When Constance quietly related to Susan what she had done about the
land, the elder sister was as near to reasonable wrath as it was
possible for her to be. They were at breakfast when this revelation was
unintentionally drawn out, not altogether to Constance’s satisfaction.
Susan had said: “I want, Conny, to put a new roof on the church, and I
thought you would like to buy the land northwest of the churchyard. They
talk of stables there.”
“The church roof does not interest me; the other does, Susan. But I
cannot buy anything now. I have found use for all my spare income.”
Susan looked up. “And for what?”
“You may as well know it from me, sister. Some one will be sure to tell
you, and I suppose this wretched little town will feed its gossip with
this for a month of orphan sewing-circles.”
“What have you been doing now, Conny?”
“I have paid an extravagant price for the strip of frontage next to
ours. Mr. Greyhurst owns the lots beyond it. His land is valueless
without the addition of the deep-water front between us. He was in
treaty for the Baptiste strip, and I bought it. I said I meant to ruin
him. I had to tell you. I do not like to talk of it. But I will not be
lectured. It is perfectly useless. What I feel you can never feel. I am
glad to be alone in what I do, and I am not yet done with him.”
She spoke with increasing passion, more and more rapidly, sitting
forward erect, as poor Susan, astonished, let fall her egg-spoon and
fell back in her chair.
“I have seen all along that I make you unhappy. As compared to the
personal justice I am dealing out where other justice failed, I hardly
care. But neither affection nor opinion shall come between me and that
man. I think you set the doctor to warning me. He did. What was health
of mind or body compared to this? I suppose it will be the preacher
next. But I advise you not to try that. Let us say no more, or we shall
quarrel.”
“You say, dearest sister, let us say no more. It is you who furnished
both text and sermon. I have said next to nothing. I asked nothing. It
was you, and you alone, who began it.”
The plain, good-natured face was tearful as she went on: “We can never
quarrel. That is impossible. But I think you both unkind to me and
unjust, as I have never reopened this most painful subject. I do not say
that I never meant to. You spoke of the rector, and of what I might ask
him to do; and lest you should again misunderstand me, I may as well say
now”—and she calmed herself a little as she spoke—“that Mr. Kent intends
to call on you again. I wish you to know that. I did not ask him to do
so. I have never dreamed of asking him to interfere. I have never
thought of doing so. I do not mean to imply that he has never spoken of
what you have been doing. Everybody talks of it. I think Mrs. Dudley may
have spoken to him of your strange conduct, and he has mentioned some
things to me which I had never heard of, and which I trust may not be
true. But, dear Conny, you are the talk of the town.”
“I do not care.”
“That is the worst of it.” She paused, and then added: “But I will say
no more. I have done, and when you say that not even affection for me
would check you, it is time I ceased to speak.”
Constance studied the pained face a moment, and then returned: “Yes, we
had better stop here; and as to your rector, I apologize. I did not
imagine you cared. I have no fancy for clergymen; but if you want me to
see him, I will.”
“Oh, I don’t care whether you see him or not.” Susan’s temper was
failing her at last.
“Susan,” said Constance, “that isn’t like you. I don’t want to hurt you.
If I have said too much, forgive me.”
“Oh, Conny! You have done so much that it is hard to forgive where I so
constantly disapprove.”
“Yes, that may be. I can’t help it. As for Mr. Kent, I know you wish me
to see him. I will, I will. I presume,” she added lightly, “that he will
not undertake my reformation.”
“He is a gentleman, and my friend.” Susan flushed a little as she stood
up. “I must go to my Bible-class. I almost forgot it. Good-by.”
Constance sat still. She was pleased to do something that would be
agreeable to Susan. She would see Mr. Kent. He had come to St. Ann to
relieve a clerical friend who had fallen ill, and upon the rector
resigning had accepted his parish. She knew no more than this; but was
it possible that Susan—No; it was absurd. Susan would never leave her,
and had often laughed at what she called these “Sunday-school unions.”
She had, however, noticed Susan’s slight embarrassment and her unusually
quick show of resentment when Constance had spoken of Kent. Yes; she was
perfectly sure that Susan would never marry, and that they would never
be parted. And still the thought left her a little uneasy.
Greyhurst had been away for a week; but the news about the land purchase
lent fresh zest to the gossip which so greatly annoyed the Averills.
Colonel Dudley had been confidential to Mrs. Dudley concerning
Greyhurst’s affairs, and she in turn to others, some of whom were of
opinion that Constance’s mind had given way—a decision not easily
accepted by those who met her in her own home and knew of her care of
the poor, and of the intelligent interest with which she talked of books
and the politics of the day. She was living a double life.
It was now past Christmas, and clear and cold, when, one morning, Susan
set out to visit Mrs. Averill, her sole confidante. The old lady had
again felt it a duty to express herself so freely that Constance,
resentful of interference, now visited the Averills but rarely. She had
also had an unpleasant interview with the general in regard to her
purchase of land.
Susan found neither help nor comfort from her friend, and only the
relief of being able to cry like a child—with the sad companionship of
the tears of an older woman.
Coming out of the house with red eyes, and very conscious of an
emotional breakdown, she saw the rector, Mr. Kent, coming up the street
from the town. He moved slowly, and seemed to Susan to be deep in study
of the broken boards of the sidewalk.
Susan was of no mind to meet him just now. Their intimacy had reached
the stage which permits of sympathetic curiosity, and she was aware that
her eyes were red. She waited to let him go by; but turning in at
Averill’s gate, his face lighted up as the woman descended the steps and
they met.
He saw that she had been crying, but merely said:
“A fine frosty day, Miss Susan; a pleasant reminder of New England.”
“Yes, I like it; and, indeed, I wish I were there.”
“Shall I find you at home this afternoon?”
“No; we ride to-day.”
“But it is dark early. Perhaps late, on your return?”
“Very well, then, late; and, by the way, my sister will see you.”
“I am glad of that—at six, then.”
He turned to go, hesitated, and said: “You are troubled, I fear. I can
easily guess why, and I cannot wonder at it. I wish it were in my power
to help you.”
“No one can do that.”
“It is needless to hide from you, Miss Susan, what every one knows. That
miserable man has gone away. Will not that put an end to your sister’s
strange conduct?”
“It might with any one else. It will not with her. From her childhood it
has been like this. You are very kind, but it is like the possession one
reads of—no one can help her or me. But I must go—good-by.”
He had seen much of her in the parish work and elsewhere, and now, as
often before, noted with pleasure the two gifts she had in common with
Constance—the charm of grace in movement, and, with less height, a
faultless figure. He quite forgot his intention to call on Mrs. Averill,
and remained for a moment looking after Susan Hood.
Dr. Eskridge, on the farther side of the street, benevolently regarded
this interview and its results, when Kent, seeing himself observed,
crossed over, guiltily conscious, like a boy caught in an apple-orchard,
but as yet regretfully innocent of the joy of transferred property.
“If you are going my way,” said the doctor, “I will walk with you; but
you must remember the antiquity of my legs, and not travel at your usual
rate. A fellow must begin to be old somewhere. I am as well pleased that
it is not in the head. You have been in the mountains, I hear. Get any
deer?”
“Yes, three; and I had some queer experiences. It is like nothing I ever
saw elsewhere. I camped in the snow with a mild-looking little man who
is said to have killed three men. He explained to me, in a casual way,
that he preferred to avoid a certain settlement because a man lived
there whose father he had shot.”
“I suppose,” said Eskridge, “that it was one of those well-preserved
vendettas.”
“Yes; just that. He remarked that it wouldn’t matter if he were alone;
but he didn’t want to get me into trouble. We were lying by the
camp-fire at night, and he went on to tell me of his quarrel, much as
you might of any of the commonplaces of life.”
“Did you take his morals in hand?” said the doctor, with a questioning
look at the strong face of the younger man, for whom he had both respect
and friendly regard.
“No, not then. I did not see my way. Later in the evening he asked me
what I did for a living. I said I was a preacher, an Episcopal
clergyman. This appeared to interest him. He said there were none of
that kind in the hills—only Methodists. Upon this I asked if they
preached against killing one another. He said yes; but when a man shot
one of your people, what could you do? I could only reply that Christ
taught us to forgive injuries. He was silent for a moment, and then
said: ‘It wouldn’t work in the mountains, because, next thing, the
fellow would kill you to get clear of your killing him; and where, then,
would the forgiveness come in?’”
The doctor laughed. “I should have been puzzled to reply, or at least so
as to be of any real use. What did you say?”
“What could I say? The very basis of the morals of forgiveness was
wanting. I tried to clear the ground a little. He listened, and when at
last I quoted, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,’ he
said he had ‘knowed’ that tried by fellows that were afraid, and hadn’t
ever seen that it worked.”
“It must be a strange life,” said Eskridge. “But, Kent, here we have in
this little town a woman who is no better than your friend. A stranger
story could hardly be. Doctors, soon or late, hear everything; and I
perhaps know more of it than any one else. I have long meant to talk to
you about it. Both these sisters must be suffering. May I ask if you
have any influence with Mrs. Trescot?”
“None at all, doctor. She has, I fear, like these men, nothing to which
I can appeal.”
“And Miss Susan?”
“She has failed—altogether failed.”
The doctor reflected with approval on the intimacy with Susan which
enabled Kent to answer as he had done.
“Well, the man has gone away. I hear from more than one source that he
is engaged to a Miss Jeanette Wilson. We used at one time to see her
here, a very sweet, intelligent, pretty girl, with a great deal of
money. If it be true, this may end a foolish and wicked business and
enable Greyhurst to live elsewhere, as I am assured he would very gladly
do.”
“It is almost too good to be true. Do you think, doctor, that he has
ever sincerely repented of that awful murder? I hear men say so.”
“Repented, Kent? No! Not in your sense. I am sure that he is punished by
regret and the most honest self-reproach. I know that he suffers. Mrs.
Trescot has punished him with such ingenuity of revenge as almost makes
one pity the man. This last land business has terribly embarrassed him
in regard to money. But the course she has taken has inflicted suffering
of various kinds on innocent people,—and, above all, on her sister—to me
the finer nature of the two.”
“Yes, her sister,” repeated Kent, softly. “Perhaps, when Mrs. Trescot
learns of this other woman, she will give up.”
“I hardly think so. _Le diable d’une idée_ is a very persistent fiend,
and very mischievous.”
“Yes; the devil of one idea,” said Kent.
While the two men were thus discussing her, Constance, liking the cold
air and the brilliant sunshine, was seated on the back porch. She was
reflecting with her too habitual intensity upon what she had done. There
were minutes when she was made vaguely uneasy by the gradual failure of
her interest in books and flowers, and by her difficulty in setting
aside schemes which she knew to be utterly vain. Moreover, the
satisfaction she promised herself in creating misery and adding ruin was
not such as she had expected. How much Greyhurst had suffered she had
not fully known until, in his few and only words to her, he had let her
see that she had inflicted lasting pain. How would it end? The man had
gone, and she was at the limit of her resources.
When she thought of this, and of Susan, and of the pain she had given
the Averills, to whom she owed so much kindness in those darkest hours,
she said: “Why not stop here?” It was, save once before, almost
literally her first moment of doubt or indecision; but then, as if a
giant fate were shutting out all other paths, her obsession rose again
dominant, and deprived her of liberty to reflect or to marshal the
forces of reason. She stood up, and felt, as she did so, some sense of
inertness, some lack of her usual strength of body.
She rode with Susan in the afternoon, as they had agreed to do, and,
returning, went up to change her dress.
Susan was still at the door and giving the black maid some household
directions when Mr. Kent came up the garden path from the street. He
knew that his visit was welcome. The plain, sweet face, with its
humorous lines, made that distinct enough. In fact, he was the one
person whose presence insured her happy talk and freedom from the
thought of what dreadful surprise Constance might have in store with
which to trouble her life.
She thanked him for the venison he had sent, and they fell into talk of
his mountain journey, the scenery of the hills, and the books constantly
supplied from the East.
At last he said: “Does your sister read much?”
“No; not of late. In fact, my sister never was a great reader; and now
she is too uneasy, too restless-minded, to sit down to a book.”
“That seems a pity. Books are sometimes such blessed apostles. But to
get good out of them, or help or consolation, does require a certain
temperament and the habit of books. After all, readers, like poets, are
born, not made.”
“Yes, the habit of books; she never had that. Do you know Lord
Macaulay’s verses about this thing—the comforting of books?”
“No, I do not.”
“I have a poor memory for quotations. I envy the people who possess a
remembered library of poetry. There is one of the verses which I suppose
I am able to recall, because I liked it more than the rest. He is
telling of the gift of love of literature which the fairy godmother gave
him at birth.
“‘Fortune that lays in sport the mighty low,
Age that to penance turns the joys of youth,
Shall leave untouched the gifts which I bestow,
The sense of beauty and the thirst for truth.’”
“I like that, and I shall be glad to see the whole poem.”
“I will send you the book to-morrow. I must confess that, of late, not
even books are capable of distracting my mind. My sister is evidently
failing in health. She is becoming more and more silent, and she is
gradually losing interest in the charitable work she did so well; in
fact, I—” here she paused, feeling, with the defensive instincts of a
woman, that these advances in the direction of personal statements were
somewhat perilous.
With some realization of her state of mind, he said quickly: “Yes, I can
imagine how trying it must all be to you. If I can be of any use, I am
sure you must know how entirely I am at your service; and if to talk of
this trouble hurts and does not help, let us drop it.”
The look of anxious kindness on the man’s face as he leaned toward her,
the sense that here was the sympathy of a strong and comprehending
manhood, in some way, of a sudden, weakened her habitual self-control.
Repressed here and troubled there, missing the old affection, the demand
for love and attention, of Constance’s former days, Susan’s gentle
spirit, to which love meant so much, to her dismay, gave way, and she
began to show in tears the too visible signals of distress.
“Oh, Susan,” he said, “I am so sorry for you! I know, of course. I know
what is hurting you. I wish I could tell you how much it all means to
me.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, “I know”—wiping her eyes; “you are—you have been
both good and helpful. But it goes on and on, and I am afraid. I live in
constant fear of what to-morrow may bring.”
“Let me have the right to end it all—the right to speak for you as you
cannot.”
“No, no.” She shook her head and sat tapping her skirt mechanically with
her riding-whip.
He took her hand. “This must not go on.”
“Hush,” she said. “Here comes Constance.”
As they stood up, she raised his hand to her lips.
He bent over and kissed her forehead.
“You must not,” she said shyly.
“But I did,” he replied; and, as they drew apart, Susan, flushed,
tearful, and not unhappy, said quickly: “I must go—oh, do let me go!”
and leaving him, passed in haste through the back parlor and up-stairs.
At another or an earlier day, the unusual speed of Susan’s exit, and
Kent’s slightly embarrassed look, would not have escaped notice from
Constance, who now entered from the hall. The younger sister was,
however, freed from suspicion by the too constant ideas which occupied
her mind. She said graciously: “I am very glad to see you, Mr. Kent; and
how delicious your venison was!”
At times she had seen him in the street, and twice at the Averills’;
but, except for a moment, never in her home or elsewhere. Something in
his general bearing disturbed her; was it because he looked like some
one? He had very little of the conventional clergyman in dress or
manner, and Constance knew in a minute or two that she was talking to a
man of her own class, and accustomed to the ways and habits of a larger
world than she had found at St. Ann.
“I must say to you, Mrs. Trescot, how much pleasure it gives me to see
you. I am kept pretty busy among these unlucky freedmen, who are like
children, and I have had very little time for social visits.” She
recognized and liked the tact which thus set her free from need to
explain why she had not seen more of him. She found herself saying with
cordiality that she hoped he would find time in the future, and that, as
he rode often, he would be able to join them—a pleasure which Susan had
refused him, believing that Constance would be ill pleased.
“I should like nothing better,” he said; “I came near to taking that
liberty last Tuesday; but I had to hurry home.”
“I saw you ahead of us,” she returned, “and told my sister that you had
the cavalry seat, and that you must have seen service. Susan did not
appear to know, and I was rather curious.”
“Oh, Miss Susan,” he said to himself, “you did not know!” There was
little about his life which that lady did not know.
He replied: “Yes, I was born in North Carolina; but I was educated at a
seminary in the North, and had a parish in Portland when the war broke
out. I thought the North right and I served as a chaplain in the Eighth
Maine. I came here on a holiday to relieve a sick friend, and when he
gave up I accepted the parish. At first I had trouble, but now I get on
well enough. It is impossible not to like these people. When once they
accept you there is no limit to their kindness; and as I was a Southern
man who had been in the Northern army, I was surprised to find how soon
I was made to feel at home.”
Again the smile, and something in his face taxed her memory. She said:
“They were most kind to me in my great trouble—most kind. I shall never
forget it.”
“Mrs. Trescot,” he said, “as you have spoken of that sad calamity, may I
venture to say that I am a distant cousin of George Trescot? My
grandfather went from Massachusetts to Carolina.”
Then Constance understood. There was some occasional reminder in Kent of
her husband’s face. She said, with something of her old interest: “There
is a likeness; it is very, very pleasant to me. I wonder that Susan
never spoke of it.” Susan had her own reasons for saying very little to
her sister. “But Susan is so wrapped up in her poor, and your
Bible-class, and the freedmen, that very little else interests
her,”—which was not Reginald Kent’s opinion.
Then the talk fell upon the stormy politics of the day, and the last
novel of Thackeray, which she had not read. As he talked—and he talked
well—he felt, rather than saw, that he soon failed to interest Mrs.
Trescot.
As he rose, Constance said: “You will come again?”
“Yes,” he said; “it will give me great pleasure.”
She watched him as he went, and said to herself:
“Well, for a clergyman, that is an unusual man.”
He had said not a word of her absence from church—nor, in fact, anything
to remind her that he was a clergyman. That he rode well, could rough it
with the mountain-men, hunt on snowshoes—all were to Constance’s liking;
but, above all, that he had been in the army of the North pleased her.
She spoke pleasantly of him that evening at dinner, for they kept to
their late Northern hours. She thought him a gentleman and interesting.
Susan was of like opinion, but was discreetly careful, as was advisable
with Constance, for a variety of reasons.
She said to Susan: “He told me of his distant relationship to George.”
“Indeed!” said the sister, surprised, for of Trescot Constance rarely
spoke.
“Yes; did you not observe the resemblance, Susan? It is slight.”
“Now that you mention it, I do,” returned the sister, mildly
disingenuous, and looking down at her plate. “I am glad you liked him.”
“Do you? Oh, of course you do. You like all clergymen.”
“Yes, more or less.”
The man of whom they talked was pleased with his visit. He had made
himself agreeable, as he had meant to do, and now went on his way,
whistling softly in unclerical fashion. He was wise enough not to call
soon again on Mrs. Trescot. There were other chances of seeing Susan
Hood, and as her sister now rode more rarely, he found added
opportunities of being alone with the woman he loved.
The month of January passed, and the first two weeks of February.
Greyhurst was still absent, and Constance was moodily brooding over the
sudden termination of her means of carrying out her purpose. It had
become so despotic in its rule as to make all else secondary in value,
and, as is the case with the domination of a fixed idea, to impair, in
time, the competence of will and of reason. Thought is then emotionally
disturbed, and, soon or late, mere indecision and indefinite craving
replace resolute and well-considered plans of action. Constance was near
the verge of such a condition, but still far enough away to feel alarmed
at her lessened efficiency. She was irritable, spent more time alone,
rode less frequently, and became indifferent as regarded her
charities—all of which the watchful, worried sister saw with the alarm
of undiminished affection. The pale face was thinner, the set look, as
she stood at times listless and unoccupied, more intense. Meanwhile
gossip ceased, or, for lack of novel occasion, became uninteresting;
and, because of heavy rain, the river was rising and causing alarm and
excitement. There was something more serious to occupy attention than
Mrs. Trescot’s strange ways.
Miss Althea Le Moine still called on Constance; but, her visits being no
longer helpful, Constance sat still while she talked feebly about the
home and the floods, dimly conscious that her useful patroness was
losing interest.