On the afternoon of the next day the sisters left for the long journey
to their home on the Beverly coast of Massachusetts. The general, who
had gone with them to the station, on his return came into the parlor—no
one called it a drawing-room in St. Ann. Mrs. Averill was seated before
the hickory-log fire, her knitting on her lap. She was looking up at the
rival flags, the swords, and the poor little photographs. As she heard
Averill’s step she took up her knitting, smiling sadly at the intrusive
remembrance concerning the “ravell’d sleave of care” which none can
knit. He had a letter in his hand.
“Eleanor,” he said, “this has been a great shock to me. I could not have
imagined it as possible.”
“No new trouble?” she said quickly. “What is it? Always tell me things
first and say what you like afterward. Men always prepare one.” She was
slightly irritated.
“Oh, it is of no personal moment. Read that, Eleanor, and tell me what
on earth I am to do.”
She took the letter and read:
“MY DEAR GENERAL:
“If what I now ask seems to you too strange, or may in any way annoy
you to carry out, let it go; it can wait.
“I want a simple gray stone put over my husband’s grave, with this
inscription:
“‘In memory of George Trescot. Aged 29 years. Late Major 6th
Massachusetts Volunteers.
“‘Murdered on October 9, 1870, in St. Ann.’”
Mrs. Averill slowly folded the letter, and replaced it in the envelop.
“Do you not think, Edward, that she may be a little—well, not quite
sane? It is too strange, too horrible.”
“No; she is sane enough, Eleanor. But grief plays strange tricks with
the most sane.”
“I, at least, cannot imagine a really great sorrow associated with ideas
of revenge; but, after all, Edward, there is more than revenge here—or
perhaps less. It would, after all, be only an unusual act of justice.”
“But you could never have desired such a thing.”
“I am not sure. No, I could not; but I am not Constance. I do not blame
her.”
The general stood by the fire, the letter in his hand. At last he said:
“Personally, Eleanor, I could wish this thing done. A man commits a
crime like this and justice fails; people forget, and there is not even
a record; and at last the man, too, I suppose, forgets.”
“But does he? Do you think that a man like him does at last cease to
feel what he must have felt when that dear, beautiful woman fell at his
feet? I often think, as I sit here, Edward,—just a sad, childless
mother,—that if the men whose bullets left us lonely could have seen us
or fully known what they had done, they could not have failed to be
unhappy.” Then she paused and, looking up affectionately at the kind,
brave face of the comrade and lover, added: “But I am glad they cannot
know.”
“Yes, that is as well, dear. I, too, have helped to create in unseen
homes the misery of war, more’s the pity. If every man in an army knew
and saw whom his shot killed or crippled, and saw, too, all the
far-away, never-ending consequences, I think wars would cease.”
“Perhaps, perhaps,” she said, as she looked up with full eyes at the
crossed swords over the mantel.
They were silent again for a little while. Then she said:
“What will you do about this letter—this inscription?”
“I hardly know.”
“You may be sure that the churchwarden will never permit it. You can see
him and show him the letter in confidence. He will say no; and you can
repeat this to our poor Constance.”
The general, well pleased to be thus counseled, had his interview with
the astonished warden, and upon his protesting wrote to Constance to
that effect.
She replied that no one, not even Susan, knew anything of her letter,
and that no further steps need be taken. She was sorry to have given
trouble.
She wrote from time to time, but her letters were rare and never
personal. Meanwhile, they had gone to Europe, as the doctor had desired
them to do. Susan wrote often. Constance was, apparently, well again,
but still thin and without a trace of her lovely coloring. The doctors
said it was anemia, but one in Milan insisted that it was not want of
blood, but some change in the nervous system. He had seen such cases and
said that she would always be pale. “I really think,” said Susan, “that
she is more beautiful than ever, but it is the beauty of living marble;
and, dear Mrs. Averill, I had a cherished belief that this awful thing
would make my sister turn where alone are peace and rest and the hope
that lives when earth has none. I can see no such result. She will not
even let me speak of what is so near to me. This alone makes her
irritable, and that is new to Constance. People stare at her, and no
wonder—so pale, so stately, and so sadly indifferent. She reads little,
goes to the galleries, and takes no real interest in anything except
that she shows the most eager desire to get well and vigorous. I should
have wished to die. She was always, except with George and me, a
reserved person, and now I am sure there is something constantly on her
mind. It is not a mere torturing memory, but something which, when she
thinks she is unnoticed, makes her smile in a cold way. I cannot
describe it; but it does worry me. Once only she has shown interest, and
that was about the miniatures we have had made for you from the
photographs of your sons. They are very admirable, and to know what they
will be to our dear friends pleased her. She said, ‘How George would
have liked them!’ and, believe me, this is the only time I have heard
his name pass her lips. I can give you no better idea of the effect she
produces than to tell you what happened yesterday at the Pitti—no, it
was at the Bargello. I was seated, looking at the statue of David. My
sister was moving about, never looking long at any one of the wonderful
things on every side. I heard a man near by say to a younger man: ‘Did
you see that woman?’ ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘what a colorless face! She is as
pale as death.’ The other said: ‘But what a cold, beautiful face! She
must have had a history worth hearing.’ They strolled away, and I heard
no more. I have a dreadful desire to know what has become of that man
Greyhurst. Is he still in St. Ann?”
Mrs. Averill looked up from the letter she had been reading aloud to her
husband.
“I have never chanced to set eyes on him,” she said. “But, then, I
rarely leave my home.”
“As you know, dear,” returned Averill, “we do not speak. Of course I see
him and hear of him. I think he has been made to feel that men are more
than ever inclined to avoid him; not so much, I am sorry to say, on
account of Trescot’s death as because of that terrible evidence of his
uncertain temper. At the club I notice that he is not asked to take a
hand at cards, although he plays well.”
“That is rather a mild punishment.”
“Yes; but it means something to him; and the social discipline has had
its effect on a man who is, or was, amusing, and who liked the society
of men. He is a sensitive person and feels it. I hear, too, that he no
longer carries a revolver.”
“Indeed! and here, where it is so common!”
“Yes; Colonel Dudley told me. He has had two or three successful cases
of late, and behaved with propriety and good temper.”
“Mrs. Dudley told me that he has been speaking in the county at
political meetings.”
“Yes,” said Averill, “and admirably well. He wants to go to the
legislature. That is all I know, Eleanor. I dislike even to talk about
him. So far he is prospering, and that dear fellow is forgotten. This is
a strange world, and not altogether satisfactory.”
Mrs. Averill was silent for a moment, automatically plying her
knitting-needles. The general stood with a hand on her shoulder.
Presently she said:
“Will you drive me to the churchyard this afternoon? I want to leave
some flowers on the grave.”
He replied, “Certainly—of course.”
Then she added: “I was wondering how, in the far future, these two lives
will end—her life and his.”
“Oh, she is young, and he will live on, and the whole thing will be
forgotten in time. It is not the only case we have had in St. Ann; and,
as far as I have been able to see, the actors in these tragedies appear
to be very little influenced or altered. Greyhurst is the sole instance
I recall in which the man who killed seemed to be personally changed by
what he had done. He certainly is changed—Dudley says very much
changed.”
“But how?”
“Oh, he is moody and silent; he is less gay; he is more deferential.
Suppose we drop him, Eleanor.”
“It is all very sad,” she said; and gathering up her knitting, she went
out into the garden, where now in the late spring the flowers were
welcoming the sun.