Greyhurst, who had reflected not a little on the return of Mrs. Trescot,
concluded that her large business interests alone could have brought her
to St. Ann. She was unlikely to remain; and even if her stay should be
long, what did it matter? On the third day after her return he went to
his office and began to read his letters. One in a firm,
large-charactered woman’s hand interested him. He broke the black seal
of the mourning-paper. A yellow slip fell out. He read:
“SIR:
“The inclosed telegram was in the hand of the man you murdered at the
moment he was going toward you to offer, as before he had no power to
do, a friendly, and even generous, division of the lands at the bend.
His blood is on it, as I trust it may rest on your own soul.
“CONSTANCE TRESCOT.”
His first feeling was simply astonishment. For a moment he held the
letter in act to tear it up. Then, as if that were impossible, he laid
it down and mechanically unfolded the telegram and read it over and
over. It was terribly new to him. The general had never spoken to him
since the day of his fatal anger. He knew, of course, of the more recent
and accepted proffer to Mrs. Baptiste to divide the frontage. He sat
stupefied. He saw the brown blood-stains on the paper, and let it fall.
The scene came back to him. Yes, the man _was_ smiling—he had thought it
the smile of triumph. There he was, dead—dead! He tore the papers to
pieces and cast them into the waste-basket at his side. A brief fury of
anger came over him. He rose and walked to and fro. “By heavens, if she
were a man!” Then he controlled himself, saying: “After all, what does
it matter—a woman’s revenge!”
I have said that he was variously sensitive. By degrees he had set aside
and carefully rid himself of even the smallest reminder of an hour which
he deeply regretted. He had ceased to wear his revolver; had put it
aside and locked it up. He had found that the gray suit he wore during
the trial revived a dark memory. He gave it away. And now, the feeble
ingenuity of a woman’s hatred had brought back in dreadful clearness all
that time had mercifully dealt with.
He went out and forced himself to attend to the business of the day. He
stayed late at the club, seeking society, unwilling to face the solitude
of his own house.
As he walked homeward in the darkness he took refuge in that which had
somewhat helped him at an earlier period. During his trial men swore to
their belief that the younger man was in act to draw his pistol. This,
as he thought of it in cold blood, justified his own action as
defensive. He clung to this view of the matter; set it before his mind
as true, and, with sophistry which was scarcely self-convincing, so
manipulated the facts that at last mere repetition of the mental states
did assist him to escape from the self-reproach which fell upon him when
Averill had struck him with the verdict of a man whom all men honored.
The telegram and Mrs. Trescot’s letter had forced him again to think it
all over. He realized how small had been his victory over the recording
power of memory. He had been at the mercy of a slip of paper—and, at
once, that which chanced a year ago was to him as if it had happened
yesterday. At times he felt competent to defend and excuse his action;
at others he suffered the anguish of such regret as was inevitable in an
imaginative man, who felt keenly the accusation of having taken
advantage of a man who carried no arms and was, to some extent,
incapable of protecting himself.
By degrees, as the days went by, he comforted himself with the idea that
here at least was the end. He had, too, at times an indistinct feeling
that there was cruelty in thus tormenting a man who had bitterly
repented; and the memory of the beauty and grace of the woman, and his
immense admiration of her, barbed and poisoned the shaft which had gone
so surely to its mark.
Meanwhile, Constance took up her life, but with more or less thought of
its supreme purpose. She heard from Coffin what were the habits of
Greyhurst’s days, and began to plan ways of knowing more of his life. At
first all thought of him disturbed her emotionally; but this she learned
to put aside. She was frequently at the general’s, but would go nowhere
else. He had found for her riding-horses, and an old slave for a groom,
so that soon her figure in the black riding-habit became familiar in and
near the town. In a word, she lived, or seemed to live, the ordinary
life of a young widow of more than usual means.
No one she knew mentioned Greyhurst, and, except the Averills and
Coffin, no one suspected that she was doing or thinking otherwise than
the two or three sad women in St. Ann who, like herself, were suffering
from the cruel consequences of some deadly quarrel.
Toward the close of her second week at St. Ann, Mrs. Averill asked her
to be present at a meeting of women who were interested in their modest
home for the orphans of Confederate soldiers, to which Constance had
promised help from Susan and herself. Contact with the Averills, and the
misery she had seen as the direct or indirect result of war, had
lessened her own strong partisan feeling. Disposed by nature to be
generous, she was, moreover, eager to make friends and secure allies;
and thus, although rather reluctant to face the many she would meet, she
decided at last to accept Mrs. Averill’s invitation. It was late in the
afternoon when she found herself among some two dozen ladies, old and
young. Many of them she had met, and all were either anxious to express
their sympathy by a kindly greeting, or were merely curious to see the
rich widow who had so strangely elected to return to St. Ann.
Mrs. Averill explained that the meeting was informal and designed to
assist the male managers of the home. She spoke, for Constance’s
information, of the good it had done, and of the great difficulty they
had in carrying it on. A lady read the quarterly statement of the
treasurer, and the smallness of the deficit gave Constance a sad sense
of their limited resources. Several women offered modest aid, and then
there was the usual silence.
Constance whispered to Mrs. Averill, who said:
“Certainly, my dear. Ask what questions you please.”
Constance rose. “Mrs. Averill permits me to ask for some little
information. May I inquire how many children you have in your home?”
From this she went on in a businesslike way to put herself in possession
of all the facts she required to know.
“I have had,” she said, “some acquaintance with an institution like
yours, and now may I learn finally how much per head per day it costs
you?”
No one was quite prepared to answer; but Miss Bland, a spinster she had
met before, said: “We can say that if we had a thousand dollars a year,
with our present subscriptions, it would be enough to support all our
home has room for.”
Constance then said: “My sister and I shall be most glad to give,
between us, that amount for five years; and probably we may be able then
to secure the same sum to you as a permanent income.”
There were exclamations of pleasure and surprise, and warm and grateful
words as they turned to thank her. At last, on the suggestion of further
business, Mrs. March, a stout, elderly dame, and their chairman, said:
“We shall ask the gentlemen, our managers, to offer you formal thanks,
Mrs. Trescot, for your generous help. As Southern ladies we thank you,
and may I venture to add that every one in St. Ann appreciates the kind
and liberal way in which you and Miss Hood have dealt with the squatters
and, indeed, with all those with whom you have had to deal.”
Mrs. March drew back her chair and, smoothing out her gown, sat down,
well pleased with her little speech.
“Thank you, Mrs. March,” said Constance. “It is quite unnecessary to
thank us formally. I have here a blank check; I will fill it out for the
first six months. And your little deficit I shall like to make good as
my personal gift.”
Miss Bland, who sat on her right, said: “Oh, thank you; and don’t you
want to see our printed report?”
Mrs. Averill shook her head; but the signal came too late. Constance
said: “Yes, certainly, Miss Bland; I am much interested.” She glanced at
the first page and saw that the managers were all ex-officers of the
Confederacy, and that the seventh name was John Greyhurst’s. A faint
flush rose to cheek and forehead. “Thank you,” she said as, with an
effort to seem calm, she returned the pamphlet. “I do not want it.”
“Oh, keep it,” said Miss Bland; “I have another copy.”
“I said, ‘I do not want it,’” returned Constance, with emphasis.
Mrs. Averill frowned, and Mrs. Dudley, seated behind Miss Bland,
whispered to her, with vicious satisfaction: “Take care, Eliza! How
could you?”
“I do not see what I have done.”
As Mrs. Trescot rejected the pamphlet she sat up, quite too visibly
disturbed to escape the notice of those who were within view of her
face. With the persistency of the dull-witted, Miss Bland, annoyed at
Mrs. Dudley’s reproof, exclaimed: “Oh, do take it!”
Constance turned toward her, saying so as to be generally heard: “I
know, Miss Bland, that it could not have occurred to you that among the
names of the managers is that of—” and she stopped, controlling herself.
Mrs. Dudley, leaning over the back of Miss Bland’s chair, whispered, “It
is Greyhurst! How could you!”
“Oh, I never thought!” cried Miss Bland, awkwardly apologetic. “I am
sorry. I didn’t remember.”
“I was sure of that. Do not let it trouble you.” Constance’s voice
broke, and then, recovering, she added, “You have really done me a
service.”
“You may be sure, Mrs. Trescot,” said Mrs. Dudley, “that we never
thought—we—”
“Excuse me if I interrupt you,” returned Mrs. Trescot. “After what I
have just learned, I must ask you to consider our gift as entirely in
the hands of the visiting ladies, and not at the disposal of the male
managers.”
Mrs. Averill said at once: “It shall be as you wish, dear. The gentlemen
have been so inactive that it did not occur to any of us to think of
them. The man referred to was put on the board three years ago, when it
was first formed. It should have occurred to us; I ought to have told
you.”
There was a moment of silence, when Mrs. March said: “You may rest
assured, Mrs. Trescot, that no one here fails to feel with you; and if,
under the circumstances, you would rather not give at all, we should all
understand it.”
“Thank you,” said Constance, proudly; “you are most considerate. But you
are welcome to all we can do, and if you find the situation
embarrassing, as may be the case, I will write to Colonel Dudley and
explain it myself. I see that he is chairman of the board.”
“Oh, no, no,” said several women. “By no means; it is quite
unnecessary.”
Constance smiled in her cold way, shaking her head as she spoke, and
rising.
“I must go. It is—it was a little too much for me. And you are all so
good. I must go. Good-by.”
Mrs. Averill went with her to the outer door. “Oh, my dear, I am so
sorry—and in my house, too; I am so very sorry!”
“I am not very sure that I am,” said Constance, as she kissed her and
went away.
Mrs. Averill looked after her in puzzled amazement, and then returned to
the room where her friends were busily discussing this unpleasant
incident.
“It is just as well; she had to know soon or late,” said Mrs. March. “Of
course he will hear of it—and I, for one, hope that he will hear of it.”
Others were of her way of thinking, and in a dozen homes that evening
the sad story was revived and Constance’s generosity praised, and her
sad fate pitied anew.
That evening she wrote to Mrs. March, inclosing a copy of a note sent to
Colonel Dudley. She could not leave the ladies in a situation which
obliged them to make to the managers an explanation which should
properly come from her.
To the president of the board of the home she wrote:
“DEAR COLONEL DUDLEY:
“My sister and I are much interested in your excellent charity, and
we shall have the pleasure of aiding it to the extent of one thousand
dollars a year for five years. Then, or sooner, we hope to endow it
with enough to represent the same income. An accident brought to my
knowledge the fact that one of your members is the man who murdered
my husband. You will, I am sure, understand why I have felt it to be
impossible for me to confide our gladly given help to a board of
which he is a member. I have placed the money, and shall in future
place it, in the hands of the visiting committee of ladies, for their
use, and theirs alone. My own strong feeling, and my late husband’s
great regard for you, will, I know, excuse to you my very frank
statement.”
A courteous note acknowledging the receipt of her letter was all she
heard of it for a week or more.
Susan Hood had twice put off her journey to St. Ann, having no reason to
leave the home she loved except her affection for Constance. She had
reluctantly come to the conclusion that marriage and trouble had in some
way set up barriers between them. She had been the one strong, and even
jealous, affection of Constance’s younger life, and now sadly felt that
it had incomprehensibly lessened, and that her sister seemed to have
been incapable of more than one such relation at a time.
After Trescot’s death Constance had begun again to rely on her, and to
defer to her opinion on the lesser matters of life. But all through the
summer and their many months of travel she had felt that the mind once
so open to her was hiding and cherishing thoughts which she, Susan, was
not allowed to share. All her kindly attempts to enter into the
confidence of her sister failed, and now, being about to join her, she
wrote, in some anxiety and distress:
“MY DEAR CONNY:
“Why you so obstinately insisted upon returning to a place which must
be full of painful memories I have never yet learned. Even for me it
must ever be hateful. But you are all I have in life; whither you go
I shall go. It is my duty, and I shall make it my pleasure. That is
all—except, dear, that I am sure you are bent on something which you
have, so far, concealed, and which I hope to understand. I have
respected your reticence, assured that it must have a reasonable
basis; but we once lived a frank and undivided life, and your
attitude to me all summer has made me most unhappy. Let us be, dear,
as we once were.
“Try to get a good horse for me. Love to the Averills. I shall arrive
on November 2, D. V.
“Yours always, SUSAN.
“October 25, 1871.”
It was near to the close of the month when Constance received this
letter, and she knew at once that further concealment would be
impossible. She was equally well aware that Susan would be shocked and
grieved at a course of conduct so opposed to the beliefs which governed
her own actions. Constance was sorry, but it did not affect her resolve.
She was always at home to the increasing number of women, young and old,
who called upon her. Although her piano remained closed, she made her
house interesting to people who had few chances of intellectual
enjoyment, lending books and magazines, and when alone busying herself
with hanging prints and water-colors brought from abroad. In the
afternoons she rode in all weathers.
So far she had won her way, as she had meant to do, making her rather
excessive bounty to the poor and sick the more gracious by the
attraction of manner which made those whom she tactfully obliged
partners of the honest joy she felt, especially in helping the sad and
hopelessly stranded women of her own class.
Her desire to know more of her enemy than Coffin could tell her found at
last an ally. Just before Susan’s arrival, she had come from a long
ride, and met at her door a woman whose face and worn look had
interested her for a moment at the meeting in Mrs. Averill’s home.
Seeing her in her riding-dress, the woman would have gone away, but
Constance said: “No, I am quite at leisure. Do come in. You are, I
think, the matron of the home. I saw you at the meeting.”
“Yes; I am Miss Althea Le Moine.”
She was dressed in clothes which had evidently been long in use. Her air
of furtive apprehension struck Constance. “A provincial lady,” was the
hostess’s conclusion, as they sat down. Constance rang, saying: “I have
the habit of indulging myself with a cup of tea after I ride. May I
tempt you?”
The tea was brought, and the toast and cake evidently enjoyed, while
they talked of the home and its needs, or Constance turned over her
Florentine photographs, setting at ease a woman whom she felt to be
somewhat embarrassed.
At last Miss Althea said: “I have come to you, Mrs. Trescot, to ask a
little help.”
“Now that is very kind of you,” said her hostess. “Let us talk. What is
it?”
It seemed that she owned a small house left to her by a brother who had
fallen at Lookout Mountain. “He was a Confederate soldier,” she added. A
mortgage upon it was one of the smaller debts due to Mr. Hood. Perhaps
Mrs. Trescot would kindly wait. The interest was in arrears—the rent was
ill paid; but she hoped—
Constance interrupted her. “I shall have pleasure in speaking of it to
General Averill. I think that it has already been considered—and, by the
way, how much is it?”
“Five hundred dollars; and really the house is all I have.”
“Make your mind easy; when my sister arrives we will do something to
relieve you, and will certainly cancel the back interest. Now don’t cry.
You have given me a pleasure, and if you cry I shall cry, and I hate to
cry. Let us talk of something else.”
“How can I thank you? I have been so troubled—you won’t mind my telling
you the rest?”
“I? No, indeed. What is it?”
“One of my brothers was in the Northern army. He lived in Kentucky. He
died some time ago. Last month the ladies found out that he was a
Federal officer, and now I am so afraid they will think—oh, one of them
said I ought not to be kept on.”
“No one will disturb you. You are needlessly alarmed. I will speak to
Mrs. March. You may feel entirely at ease. Is there anything else I can
do for you?”
“Oh, no,” said Miss Althea, as she rose. “I do think I shall sleep
to-night. I wish there was anything I could do to show you how grateful
I am.”
“Stop,” said Mrs. Trescot. “Sit down. You can help me. But, first, I
want to ask you to consider what I shall say as confidential—absolutely
confidential.”
“Yes, of course.” Miss Althea was curious, and her narrowing life had
left her little of interest.
“I learned lately, as you know, that the man who killed my husband is
one of the managers of the home. It embarrassed me. You can understand
that, and why it must keep me from visiting at the home as I should like
to do.”
“But he never comes there, Mrs. Trescot. At the visitors’ meeting
yesterday Mrs. Dudley said that the colonel had told him that, as he
never attended their meetings, he ought to resign, and he has done so.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Trescot. “I have reasons—very good reasons—for
desiring to know more of this man. I have trusted you; and now, when you
hear anything of interest about him, I want you to come and tell me.”
Miss Althea, much astonished, promised to be watchful, and went away
comforted, but with her curiosity ungratified.
On the following day Greyhurst recognized in the morning mail the
black-edged envelop and the writing of Constance Trescot. He threw it on
the table. He had again the feeling that in a variety of ways he had
been made to atone for a minute of passionate resentment and the fatal
action in which it had resulted. Always what men called thin-skinned,
and feeling keenly what would have affected others but little, he had
become, of late, less obviously irritable, but even more sensitive. The
hint to resign from the board, which a year before he would have angrily
resented, humiliated him the more when, hearing later of Mrs. Trescot’s
gift to the home, he knew at once what hand had struck him. He knew,
too, as he sat at his table, that to burn this letter would be the wiser
course. He could not. It held him as with a spell, as a serpent charms a
bird, both drawing and repelling. He tore it open at last, and an
inclosure fell out. For a moment he held it unread; and then, as if
compelled, read: