Late in February occurred the monthly meeting of the women who managed
the home for orphans.
After the session, Althea was called in to answer questions and receive
directions. The business having been concluded, the ladies lingered.
Mrs. Dudley said: “I hear that the river is falling. It dropped five
inches last night.”
“Indeed!” returned Miss Bland. “That is good news. But, dear me, what a
dull winter it has been! I was driving yesterday when I met Susan Hood,
on horseback, with Mr. Kent. I cannot imagine what he sees in that
homely old maid. They can’t talk Sunday-school all the time.”
“She is anything but homely,” said Mrs. Averill, who loved Susan and
disliked gossip. “Plain, if you like, but surely not homely; and any one
must admit that she has a perfect figure.”
“Oh, that’s her gowns,” remarked Miss Marcel.
Mrs. Averill smiled as she regarded Miss Marcel’s gaunt outlines, but
was too kindly to do more than whisper to her neighbor, Mrs. March, who
smiled in answer as Mrs. Dudley remarked aloud: “She is not too much of
an old maid either for fine gowns or for a clerical flirtation.”
“Oh, that would be too absurd!” exclaimed Miss Bland, who had of late
developed a novel interest in altar decorations and Sunday-schools.
“He is certainly very handsome,” said Mrs. Averill, a little annoyed and
more than a little amused.
Mrs. March laughed. “My dear Eliza,”—this was to Miss Bland,—“Miss Hood
may be plain, but her fortune is also plain; and, really, clergymen do
seem to capture the rich girls in a remarkable way.”
“Do not you think,” said Mrs. Averill, in her most quiet manner—“do not
you think that we are gossiping just a little more than is advisable?”
“You are quite right,” said Mrs. March; “I agree with you, Eleanor. But
I do love a good talk about our neighbors; and, after all, we have not
been very vicious.”
Mrs. Dudley, eager for an opportunity, remarked: “Well, we shall see.
But have you heard the latest news?”
“Oh, what is it?” said Miss Marcel.
“Colonel Dudley consented to take charge of Mr. Greyhurst’s affairs
while he was away—but that is not all.”
“Was he not terribly broken up by that extraordinary land purchase?”
asked Mrs. March.
“Oh, awfully.”
“It has always seemed to me,” said Miss Bland, “that Constance Trescot’s
conduct was most unwomanly.”
“And unchristian, I should say,” added Miss Marcel, tartly.
“I am sure that you will pardon me,” said Mrs. Averill, rising, “if I
remind you that you are speaking of a woman to whom our home is deeply
indebted, and also that she is my friend.”
“I know,” said Miss Bland. “But, really, Mrs. Averill—”
“No matter, my dear,” returned the old lady. “Let us drop it. I am sure
you must agree with me when you come to think about it.”
“But I really must tell you my news,” said Mrs. Dudley, as they stood,
about to leave. “Mr. Greyhurst is engaged to be married.”
Even Mrs. Averill stopped, surprised into interest.
“Who is it?” asked two or three in a breath.
“I am sorry for her, whoever she may be,” Mrs. Averill. “Can she know
the man?”
“She is a Miss Jeanette Wilson. I think you know her, Mrs. Averill. They
were Mobile people. She is very well off, and—”
“Oh, I remember her,” broke in Miss Marcel. “She was here, staying in
the country, just after the war—a little woman, a blonde. You met her,
Eliza,” she added, turning to Miss Bland.
“Yes, a very quiet girl. I thought her mighty dull. Well, that is news!”
Miss Marcel went out with Miss Bland, talking volubly as to what that
terrible Mrs. Trescot would think of it.
Mrs. Averill walked homeward with Mrs. March. For a few moments both
were busy with their own reflections concerning what they had just
heard. At last Mrs. March said:
“Eleanor, I wonder if it is really true? You know the quality of Jane
Dudley’s gossip. I have had reason to remember it.”
“I should be glad if it were true, for—well, for Constance Trescot’s
sake. It would put an end to this unnatural vendetta.”
“Is it unnatural, Eleanor? Unusual, I grant you that; but only too
natural. Think of the other woman! I shall want more certain information
before I believe it. You must recall the girl.”
“I do, of course. She was here just after the war; a very pretty blonde,
with very gentle ways. She must be by this time about twenty-five.”
“Old enough to know better.”
“Yes; but—ah, well, it is vain to discuss love-affairs; no one ever
knows the why and the wherefore—least of all the people most concerned.”
“Yes; I suppose one must admit that. I shall be glad on account of
Constance, and sorry for the girl.”
“Her father was on the general’s staff, and I believe it is at least
true that since his death the girl has had money left her.”
“A strange business,” said Mrs. March. “Good-by.”
Althea, who had listened eagerly, was delighted to have, at last,
something of moment to say to Mrs. Trescot. She was entirely without
moral sense of the right or wrong of Mrs. Trescot’s ways, but distinctly
aware of that lady’s useful relation to Althea Le Moine.
Mrs. Dudley sat down with those who remained, profusely ready to discuss
this matter, and to pour out all she knew, with surmises in regard to
what she did not know.
When, late in the afternoon, Althea found Mrs. Trescot alone on the back
porch, that lady rose to greet her, saying rather wearily:
“Ah, Miss Althea, sit down. Were you at the meeting?”
“No; I am not allowed to be present, as I think would be fitting. I was
called in afterward, and I am glad I was, because I know you will be
interested.”
Constance thought it unlikely, but said languidly: “Have the orphans got
over the mumps, or refused hash?”
“It is much more important, Mrs. Trescot,” replied Althea, with a clear
conviction that the news would reflectively add to her own value.
“Well, what is it?”
“It is really surprising—most surprising.”
“Well, go on. What is it?”
“You will be interested.”
“Good heavens!” said Constance, irritably. “Will you have the goodness
to say what you mean?”
“Oh!” exclaimed Althea, with a little start, “I beg pardon, Mrs.
Trescot.”
“Well, will you never go on?”
“Mr. Greyhurst is going to marry Miss Jeanette Wilson. She is a blonde.
She lives in San Francisco—no, I mean Sacramento. She is rich. She is
very small. I thought you would wish to know. She lives with an old
aunt, Miss Ruth Wilson. Isn’t it horrid?”
As Miss Althea delivered herself of this news, in her usual
inconsecutive manner, Constance sat up, and, grasping the arms of her
chair, listened. Her languor was gone.
“Now be careful, Miss Althea,” she said. “Is this true? Is there any
doubt about it?”
Althea repeated her tale with slight variations. “Yes, Colonel Dudley
has had a letter. It was an old affair. Miss Wilson had once been in St.
Ann, or near it; but Miss Wilson is very strict in her views, and would
not listen to him while Mrs. Greyhurst was alive. You know she was
divorced.”
Mrs. Trescot rose. “I am sorry that I cannot ask you to stay. I am not
very well.” In fact, she was greatly agitated, and was eager to be
alone.
“Yes; it is quite upsetting,” said Althea. “One never knows what will
happen.”
“Thank you for coming, and oblige me by saying nothing to any one of
your having told me. Pray pardon my abruptness.”
“Certainly. You do look upset.”
“Yes; I am not quite myself to-day. Come soon again, or if you hear more
let me know at once.”
Althea had made mischief. She was morally as innocent as the slow-match
between the engineer’s hand and the gunpowder in the mine.
Constance returned to the porch and walked slowly to and fro.
Greyhurst had left St. Ann a half-ruined man, and, she was sure, an
unhappy man. She had had in mind a dozen schemes to be worked out on his
return—some utterly vain, some grave enough. She had heard that his
house was mortgaged, and the interest in arrears. What if she bought the
mortgage? She had been, however, lavishly wasteful, and to do that she
must trench on her capital. Now he was about to escape, and, with a new
hope in life, to find love, and the power of flight, or the means of
resistance money would give.
As usual, and more and more of late, too intense thought brought on
emotion. To sit still and see this murderer unpunished and perhaps
happy, able to live on and forget, would, she felt, be unendurable. Oh,
rather should he die! and she laughed a laugh that startled her as
though it were a ghost of mirth. She walked faster up and down the
porch, thinking of what she could do, until of a sudden, realizing the
completeness of her defeat, she stood still, staring at the distant
river. Suddenly, as she sat down, she saw with vividness the man with
the revolver, the little haze of smoke rising as he stood, the dead man,
the dearly loved face, the crowd. She caught her head in her hands,
clutching it in the agony of a hysterical vision which reproduced the
anguish of life’s darkest hour. Her hair fell about her, over the black
dress. She staggered to her feet, and, swaying, dropped on the floor.
An hour later, Susan, glowing and happy, came home from a ride with
Reginald Kent. She gathered her skirts and went in, asking for
Constance. Not finding her in the house, she went out to the porch, and
saw Constance lying, with clenched hands, rigid and motionless. She
understood at once that it was a return of the former trouble, and,
being a woman of sense and resource, knew what was to be done.
When Dr. Eskridge arrived, he found Constance on a lounge in the parlor,
already better and asking what was the matter. Had she fainted? There
were slight returns of rigidity and forgetfulness, but before morning
she was herself. A few days of rest would be needed. She assented
willingly, relieved that Susan asked no questions.
In a day or two she recognized that she had been strangely eased by this
riotous outbreak of emotion, but felt as if bruised in every inch of her
strong body.
“And now, Miss Susan,” said the doctor, after his second visit, as they
went down-stairs, “what caused this trouble?”
“Wait a little, doctor. She has the hearing of an animal.”
He was silent until they had entered the parlor and she had closed the
door.
“Now,” she said, “we can talk unheard. Constance hears everything. You
asked what caused it. I do not know. Nothing unusual happened. Miss
Althea Le Moine was here, but she comes very often to see Constance—a
furtive, childish, dried-up woman, one of the helpless wrecks of the
war. Constance is good to her, I fancy.”
The doctor asked questions concerning Mrs. Trescot, few of which Susan
was able to answer. Sorry for both sisters, he went away in doubt, as he
had gone so often from among the griefs and perplexities of many in his
long life of honest service.
When, in the afternoon, Mrs. Averill called, Susan heard of the gossip
at the home, and began to suspect that it was Miss Le Moine’s visit
which had been the cause of Constance’s attack. She disliked to question
Miss Le Moine, and felt herself powerless. It was unadvisable to reopen
the subject with her sister. She would learn nothing. Kent was as little
able to advise her.
Meanwhile the days went by and Constance was up and about the house. She
was evidently better, and submitted to every order with patience,
longing to regain her full strength and decide upon what she should do.
At the close of a fortnight, she mailed the following letter to Miss
Jeanette Wilson, in the care of Miss Ruth Wilson, Sacramento,
California:
“ST. ANN,
WEST STREET, March 12, 1872.
“DEAR MISS WILSON:
“I have learned of late that you are engaged to be married to Mr.
Greyhurst of St. Ann. If it be not true, I simply offer my apologies
for this letter. If, on the other hand, it be true, I should be
wanting in my sense of duty if I failed to do what probably no one
else will do. Believe me, I have no motive except that, as a woman
who has greatly suffered by this man’s act, I cannot leave another
woman ignorant.
“Mr. Greyhurst’s first marriage resulted in a divorce caused by his
ill-temper. On the ninth of October, 1870, he murdered my husband,
shooting down in cold blood an unarmed man, partly crippled, and who,
at the moment, was going forward to meet him with a message of peace
and an offer to settle generously the case Mr. Greyhurst had just
lost.
“If, for your misfortune, you doubt my statement, General Averill
will, I am sure, indorse all I have said. Probably Mr. Greyhurst has
told you his own story. Whether you can trust it or not you must
decide. His only excuse can be that what he did was an act of sudden
anger, the fatal result of a life without moral law and without
religion.
“I leave you to imagine what prospect of happiness a union with such
a man may offer. I trust, at least, to hear that you have received
this letter. To write it has cost me dear, and has renewed for me a
scene I saw and can never forget.
“Very truly yours,
“CONSTANCE TRESCOT.
“MISS JEANETTE WILSON.”
Having shot her arrow, Constance waited with the patience of a hunting
animal. The letter thus sent was not such as she could have written in
her earlier months of desire for retributive punishment. Certainly her
motives in writing it were untruly stated, and she had once been
truthful. The cunning it displayed was a sad illustration of the failure
of a character which, in the presence of one consuming purpose, had
ceased to be influenced by anything else.
What pain she was to inflict on this unseen woman gave her no concern.
Of Susan’s opinion she did think at times; but Susan would never know of
this letter, nor, at this time, would it in the least degree have
affected her own course of action. Her power of self-trial and
self-condemnation was lost. If she had any doubts she put them aside,
and, as usual with her, was set at ease for the time by a decisive act.
Meanwhile, her letter crossed the continent and passed the train in
which Greyhurst returned to St. Ann. He lingered a day to see Colonel
Dudley, and then went East to meet certain bankers in New York, whom he
hoped to interest in the mines, and who were to advance money to open
and develop them. His fee was to be a share in the property, and he
looked forward with confidence to such a favorable result of his
negotiations as would in some degree release him from his increasing
embarrassments.
He felt that he had been terribly punished for an act of rashness and
passion; but now, with gain of health and freedom from material
reminders of guilt, he began to feel a return of belief in a more happy
future. Time has for crime, as well as for grief, its alleviating
helpfulness, and even the sharpest remorse may be dulled as the years go
by.
He honestly loved the woman, who had long refused to consider his suit.
When again he saw her in Sacramento, she was shocked and pitiful as she
observed how greatly he was altered. She had heard of the death of
Trescot, and he was wise enough to face the matter. He told her of his
own life, of his boyhood, of the temptations and rude existence in the
mining-camps of the West. He described, with every sign of regret, his
sudden meeting with Trescot, and told of his belief that he was about to
use a weapon, and of how the man who had insulted him came forward with
a smile of triumph, and then of his own quick anger, and of the fatal
consequence. He was profoundly moved, and she hardly less so.
She was, and had long been, on the border-line of that complete
abandonment to love which, once it is passed, excuses all things, and
has cost women so much unhappiness. Being, however, a person of great
good sense, of ready decision, and possessed of that quick apprehension
which is so mysterious to the male mind, his statement checked her.
Something in it—and she acknowledged the feeling with pain—did not ring
true. She refused finally to commit herself; he must wait. She gave no
distinct reason, except that she was not sure of herself; and he went
away, not altogether dissatisfied. She had been so tender, so sorry not
to be able to say yes; so full of what, in fact, was yearning pity
afraid to trust itself to speech.
When he had gone she would have had him back. Had he returned, she would
have had no more to say than she had already said. She approved her own
decision, but knew it to be insecure; and, fully comprehending the
gravity of the question, felt that, for her sake and his, she ought not
to leave him long without a definite answer. But how could she become
more reasonably sure of what this man was? How could she be certain that
he had told her the facts as they had appeared to less partial
witnesses? She was a woman in her twenty-fifth year, and more than
usually mature. Her religious convictions were positive, her beliefs
distinct. It was not possible for her to fail to consider so grave a
matter apart from the views which had been influential in a life not
free from trials. She knew that her lover was, by habit, indifferent to
what she regarded as of the utmost moment. She smiled sadly as she
thought of St. Paul’s advice, and felt that under ordinary circumstances
she would have been free to yield, trusting with affectionate hope to
what influence time and love might have. But this other matter made her
pause; no, that must be seen by her as others saw it—those in whose
hearts there was no constant advocate willing or wishing to believe John
Greyhurst innocent and the sad victim of circumstances.
Resolute at last to put an end to her doubt, and accustomed for years to
independence of action, she decided to go to St. Ann, and, in
Greyhurst’s absence, to see the Averills, whom she had known as a girl,
and who had been friends of her dead father. She cherished a tender hope
that here would be the friends who would incline to think the best
possible of Greyhurst. She justified that night the Eastern proverb, “In
the Inn of Decision men sleep well,” and awakened self-assured that she
was right. She wrote to her cousins at Trois Îles, on the river below
St. Ann, that she would make them a short visit.
The night before her departure she received Mrs. Trescot’s letter. Her
future darkened as she ran over the pages. She had never before realized
that which, when thus told by an agonized eye-witness, dismissed for her
at once the merciful vagueness of a thing unseen. Once more considering
the letter, she read between the lines, as she had read between the
words her lover had used. It was natural that an unfortunate woman
should overstate the guilt of the man who had cost her so dear. Again
she doubted, again wondered where the truth lay, and found new distress
in the thought of the young wife alone with her grief. Had Greyhurst
ever thought, after that day of death, of the woman alone with the
sorrow he had created? He had never mentioned her.