CERTAIN MOTIVES
Miss Lady and her stout-hearted friend, Clarisse Delchasse, found
abundance at hand to engage their activities. Miss Lady ran from one
part to another of the great house which once she had known so
familiarly. Everywhere was an unlovely disorder and confusion, which
spoke of shiftlessness and lack of care. The touch of woman's hand
had long been wanting. Colonel Blount, in the hands of his
indifferent servants, had indeed seen all things go to ruin about
him. To Miss Lady, concerned with the swift changes in her own life,
wondering what the future might presently have in store for her, all
this seemed a sorry home-coming. She leaned her head against the door
and wept in a sudden sense of loneliness; yet presently she lost in
part this feeling in a greater access of pity which she felt for the
helpless master of the Big House, who had been living thus abandoned
and alone. With this there came the woman-like wish to restore the
place to some semblance of a home. Even as she dried her eyes, to her
entered presently madame, with her sleeves rolled to the elbow and
her face aglow in the noble ardor of housekeeping.
"_Voila_!" she cried. "I have foun' it! I have dig it h'out. Here is
the soss-_pan_ of copper. It was throw' away. It was disspise'. _Mais
oui_, but now I shall cook! This house it is ruin'. Such a place I
never have seen since I begin. You and I, Mademoiselle, it is for us
to make this a place fit for the to-live--but you, what is it? Ah,
Mademoiselle, why you weep? Come, Come to me!" And Miss Lady was
indeed fain to lay her head upon the broad shoulders, to feel the
comforting embrace of madame's fat arms.
"H'idgit!" cried madame, suddenly, starting back.
"H'idgit congenital! H'ass most tremenjouse! Fool _par excellence!"_
Miss Lady gazed to her in wonder. "Auntie," she cried, "who?"
"Who should it be but the M'sieu Eddrang?" replied madame. "For a
time it is like the book. Now it is not like the book. Ah, if I
Clarisse Delchasse, were a man, and I take the lady away from one
man, I'd h'run away with her myself, me, and I'd keep on the h'run.
But M'sieu Eddrang, how is it that he does? Bah! He does not speak
t'ree, four word to you the whole time on the boat. You, who have
been the idol of the young _gentilhommes_ of New Orleans--you,
who have been worship'! Now, it is not one man, and it is not
another, although _ma 'tite fille,_ she is alone, here in this
desert _execrable._ Bah! It is for you to disspise that M'sieu
Eddrang. He is not _grand homme._ Come. I take you back to New
Orleans."
Miss Lady looked at her with a curious shade of perplexity on her
face. "You mistake, auntie," said she. "I do not wish to be back at
New Orleans. I am done with the stage--I'll never dance again. I am--
I'm just lonesome--I don't know why. I have been so troubled. I don't
know where I belong. Auntie, it's an awful feeling not to know that
you belong somewhere, or to some one."
"You billong to me," said Madame Delchasse, stoutly. "As to that
h'idgit,--no, never!"
"But Mr. Eddring brought us safely through the forest," said Miss
Lady, arguing now for him. "I don't know what became of Mr. Decherd,
or why he left us, but we can't accuse Mr. Eddring of anything
ungentlemanly after that time. But why was he so anxious to come? Why
was Colonel Blount so anxious? I don't understand all these things.
And Mr. Eddring and Colonel Cal seem to want to talk to each other,
and not to us."
"Bah! Those men!" said Madame Delchasse. "What can they do but for
us? This place, it is horrible neglect'. But come, I show you my
soss-_pan."_
As Miss Lady had said, Blount and Eddring were long and eagerly
engaged in conversation. They were rapidly running over the new links
in the strange chain of evidence which had now for some time been
forging, Eddring being especially curious now as to Blount's
discoveries in connection with the girl Delphine.
"It's plain enough," said Blount, finally, "that this thing between
Decherd and Delphine had been going on for a long time. Delphine left
a good many papers, which we found among her belongings. It's all
turned out just about as we figured before you went to New Orleans;
but we found one letter from Decherd to Delphine that uncovered his
hand completely, and it was this, to my notion, that made Delphine so
desperate."
"Let me have that letter, Cal."
"All right, I'll get it for you after a while, along with all the
other papers. It gives the whole thing away. He just told her he was
through with her, and with Mrs. Ellison, too. Told her he wouldn't
send her no more money, and turned her loose to take care of herself
the best she could. He allowed that she, and Mrs. Ellison, too, could
do what they wanted to. That was when he told Delphine that if she
made him any trouble he'd come out and charge her with the train
wreck. He was the planner of that wreck. He knew right where that
log-pile was at. He wanted another accident on that railroad, and he
wanted Delphine mixed up in it, so he could control her after that.
She was willing enough, because by that time I reckon she just about
hated all the world. And Decherd came down on that very train, and
got off at our station just before the smash. There was a little
danger in that, but at the same time it was the best way in the world
to rid himself of all suspicion. After the wreck he just mixed with
the crowd, and nobody thought of him one way or the other. Pretty
smooth, wasn't it?
"Oh, he had nerve, too, that fellow did. He wasn't scared, at least
not of these two women, although I'm right sure Mrs. Ellison and he
might have had reason to be scared of the law in some of their
carryings-on before now. It is easy enough to see that Mrs. Ellison
never was Miss Lady's mother."
"No," said Eddring, "that couldn't have been. Some day we'll know all
about that. A good lawyer might get at the truth, even yet."
"Good lawyer?" said Blount. "How about you?"
Eddring shook his head.
"What do you mean?" asked Blount.
"Well," said Eddring, bitterly, "I told you I'd bring Miss Lady
through, and I did. But that ends it. I am neither lawyer nor friend
for any young woman who thinks I'm a thief."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, she told me to my own face that I stole that list of judgment
claims from my own railroad. She told me that I was dishonest. She
forbade me ever to see her again."
"Seems like you _did_ see her again," said Blount, philosophically.
"Well now, you just think over both sides of that. You want to forget
some of the things women say."
"I'll forget nothing," replied Eddring, "I don't need any advice in
such matters as that. No man, and no woman, can accuse me in that way
and ever make it right without coming to me voluntarily and making
apology and explanation. I say voluntarily, meaning for a woman. If
it were a man, I'd take the first steps myself."
"Oh, well, get your feathers up, if you want to," said Blount. "I
suppose every fellow is entitled to his own kind of damned
foolishness. First thing, let's go on through with this Delphine
business. Now, was that girl crazy, or was she just a natural devil?
Folks mostly have reasons for doing things."
"I should think this letter you mention would explain everything for
Delphine," said Eddring. "She was born a good hater, and she was
surely misled and deceived for years--finally thrown over and
taunted."
"But where did they first hook up together, and what made 'em?"
"No doubt she and Decherd knew each other before either came to your
place. Decherd's main motive was money. Delphine was no doubt his
mistress, even here; but he was looking after the legal side of
matters all the time. What he promised Delphine no one knows. It
looks as though he and Mrs. Ellison were hunting in couple, too. Now,
Mrs. Ellison had brains, and she was an attractive woman, too--full
of sex, full of love and hate, and full of unscrupulousness as well.
Rather a dangerous proposition, I should say, to have right here in
your own house. Now, here was Decherd mixed up with two, or perhaps
all three of these women at the same time! That took nerve."
"I should say it did," said Blount. "It was the same sort of nerve a
fellow has to have when he starts on across a trembling bog. He just
keeps on a-running."
"Well, he had to keep running, sure as you're born. A fine situation,
all around, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Blount, tersely. "If I had known all that was going on
here, I wouldn't maybe have felt altogether easy about it."
"Well, Miss Lady's going away helped Decherd. By this time he had to
lighten cargo somewhere. We don't know about his first relations with
Mrs. Ellison, and we don't know just how he got rid of her. Perhaps
he didn't quite want to dispense with Mrs. Ellison, since he might
need her in legal matters later on. He wanted to get rid of Delphine,
but he couldn't kill her outright, and illegally, so he resolved to
get her killed legally if he could! I have no doubt in the world,
Cal, that Decherd planned the train wreck. Maybe he thought it meant
more damage suits; but I think as you do, his main reason was to get
rid of Delphine. He probably hid the handkerchief under the log-pile.
He probably was glad to see the dogs run the trail right to your
door. But Delphine had a nerve of her own. I have no doubt it was she
who turned your pack loose, and wiped out the sheriff's trail right
there."
"By jinks!" said Blount, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Things were
happening, right around here."
"They were happening, and they are not done happening yet. Now, I've
brought you Miss Lady. You take care of her. Better keep that
Frenchwoman here, too, if you can. Decherd may turn up again
sometime, or maybe Mrs. Ellison, though I think Decherd's teeth are
pretty well pulled, I can't act as Miss Lady's lawyer, but I'll
promise to act as your friend."
"And hers?"
"Yes, and hers," said Eddring, hesitatingly. "We are hardly through
with all this yet."
"It's been pretty bad down here," said the old planter.
"Yes, and we know now how it happened and who was at the head of the
trouble, and what cat's-paws were used in it all. Decherd fails in
his first attempt to get rid of Delphine legally, so he stirs her up
to still worse acts; tells her there is no profit in law and order,
but only in destruction. He tells her how to incite these ignorant
niggers; how to bring up all the old talk of their day of
deliverance, the time when they won't have to work, the time when
they will be not only the equals, but the superiors of the whites. He
tells Delphine that she is the naturally appointed Queen of these
people. She is savage enough to fit in with all their savagery. She
does rule it as a queen. In her soul there are thoughts, wild
thoughts which you and I can never understand, because we are white,
and all white. Delphine is neither white nor black, neither red, nor
white, nor black. She is a product of race amalgamation, a
monstrosity, a horror, the germ of a national destruction. She is a
queen--a queen of annihilation!
"And so this thing went on," resumed Eddring, after a time, "this
plotting which meant war and destruction, not for this household
alone, nor this district, nor this state, but for this nation! What
prevented it? I'll tell you. It was our Miss Lady. It was the White
Woman, the white woman of America. Whatever happens, whatever stands
or falls, whatever is the law or is not the law, that is the thing to
be cherished always and to be protected at any cost or any risk. This
house is no better than the women in it, nor is any home, nor is any
nation. Lawless, American men may be, but not so the women; and in
them we reverence the law. When the women go, the nation goes. They
are the salvation of this nation--the stronghold of its purity. In
the commercialization and the corruption of a people the women are
the last to go. In the South we have taken care of them always. I'm
not preaching. I only say, it was our Miss Lady who, by the
Providence of God, acted here as the spirit of all that means
progress, all that means development and civilization.
"Cal, you think I'm a visionary, that I'm a dreamer. Perhaps I am.
But I think on my honor that the angel of our salvation here was one
girl who had no conception of the part she played. I have told you,
she is _our_ Miss Lady. There's nothing in this for me
personally, but at least you and I can take off our hats to her.
Maybe sometime the picture will blur and merge, so that, for us two
old fellows, Miss Lady will just mean Woman. I reckon all of us old
fellows, and all the young ones, can take care of Her."
The two sat looking at each other a moment. Ere their silence was
broken there came the sound of a quick step down the hall, and a
light tap at the door. There appeared, framed in the doorway, the
figure of Miss Lady herself; but not Miss Lady the dancer of New
Orleans, nor yet Miss Lady as recently garbed for her voyage through
the wilderness. In her rummaging about the once familiar recesses of
the Big House, she had come across a simple gown of lawn, which she
had worn long ago, when scarce more than a child. Now, albeit
rounder, firmer and fuller of figure than when she had departed in
search of that bigger world beyond the rim of the hedging forest, it
was the same Miss Lady of the Big House once more. She had come back
to her old friends, and to a world which now seemed strangely sweet
and strangely dear. Her sleeves were rolled up; her hair was tumbled
about her brow, and her eyes were dancing with new merriment.
"Please, gentlemen," said she, with a dainty courtesy, "and would you
come out to dinner? You really should see what Madame Delchasse has
done with her new sauce-pan."
Blount and Eddring both arose; there was gravity in the gaze of
either, though the heart of either might have leaped.
"So it is you, child," said Colonel Blount; "it is you again! Just as
you went. You're Miss Lady, come back to us again." Impulsively
forgetting everything but the one thought, he sprang to her and flung
his arm about her shoulders. And Miss Lady could not find it in her
heart to shrink from such a welcome.
"Oh, I'm glad to see you--glad to see you," repeated Calvin Blount.
"Mr. Eddring, here, was just saying how good it is to have you back
again."
Mute, she turned her eyes toward Eddring. The short upper lip
trembled; in her eyes there was more than half a suspicion of
moisture.
"Yes, we are very glad," said John Eddring, simply. With no word she
put out her hand to each, and drew them out into the hall.