MISS LADY AT THE BIG HOUSE
The days wore on not ungentle at the Big House, until the mild
southern winter had taken the place of mellow fall, and until
presently all the land was again full of the warm, sweet smell of
spring. Softness and gentleness rested on all the world, and upon
every side were tokens that calm had come again to a land late
distraught. Slowly the signs of wreck and ruin disappeared about the
plantation. The track of the receding waters was covered with a swift
verdure. The cabins, late half-submerged and deserted, again found,
at least in part, a tenantry. Songs were heard once more as the
plowmen resumed their labors in the fields. Green and white and pink
colors appeared, and gracious odors, and kindly sights filled now all
the horizon. Peace, and content, and hope seemed now at hand once
more. The master of the Big House saw about him his accustomed
kingdom, and once more his subjects felt the hand of a master, if as
firm, perhaps more kindly than ever before.
As for Miss Lady, she dropped back into the life of the place as
though she had been gone but for a day. Care and responsibility sat
upon the brow of Madame Delchasse, but Miss Lady, not less useful in
the household economy, went about her employment as if she had never
been away. Of those who welcomed her back to the Big House there was
none more thankful and adoring than the old bear-dog, Hec. At the
first sight of his divinity, not forgotten in all these long months,
Hec, himself grown very old and gray, well-nigh wriggled his
rheumatic frame apart, and lifted up his voice in a very wail of
thanksgiving. From that time on he rarely allowed Miss Lady out of
his sight, but pursued her about the place, hobbling and whimpering
when her feet grew too swift; nor did his homage know any change save
when Miss Lady deserted him to bestow her attentions elsewhere,
whether upon little yellow chickens, or upon some of the toddling
puppies which filled the yard about the Big House.
Of all little helpless things, Miss Lady could not find too many for
her attention. Upon one certain morning in the spring, some time
after the late trial at the Clarksville court, Miss Lady was sitting
out on the board-pile beneath the evergreen trees in the front yard
of the Big House. Her wide hat, confined loosely by its strings, had
fallen back on her shoulders, so that the sun and the warm wind had
their way of the brown hair, and the cheeks now flushed with tender
solicitude for the three puppies she held in her lap. Yet other
puppies scrambled at a pan of milk close by her feet, while at a
distance old Hec, too dignified to engage in such procedures, lay in
the shade and gazed at her with reproachful eyes. Calvin Blount,
coming about the corner of the house, stood for a while and gazed at
this picture in silence before he approached and interrupted.
"Miss Lady," said he, "you never did know how glad I am to have you
back here again. Why, a while ago I didn't care what became of me, or
of anything else. I wasn't even half-training my pack of dogs. Now I
have got more'n fifty of the best hounds that ever run a trail, and
with you to take care of the cripples and the puppies, it certainly
looks like the old pack is going to last a while yet. Yes, you surely
are right useful on the place."
"You are not any gladder than I am," said Miss Lady. "I've every
reason in the world to be glad."
"Well," said Blount, seating himself apart on the end of the board-
pile, "I've got a few, myself. This here is a heap better than being
in jail, or maybe getting hung."
"Don't talk about it," said Miss Lady, shuddering.
"I don't want to think--"
"Well, it was Jack Eddring got us out of it all, I reckon," said
Blount, breaking off a splinter from the board. "Did you ever stop to
think, Miss Lady, that he's a powerful fine young man?"
"Why do you always talk about him?" said Miss Lady, turning, to the
sudden discomfort of one of the puppies. "Every time anything comes
up--"
"Now, hold on," said Blount, "you don't say a word against that young
man while I'm around. I want to tell you that fellow has showed me a
heap. He's a square, hard-working man, as honest as the day is long,
straight as a string, square as they make 'em, and not afraid of
nothing on earth. I ask him to come down here and go b'ah hunting. He
always says he has to work--works harder than any nigger I ever had
on the place. Now that's what he done showed me. I reckon he'd be a
good sort of model for this whole southern country to-day. He's proof
enough to my mind that a man can work, and do his own work, and still
be a gentleman. I've been right lazy in my time, I reckon, b'ah
hunting and that sort of thing, but now I come to think it all over,
I don't know but what Jack Eddring is as near right as anybody I know
of. He allows he's got something to _do_ in this world, and he's
starting out to do it. He sort of showed me that maybe that's about
the best thing a man can do with himself--just work.
"Besides, Miss Lady,"--and here Blount turned upon her suddenly,
"that man's done a heap for you."
"Oh, well--" began Miss Lady.
"And he thinks a heap of you. That is,"--and here Blount undertook to
save himself from what he swiftly fancied might be indiscretion--
"he's like all of us people down in here, you know. Now they tell me
that up North, in the big cities where I've never been at, there's so
many women that folks think they're right common. I don't believe
that, nohow, for it don't stand to reason. Now we-all know that a
woman is something a good ways off, and high up and hard to reach.
That's the way we-all feel. But now even if we allow it that way, I
want to say that Jack Eddring has done a heap for you, Miss Lady,
that maybe you don't know about. He didn't have to do it, either."
"I never asked him to do anything--I never told him."
"No, you didn't," said Cal Blount, gravely. "You sort of allowed that
he was a meddling sneak-thief, Miss Lady. I want to say right here
that I allow a lot different from that. Now, if I know that man at
all, he ain't going to come around you and make any sort of talk.
You'll have to go to _him_."
"I'll not!" said Miss Lady, again eliciting a yelp from one of the
puppies in her lap.
"There, there, now," said Blount, gently. "Just you hold on a minute.
Don't say you will or you won't. I just want to ask you one thing,
Miss Lady. Who do you reckon you are? _I_ know you're Miss Lady, and
that's all I want to know. But who do _you_ think you are?"
The kindness of the keen gray eye disarmed Miss Lady. In the sheer
instinct of youth and vitality she spread out her arms wide, her face
turned up halfway toward the sky, her lips half-parted: "Oh, don't
ask me, Colonel Cal," said she. "I'm alive, and it's spring. I danced
in the big room this morning, Colonel Cal! Isn't it enough, just to
be alive?" Thus she evaded that question, which she had so long
shunned as impossible of answer.
"Yes, it's enough, Miss Lady," said the old planter, gravely. "It's
enough for you. But now, we men who are your friends have got to take
_care_ of you. We've got to do the thinking. Now, I'm saying that Jack
Eddring has done a heap of thinking for you that you don't know
anything about."
"Oh, I know he sort of took charge of things down there at New
Orleans. He told me a lot. And then--about Mr. Decherd--"
"Yes, about Mr. Decherd. I've never talked much to you about that,
because the time hadn't come. Now I want to say that Jack Eddring had
more right to throw that man Decherd off the boat than ever you
understood. I'd have done it the same way, only maybe rougher. We're
friends of yours. You're ours, you know. You haven't got any mother.
Thank God, you haven't got any husband. You haven't got any father.
Now tell me, Miss Lady, who do you reckon Henry Decherd is, and what
do you think he wanted to do?"
Miss Lady, suddenly sober, turned toward him a face grave and
thoughtful. A certain portion of the old morbidness returned to her.
"It's not kind of you, Colonel Cal," said she, "to remind me that I'm
nobody. I'm worse than an orphan. I'm worse than a foundling. How I
endure staying here is more than I can tell. Shall I go away again?"
"There, there, none of that," said Blount, sharply. "I'll have none
of that; and you'll understand that right away. You're here, and you
belong here. You don't go out beyond the edge of this yard and get
tangled up with any more Henry Decherds, I'll tell you _that_.
Now, there's certain things people are fitted for. There's Mrs.
Delchasse, a-stewing and a-kicking all the time because she wants to
go back to New Orleans. I tell her she can't go, because she's got to
stay here and take care of you. Now I'm fit to hunt b'ah. I can tell
by looking at a b'ah's track which way he's going to run. Same way
with Mrs. Delchasse. She can just look at a cook stove and tell what
it's going to do. You can run the rest of this house, and do it easy.
We're all right, just the way we are. Now it's going to be that way
for a while, and no other way, and I don't want no orphan talk from
you. For the time being I'm your daddy--and nothing else.
"But now," he went on, presently, "Jack Eddring is fit to do other
things. He's been digging around, like he maybe told you part way,
for all I know, and he's found out a heap of things about you that
you didn't know, and I didn't know. Miss Lady, as far as I know, you
may be richer than I am before long. If you think I've missed the
corn-bread you've done eat at my place, why, maybe some day we can
negotiate for you to pay for it. Now I ask you once more, _who_
are you? and you can't tell. How ought you to feel toward the man who
_can_ tell you what you are, and who you are? And him a man who
can do that, not for pay, but just because you are Miss Lady. How
ought you to feel in a case like that?"
Miss Lady said nothing. She only looked anxious and ill at ease.
"Now listen. I'm going to tell you what we know about you, or think
we know.
"We think your real name is Louise Loisson, just the name you picked
out for yourself. We think that was the name of your mother, and of
your grandmother, too, for that matter. If all that is so, then
you're rich, if you can prove your title; and we think you can. Tell
me, what do you know about Mrs. Ellison? And what do you know about
Henry Decherd? Were they ever married?"
A deep flush of shame sprang to Miss Lady's face as she turned about
at this. "Colonel Cal," she began, and her voice trembled; "you hurt.
All this hurts me so."
"Now hold on, child," said Blount, quickly. "None of that, either.
This is strictly business. I know you are not the child of Mrs.
Ellison. You are somebody else's daughter. You were in her company or
her possession for a long time; just why, we can't prove yet a while.
But there was something right mysterious between that fellow Decherd
and Mrs. Ellison. Did you ever see them much together, as long as you
were living with Mrs. Ellison?"
"No," said Miss Lady, "never, except as they met occasionally here or
there. Mrs. Ellison traveled a great deal from time to time, when I
was little, before we went to New Orleans, where I went to school
with the Sisters. She, my mother--that is, Mrs. Ellison--had money
from somewhere, not always very much. Mr. Decherd told me often that
he simply was an old friend of hers. I always thought he was a lawyer
somewhere in this state. Sometimes he went to St. Louis. We went to
New Orleans; and that was the last I saw of him for some years until
we came here to the Big House."
"That's all you know?" asked Blount. "You don't remember any mother
of your own?"
"Not in the least." Tears welled from her eyes, and this time Blount
did not protest.
"Miss Lady," said he, "there are some things we can't clear up yet.
We can't prove just yet who was your own mother, but I want to tell
you, you were born as far above that sort of life as that there sun
is above the earth. No matter how much Decherd loved you, or how much
right he had to love you, he couldn't do you anything but wrong and
harm, and injury, and shame. As near as we can find out, he was about
as bad, and about as sharp a man as ever struck this country. We
couldn't hardly believe at first how smooth he was. Miss Lady, we
can't tell just what his relations to Mrs. Ellison were. We know they
had some kind of an understanding. We know that he was mixed up with
Delphine down here on some sort of a basis. We know that he was
robbing the railroad here with a list of judgment claims against the
road, which he stole in some way. We know he was underneath a heap of
this trouble with the niggers down here, and that he used Delphine as
a cat's-paw in that. It was his scheme to have other people stir up
all the trouble they could, so he could carry on his own devilment
behind the smoke. Now we know he was mixed up with those two women
somehow. I won't ask you any questions, and won't try to understand
why you could have been so blind as not to know your own friends.--
No, Miss Lady, come back here, and sit right down. You've got to take
your own medicine, and some day you've got to know your own friends.
Now sit down, and hold on till I tell you what I know about this."
And so, to a Miss Lady alternately shocked and ashamed, he went on to
tell in his own fashion, and to the best of his knowledge, the facts
of the strange story which had been canvassed between himself and
Eddring long before. The sun was still farther up in the heavens when
he had concluded, and when finally he rose to his feet and stood
erect before her.
"So there you are, Miss Lady," said he. "You couldn't be any better
than we knew you were all along. I don't think any more of you now
than I ever did; and I don't believe Jack Eddring does either. Now,
we don't know where this man Decherd will turn up again. You've got
to stay here until we find out about that. But this thing can't run
along this way, and it's got to be settled on a business basis. We've
got to find Mrs. Ellison and make her tell what she knows. As to
Decherd, his own rope'll hang him before long. Now, I'm going to be
your agent, your attorney-in-fact. That's what we'd call a 'next
friend' in law, maybe, though you don't need any guardian now. If
you've got any better friend, you name him, but I know you haven't.
Then we'll start suit to get possession of that property, which is
yours. Jack Eddring will be your attorney. I'll appoint him myself,
right now. He's just a little too good for you, Miss Lady, for you
didn't think he was honest; but he'll handle this case. The only
promise I want of you is this: if you get plumb rich and independent,
and able to go where you like, and marry anybody you want to, you
won't get up and go right away at once and leave us all. You won't
do that right away, now will you, Miss Lady?"
Tears still stood in Miss Lady's eyes, as she put both her hands in
the big one extended to her. "Colonel Cal," said she, "it's a wonder
that I can know my friends, or tell the truth, or do anything that's
right. It's been deceit, and treachery, and wrong about me all the
time. I have hardly heard a true word, it seems to me, except when I
was with the Sisters. But I think that she, Mrs. Ellison, told me one
true thing, although she didn't mean it that way. She said, 'There's
nothing in the world for a woman except the men.' That's the truth.
It's been the truth for me. They're not all bad; I know now I've met
two good ones, at least."
"You said two?" asked Blount.
Miss Lady hesitated. "Yes--two," she said, "I'm so sorry."
Blount caught the penitence of her tone and the meaning of her
unfinished speech, and was content to leave his friend's case as it
was. "Miss Lady," said he, sternly, "what do you mean idling around
here all the morning? Can't you hear my dogs hollering? Them puppies
will just naturally starve to death, and here you are a-visiting
around in the shade, not tending to business."
It was a sober and thoughtful young woman who looked up at him. "All
my life, Colonel Cal," said she, "there has been a sort of cloud
before my eyes. I could not see clearly. Tell me, do you think I'll
ever understand, and see everything clearly, and be my real self?"
"Yes, girl," said Calvin Blount, "you'll see it all clear, some day;
and I hope it won't be long. Now, I said, go feed them puppies. And
look at old Hec, there, wanting to talk to you."