am old. But this young man was, in some
ways, like my son Harry. I am worried about the general. I wish you
would talk to him.”
“I will. In a few weeks—perhaps abruptly—Mrs. Trescot will come out of
this state, perhaps well, perhaps physically broken in health. Then she
must go away and never return.”
“I suppose that will be best. These two young women are both rich, my
dear doctor, and can go where they please. Mr. Hood did not mean to
leave them much money, but he died without leaving a will, and now they
have all. He was a singular man, and really this dreadful affair was
caused by his obstinate hardness.”
“I have heard as much,” said the doctor.
“He made a dozen wills, and fortunately burned the last one the day
before he died.”
“Well, well,” said the doctor, “a will is the only contribution to folly
a dead man can make. Ah, good morning, Miss Hood. Your sister is
somewhat better; we must have patience.”
“I have it,” said Susan. “But come into the garden with me a moment. It
seems just now impossible to find a quiet place.” He followed her, and
as they walked down the path she said:
“Do you think that if she recovers she will be in mind what she was; and
can you, with your great experience and what you know of her, form any
idea of how this calamity will influence her life? She is all I have,
and I am so very anxious.”
“I think it likely that she will get well and be sound in mind and body.
Unless misfortune wrecks us utterly and we become insane, after a shock
like this we remain essentially what we were. New conditions, accidents,
sorrow, may cause people to appear for a time alien from themselves.
They are rarely so. The novel incident only evolves what might have
remained unused, unknown, for a lifetime. She may surprise you, but it
will be with the use of some quality you have never had occasion to
see—or she to employ. Grief does not, as a rule, alter people
radically.”
Susan listened, deeply concerned and thoughtful. “Thank you,” she said.
“But it does seem as if a thing like this must change one.”
“No. Put yourself in her place. What would you be or become? What would
you do?”
“I should go to the East—to Egypt. One seems there so small, so puny. I
should try to forgive. Oh, I should try to save my soul alive; but then,
doctor, I am an old maid, and cannot imagine what a woman like Constance
feels or will feel.”
The doctor considered for a moment the face and figure of the “old
maid,” and, smiling, looked at his watch. “You old maids are perilous
folk. No one else shall abuse you but Miss Susan, and I do not mean to
tell you what I think of you. I shall come in to-night.”
She went with him through the house to the door, and there saw Coffin
seated on the steps. He haunted the place, questioning the servants, or,
with boundless patience won in the loneliness of the woods, waiting
until some one came out who could tell him of Mrs. Trescot.
Susan said: “Come in.”
“No, I won’t come in. How is she? Will she die? I could not stand that.”
“No; she will get well. But, Mr. Coffin, I want you to think over what I
said to you. You talked wildly of killing that man; you frightened me.”
“I’ve thought about that. When she’s well I’ll see; if she wants it,
I’ll get him, sure.”
“She never will want that—never.”
“I’m not that sure, and I ain’t made that way, neither. I’m going to
wait and see. If she just lifts a finger I’ll kill that man.”
“Oh, no, no!” she cried. “It is horrible—murder on murder. We are going
away as soon as she is well enough. God will help her to forget, and she
is young, and time is God’s great peacemaker.”
“She is going away! going away! That’s awful. Since I was a boy I never
had a friend like she was—and she’s going.” His eyes filled and he stood
still, the tears rolling down out of the patient eyes over his brown,
sun-tanned cheeks. He brushed them away with his sleeve and went out of
the gate, saying over and over, “She’s going.”
The weeks went by while Constance slowly recovered. At times she sat up
of a sudden with dilated pupils, staring, but silent. At other times she
babbled of her home, her childhood, of Susan, but never of recent
events.
At last, one morning, after a natural slumber, she sat up and said to
Mrs. Averill:
“Where am I? Tell George I want him at once. I say at once!”
Susan, hearing her high-pitched cry, ran in.
“What are you doing here?” asked Constance. “Where is George?”
The two women stood by, mute and without resource.
“Why don’t you answer? Something happened.”
She fell back, to their relief, again insensible.
From this time she began to recover, as it were in fragments, her memory
of the tragic past. For a while she lost to-day such remembrances as
yesterday had brought. A little later, the storm which had left her
nervous system shattered passed away, and she began to piece together
her recovered recollections. Susan sat by in wonder, grieving for the
pain this revival of memories was plainly writing on the face once so
joyous and so fair. Somewhere she had seen described such a condition of
mind, and as, one day, she talked of it to the doctor, she recalled and
quoted the lines:
“‘For again life’s scattered fragments, memories of joy and woe,
Tremulously grew to oneness as a storm-torn lake may grow
Quiet, winning back its pictures, when the wild winds cease to blow!’”
“Yes,” he said; “that describes it perfectly.”
A word or two now and then told that she knew of Trescot’s death. For a
week she asked no questions, but lay still, entirely patient. At last,
one day, the doctor, uneasy at her changeless melancholy, said to her:
“You are better; do you not feel better?”
“Yes, I am better; I should like to get on to the lounge.”
Pleased at any return of will or wish, he said, “Yes, certainly,” and
with Susan’s help lifted her wasted frame and laid her on the lounge.
She said: “Thank you, and please leave me with Dr. Eskridge.” Susan went
out.
“Doctor,” said Mrs. Trescot, “I know all about it.”
He was immediately relieved. He had looked forward with anxiety to the
hour of questions. “My poor child!” was all he could say.
“How long have I been ill?”
“Nine weeks, Mrs. Trescot.”
Suddenly she asked: “And the child?”
He took her hand. She read his answer in the kind eyes which had seen so
much of disaster and death.
“I see—I know. If anything could make it worse, that does.”
“Do not talk any more,” he said, as he rose.
“Yes, I must. No, you cannot go; I must finish. Was that—that man ever
tried?”
“Yes.”
“Well?—oh, tell me; don’t be afraid; I can bear—oh, anything,
now—anything!”
“He was declared not guilty.”
“How could that be?”
But now Dr. Eskridge saw signals which made him resolute. He replied:
“When you are better you shall hear. I will answer no more questions
now.”
“One—only one. I insist. Will he live here? Does he live here?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. I will ask no more questions. I promise to be good—very
good.”
The doctor rose, relieved. He said: “In two weeks you must go away, and
later it would really be best to go abroad. You are young and will get
well and strong.”
She smiled feebly, the large blue eyes unnatural and strange in the
worn, thin features—they alone unwasted and beautiful.
“‘I am young.’ Isn’t that what is always said, doctor?”
“Yes; but it is true, and let me add that, however impossible it may
seem to you, time is very kind—to the young at least.”
“I am not young, and time—yes, I want its help. I do not wish to die; I
want to live.”
“Now, that is better,” he said, and went down-stairs, telling Susan on
the way that her sister knew everything, and was really in a wholesome
state of mind and eager to get well.
Susan shook her head. How could that be? Being a woman, she wondered
that her sister could wish to live.
Constance asked no more questions; but, seeming to put it all aside, set
herself to get well.
Three days before they left she called Susan and the general to her
room, insisting that she would not be satisfied until she was at ease
about certain matters. She surprised both by the clearness and decision
with which she stated her wishes.
“Susan and I, general, are, I am sure, agreed to divide the shore-land
at the bend with the Baptiste heirs; but, let me ask, will such action
benefit that man?”
Susan looked up.
“I do not know. He lost the suit, and, of course, his large contingent
fee. I do not see how a separate agreement as between you and Mrs.
Baptiste can benefit him, even if his fee had been arranged to be a
share of the land.”
“Then,” said Constance, “if they agree not to litigate further, and he
is none the better for it, we will divide. Does that suit you, Susan?”
“Yes, I have said so; anything, dear, that you want done I shall want
done; and this I especially desire as an act of simple justice. We will
give the general a power of attorney to act for us.”
“Then sister and I wish the squatters to have land on the bluff back of
the bend—to eastward, I mean.”
The general made notes.
“The land must be good,” said Constance; “and we wish to be generous. I
should like them all to be helped to buy what they need to clear and
till the land.”
“It will be rather costly.”
“Yes,” said Susan; “but Constance wishes it, and there is a large amount
of accumulated interest in bank. It was my uncle’s way.”
“I want Coffin especially cared for,” said Constance. “I wish him to
have the cleared land nearest the bluff; and, general, I want you to pay
him five dollars a week to care for my garden.”
“Your garden, Conny!” exclaimed Susan.
“Yes; I mean to shut up the house; but I shall keep it; I shall never
sell it. I want no one to enter the study. Lock it. Has it been
disturbed?”
“No, dear; I locked it and have the key.”
“Then give it to me. The house is mine. I shall keep it as it is.”
“Is not that unwise, sister?”
“I have made up my mind.”
“Well, dear, it is yours. We will not discuss it.”
The doctor had long since warned her against contradictions, and against
anything which might stir up dangerous emotion.
“Is that all?” asked the general.
“Yes,” said Susan; “except that we desire to make the most liberal
arrangements in regard to the mortgages not yet settled. You cannot be
too generous. My sister and I know how your people have suffered.”
The old soldier looked up, touched by what she said. “You are giving a
sad old man a rare pleasure. Is that all?”
“No,” said Constance. “I have here a letter. Read it, please, when I am
gone. If you dislike to do what I ask, it can wait. There is no hurry
about it, and I am very sorry to trouble you.”
“You do not trouble me. Ah, my dear children, we shall miss you sadly.”
“But next summer,” said Susan, “you will spend with us at Beverly.”
“Perhaps,” he said; “but you had better go abroad.”
Constance had put off seeing Coffin; but on the sixteenth of December,
the day before they were to leave, she sent for him.
He entered, halting in his gait, somewhat bow-legged, a round-shouldered
man in much-worn gray, with here and there a lingering Confederate
button, a ragged felt hat in his hand. What Susan called the “lost-dog”
look was in his eyes.
What he saw was a tall, wasted woman in black. She was very thin and
without a relic of the rosy color which once added so much to her
beauty. The large framework of her features showed too prominently in
the absence of flesh. Above all, the man was shocked at her complete
pallor. He was too unthoughtful to have been prepared for the effects of
emotion and consequent illness. Her quiet manner not less amazed him.
The women of his own class wept and were natural. This woman had back of
her two centuries of Puritan self-restraint, and the controlling reserve
of a class accustomed to hide emotion.
She said, as she gave him her thin, cold hand: “Sit down; but first shut
the door. I want to talk to you.”
He sat down on the edge of the chair.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Oh, very well, ma’am.”
“Can you hold your tongue, Tom? I want to trust you.”
“I can.” He was a man by long habit wood-dumb, as the old lumbermen
say—a man of few words.
“I want you to take care of my garden.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You will come every week to the general to get five dollars; you will
care for my garden. You are also to have the best land on the bluff.”
“I didn’t expect all that. I’m right thankful. They do say you’re going
away. Mrs. Averill says you’ll never come back. Are that so?”
“No; they think so; but I am coming back. That is what I want no one to
know. Will you keep it to yourself?”
“I reckon, Mrs. Trescot, you know you can trust me.”
“I am sure I can,” she said as she rose. “I am still weak, and I cannot
talk to you as I want to do when I come back. If you need anything,
General Averill will see to it—I mean anything for the Wilsons.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She gave him her hand. He took it with something like reverence. Then he
stood, uneasy, evidently with something unsaid.
“Well?” she asked. “Is there anything else, Coffin?”
“I was thinking you might be wanting some one to kill that there man.”
He spoke simply, in his drawling mountain dialect, as he might have
asked what tree he should fell.
The thought had been too often in her mind to cause her any shock. She
said, “No, no.”
“It wouldn’t be no trouble, ma’am. I’d as lief do it on my own account
as not.”
“No,” she said again; “no. That would not be any comfort to me, Tom. I
want that man to suffer. I want him to suffer every day, every night,
till he curses the day he was born. I don’t want him to die, Tom; not
yet—no, not yet.”
He accepted her statement with blind faith in her resources, and with
the obedient trust of a faithful dog, wishing to help and not knowing
how.
“I wouldn’t know how to fetch that about. Now, if you know—”
“No, Tom, not yet. I must first get well and strong. Good-by; I shall
ask Mrs. Averill to let me hear how you get on, and the Wilson children
and the rest. But remember, no one—no one must know what I have said to
you.”
He went away wondering, sorry not to be able to bring about what she
desired, and with dull wonder because of her unwillingness to accept the
vengeful service for which he was so ready.