without any great strain upon her reasoning powers she understood that
the trouble had reference to little Nellie. Nothing else brought that
tense expression to the mouth of her beautiful daughter, nor kindled
deep in her black eyes the glare that told of unendurable suffering and
unquenchable resentment.
"I wuz jes' goin' to pot a few roses afore frost gits 'em," she said,
after affectionate greetings had been exchanged. "Will ye set out hyar
on the bench awhile, honey, an' we kin talk whilst I wurk?"
She hoped that in the course of a little quiet talk Amanda's fierce
mood would give way to soothing influences, and that the injudicious
things the impulsive woman was apt to utter when excited might remain
upon this occasion unsaid. But now, as always, the conservative policy
of the good woman only modified, but could not repress the burning
indignation of a spirit that could easier pardon great injuries to
itself, than the slightest wrong done to one who was incapable of
self-defense.
Leaning her head back against the trunk of the ancient magnolia tree
her grandfather had planted here, Amanda watched her mother dig and
fuss among the roses and listened with slight response to her cheerful
sentences, biding her time.
Nellie flitted about like a humming bird, coming every now and then to
lay her little head against her mother's arm with a caressing touch
that spoke well for the relation between the two. She stayed to carry
water in her own tiny watering pot, when at last her grandmother could
no longer make excuse to stop out of doors, and with a secret sigh, led
her daughter into the house.
"Well, honey," she said, with an attempt at treating matters lightly.
"You're not feeling jes' right to-day. Now, try to forgit all about
whatever's been plaguin' you, and res' yo'self on the sofa, whilst I go
an' see about somethin' nice fur dinner."
"No, no, mother. You know well enough Aunt Liza don't need any
suggestions about her dinner. And I want to talk to you. I _must_.
You'll be sorry if you don't listen to me."
"Don't I always listen to you, Mandy?"
"Yes, mother, but you don't always listen willingly. You seem to think
that if things are not spoken about that it's the same as if they
didn't exist. You think I'll stand things better if I'm quiet about
them."
"No, my dear child; dear knows I'm ready an' willin' to hyar all you
want to say if it eases yo' mind any. But, honey, I do hate to hyar yo'
say sech hard things about yo' husband as you've said to me before when
you wuz put out."
"Put out!" repeated Amanda, with scornful emphasis. "Oh, mother, why
won't you see the thing as it is? A wife may bear with her husband
and not let anybody know what she goes through, but a mother with a
helpless little child to defend, will be up in arms against a brute,
and if anybody says she is wrong to take her child away from a father
that abuses her, why, they can _say_ it. I know in my own heart what's
right, and I'll not take it out in talk. I'll act."
"Mandy, darlin'," pleaded her mother. "Shorely you're exaggeratin'.
Vivian's got his faults, and fur be it frum me to defend 'em. I said to
Jane Thomas, only last week, at the Bush Meetin', that if Vivian could
only be persuaded to come up to the bench then an' thar an' promise to
leave off it'd make me happier'n I've been since you wuz married. And
she said--I ain't tellin' you to rile you 'gainst Vivian's ma; yo' know
she feels fur him, same's I feel most fur you--says Jane; 'If Mandy'd
ashow'd a leetle more fondness Vivian he'd a been different. He always
wuz dependent on affection, an' a lovin' woman could hev done anythin'
with him. Mandy's been cold as a stun, an' it's no wonder'--I mean
t'say she said it wuz a wonder 't he _didn't_ go after other women."
A hot color rushed into Amanda's cheeks, and she spread her hands
widely, with a gesture of repulsion. "Don't take the trouble to try
to hide it," she said in a low tone. "Do you think I don't know what
he races down to Richmond for every month or two--and where all the
money goes to? Benvenew falling to pieces, Nellie and I with no clothes
excepting what you give us, and he--gambler and libertine!"
"Mandy, Mandy, hush!" begged Mrs. Powell, alarmed at a much more
forcible expression than Amanda had ever yet permitted herself.
"You know it's true, mother," Amanda answered in a softer manner.
"You and I and his mother know all about it. Of course Mrs. Thomas
blames me, and upholds him. If it hadn't been for her interference
and continually taking his part, I might have made him behave himself
better. I know all Fauquier County believes he's the injured innocent.
I'm outspoken and he's deceitful. With his soft, smooth manner outside
it's not surprising people think as they do; that my temper drove him
to drink. And then he never gets so far gone in public as he does at
home."
"Honey, that's somethin' to be thankful fur, shorely?"
"Oh, yes," said Amanda with a strange look. "Appearances are so much.
Why, even our own minister took it upon himself, not long ago, to read
me a sort of veiled lecture about the beauty of meekness in a woman.
I'm tired--tired, tired of being eternally misunderstood, and of this
sort of 'devil and angel' game--such as the children play--where he's
the angel and I'm the devil."
Mrs. Powell rocked back and forth softly, her placid face expressing
more concern than had ever appeared there before. There was a sustained
earnestness about Amanda's bitter outpouring different from the
hysterical anger she was used to show upon the occasions when she and
her child appeared with their traveling bag at the Powell homestead.
"Dearie," she said hesitatingly, "do you pray about it?"
"We had better let that subject alone," Amanda answered quietly. "I
might hurt your feelings, and I don't want to do that, mother dear.
Poor ma! It isn't your fault. You didn't want me to have him."
"No, honey, but now you're married thar ain't nothin' else to do but
to b'ar it. Fur the child's sake, Mandy, live as peaceable as you kin.
Think how dretful it is fur her to see you two on bad terms with one
another."
"The child! Yes, I should think--for her sake," cried Amanda, her wrath
flashing forth again. "It is of _her_ I'm thinking more than anything.
Vivian Thomas hasn't any more love for his child than he has for
anything outside of his own pleasure. He even abuses her!" And then she
told of the scene of the morning.
"Poor little thing--poor little darling," said the grandmother
indignantly; but adding in a soothing tone: "After all, Mandy, you know
he is the child's father, and he maybe didn't hurt her much."
"What right had he to even go near her when he was in that condition?
But, mother, I tell you, it's not only when he's the worse for liquor.
I've known him strike her at other times. He's cruel. There was always
a streak of cruelty in his nature. You won't believe it--nobody'd think
it to see him, but I tell you he is born to impose on weaker people.
Nellie is afraid of him, and he makes her little life miserable. I
can't stand it. People have no right to bring a child into this world
and make it miserable. It's my duty to take her away from such a
father."
"Yo' can't do that," said Mrs. Powell.
"I can. I can go away and take her with me."
"Dearie, now yo're talkin' wild. Leave yo' husband?"
"Yes," said Amanda, vehemently. She got up and began to pace the floor.
It was almost impossible for her to sit still, when excited, and her
mother had long since accustomed herself to seeing her daughter moving
back and forth with hurried yet measured steps, her hands clasped
tightly in front of her, while she talked in tones always growing lower
and clearer as her mind became more energetic.
"I've been thinking of this for a long time. I took a resolution last
time it--it happened, that the next time he did anything to Nellie,
I'd shake the dust of his place from my feet. It's not so much his
drinking, mother--though I believe any woman has a right to leave a
man that drinks, and that if there's danger of having children by him,
it's her _duty_ to leave him--but it's what he is altogether. I despise
Vivian Thomas."
"I wish I knowed what to say to you. I know you ain't right, Mandy.
It's a woman's place to stay by the man she marries, through thick and
thin. 'Fur better or worse,' reck'lect."
"That was the old idea--the idea of people who made up the form for
the marriage ceremony. It's a dead letter in our law to-day, and it's
a dead letter in society, too. Does anybody expect men and women to
stay tied all their lives to what's horrible? These are modern times,
mother."
"I'm afeared this comes o' that visit o' yo'n to Chicago, to Cousin
Lois' folks," lamented her good mother. "I dunno nothin' 'bout sech
notions. But I do know somethin' 'bout what people think in Fauquier
County. A woman that leaves her husband puts herself in the wrong, and
no matter if she's innocent as the driven snow there's always a shadow
hangin' to her. Jes' stop and think what folks'd say, my dear!"
"Aye," assented Amanda, bitterly. "I know what they'd say well enough.
But Fauquier County isn't the world. Why, mother, out beyond these
narrow boundaries of Virginia there's free territory where women own
their own souls, and can think for themselves. They can even obey their
own conscience if it leads them to go against the minister and the
church."
Mrs. Powell raised a hand that trembled and put it up to her temple
with a despairing gesture. Tears, almost strangers to her gentle,
serene eyes, gathered and rolled down her cheeks.
"Pore Mandy," she said in a choking voice. "You's fur and away from any
ground whar I kin meet up with you. I've knowed fur a spell back you
ain't took no interest in the church, and I'm gre'tly afeared that's at
the bottom o' your troubles. If you desert the Lord He'll desert you,
honey. It's shore as I'm settin' hyar."
Amanda had kneeled down and pressed her mother's head against her
shoulder; but as the good woman regarded her sadly, somewhat as
she might have regarded a sinner about to be prayed for in her
congregation, a melancholy, half-mocking smile succeeded to the concern
on the worn, handsome face upon a level with her own.
"Do you think if I had worked for the fair last month, and had gone
regularly to the sewing society all this while that it might have
helped to make a different man of Vivian?"
"Maybe not, dearie; though the Lord wurks by means, an' we can't tell,"
answered her mother, naïvely.
"Well, mother," Amanda said, "we can't think just alike about some
things. You're good. You'd be good whether you were in the Second
Baptist Church or in Egypt squatting before a hideous image. And I must
be myself. I must do what I think right, no matter what other people
think or say. And I think it right to take my child away from a father
that ill-treats her, and who sets her a frightful example in every way."
"Why, you wouldn't want to cast such a slur as that on yo' daughter.
People'd throw it up to her always--that her father an' mother didn't
live together!"
"But if she was so much happier in other ways that she could afford to
stand the talk, mother?"
"No, Mandy, no. Thar ain't no woman that's come uv a good family and
been raised proper, an' to feel like a nice woman nat'rally does feel,
but what'd ruther suffer anything else'n creation than to hev the
finger o' scorn pointed at her an' know she or any o' her family'd done
anything to desarve it."
Mrs. Powell had been wrought up to a point where her feelings demanded
expression, and she continued with an earnestness and sincerity that
had the effect of the finest eloquence.
"Even if thar air what yo' call 'extenuatin' circumstances,' you
couldn't do this thing without bringin' 'pon yo'self the very hardest
trial you could be set to endure. You couldn't be in any company
without thinkin' uneasily, 'Would these people be willin' I sh'd be
amongst 'em if they knowed how 'twas with me?' In church you'd fancy
every wurd the preacher utters p'inted straight at you. And let alone
yo'self, what wouldn't you go through thinkin' people wuz slightin'
Nellie because o' you?"
"Mother, mother!" Amanda cried, "you mistake me. You're exaggerating
the thing. I--I didn't mean _divorce_!"
"No, you don't mean it now, but it'd come to that. I feel it in my
bones," said Mrs. Powell, solemnly.
"Well, now, dear, dear mother, listen to me," her daughter pleaded.
"Suppose that--finally, that was the only way to save myself--to--to
protect myself from--suppose we were in another place, in a northern
city, where nobody knows me?"
"Thar ain't no place on the face of the 'arth so remote but what talk'd
find you out."
"Shall we be martyrs, then, to a few old women's tongues? Am I to take
the risk of"--Amanda bent and finished her sentence in her mother's ear.
"Honey, shorely ye kin leave _that_ in the good Lord's hands!"
"I'd have been in a nice fix if I'd have left it in his hands all
these years," said Amanda Thomas, with a look so skeptical and full
of accusation against something seen only in her mind's eye, that her
mother's pink color faded and left her pretty cheeks white. "That's
where our creeds differ, mother. I believe in not leaving things to
chance."
"I said leavin' 'em to the Lord," the old lady amended.
"It's the same thing," said Amanda, recklessly.
"Oh, Mandy, Mandy, it gives me a cold chill fur to hear you talk so."
"I won't talk so, then. Heaven knows I don't want to worry you any
more than can be helped. But let's look at this thing reasonably.
First, about Nellie. The child must and shall have a chance for a
happy, peaceful life. She mustn't be tyrannized over, and hampered,
and kept down; she ought to be well educated and have a fair chance in
the world. And for that she must be away from here--and away from her
father."
"Why, I sh'd think her pa wuz the ve'y one to help her to an
eddication. Vivian's smart enough, an' ain't he been to college?"
"Yes, he's been to college, and he can sing sweetly, the girls say,
and play the flute, and read Horace's odes in the original, and dance
better than any other man in the county," said Amanda, despairingly.
"But does all that make him a good father, or fit him to supervise
Nellie's education?"
"I dunno what more you kin want, dear," answered her perplexed parent.
"Well! There are certain moral qualities. We needn't go into it. To
come to myself. I'm a young woman yet, mother, only twenty-eight. Is my
whole life to be ruined for this one mistake, made when I was a mere
child, and ignorant of the world as a baby?"
"You forgit. A woman's life's sp'iled if she leaves her husband. Thar
ain't no sech thing as takin' a fresh start with a livin' husband in
the background o' your life. He'd be croppin' up yar an' thar an'
ev'ywhar, wors'n a field o' nettles. Do you reckon Vivian's goin' to
lose sight o' you? And, moreover, Mandy, if you sh'd go to the dretful
pass o' seekin' a divorce, wouldn't the law give him the child?"
Amanda started, and bent her black brows fiercely. This was the first
argument her mother had used that she was unable to answer.
"Of course the laws are all in favor of the men. Yes, they would give
my innocent darling--my baby that is part of my own flesh and blood,
that I've nourished at my breast, that I've suffered for and lived for
these nine years--to a besotted, selfish, immoral man who would never
fulfill one duty toward her, and who doesn't care for her the worth of
his little finger. The only thing is that I don't believe he'd want
her."
Mrs. Powell shook her head. "You can't depend on that. Men always want
the last thing you might s'pose'd be any use to 'em. They want their
own way, you see."
"Then the only thing I can do is to keep it a secret where I go. There
are places enough."
"An' how'd ye git along, poor child? How'd ye do cooped up'n some
mean leetle place without no run fur Nellie, an' without horses, nor
anybody to do a han's turn fur ye? And, dearie, you know, even though
I'd ruther you'd stay hyar by yo' duty, wharever you go my lov'd foller
you, an' I'd always do all in my power. But money's the one thing we
don't hev. If you're somewhar 't you hev to put yo' han' in yo' pocket
fur ev'y livin' thing, even to an egg, or a slip o' parsley, how 'pon
'arth'll you do?"
"I mean to work, dear mother. I can sew, and embroider, and do lots of
things," said Amanda, spreading her white hands and looking at them
meditatively; not dreaming, poor, thing, of the thousands and thousands
of other defter and more experienced hands stretched forth in the
localities she thought abounding in lucrative work, for the merest
shadow of employment, and the paltriest sort of recompense.
In Mrs. Powell's imagination Amanda was a rarely talented and capable
woman, able to perform wonders, yet her shrewd common sense suggested
difficulties that Amanda could not but recognize when they were pointed
out, averse as she was to consider any details made against her plan.
They talked over the matter from every point of view, the elder woman
reiterating the same arguments she had used already, and the younger
one meeting them continually with that free, liberal interpretation of
the gospel of individuality which youth has always flourished in the
face of age and conservatism.
Mrs. Powell held out as stanchly as only a good, bigoted Christian
woman, devoutly living up to the public opinion of an insular,
mountain village, can hold out against modern heresies striking at
the very foundation of her social system, and her religious beliefs.
But Amanda had been for a very long time working herself up to her
present resolution, and she stuck to her purpose with unflinching
steadfastness, and had by supper-time succeeded in convincing her
mother that she was in deadly earnest and not to be dissuaded. And
after she had put Nellie into the great old-fashioned bed and tucked
the coverlet about her soft, warm little throat, she only stayed by her
long enough to be sure that the child was sound asleep, then kissing
the curls floating out over the pillow, with a fervent affection such
as no man had ever known from this woman with a genius for motherhood,
she stole away softly, leaving the door ajar, and went back to the
sitting-room to talk to her mother more definitely about the plans she
had formed for the future.
But hardly had the two settled down before the fire when, with a rattle
and a bang, very unlike her old-time timidity, Jane Thomas flung
herself into the room.
"Sh--h!" said Amanda, as the heavy door slammed shut. "You'll wake
Nellie!" She got up and set the door partly open again, then resumed
her seat, pushing the chair away from the hearth to make room for her
mother-in-law, but saying no word of welcome, for she felt that this
visit was made with some special disciplinary intention toward herself.
If ever a woman's face and mien conveyed indignation and resentment
of the splenetic sort, Mrs. Thomas' meager visage and thin figure
manifested these sentiments as she fell into the chair drawn forward
for her, and turned her watery-blue eyes upon her son's wife.
"Nellie!--to be shore!" she uttered in a spiteful whimper. "Pity but
what yo'd hev a leetle consideration for other folks 'sides that child.
Hyar yo've done pitched onter Vivian and attackted him with hammers an'
druv him out'n his own house, an' made a scandal that'll ring through
Fauquier County, and the saints above knows what it's all about. I
thank the Lord I ain't got yo' disposition!"
"You've a great deal to be thankful for in the way of disposition,"
observed Amanda. She had closed her lips tightly, resolving to maintain
absolute silence; but what woman can suppress the witty retort when
her antagonist exposes a vulnerable point?
"Seems ter me I'd be a leetle mo' humble, consider'n' what yo've done.
It'd become you ter be thankful 't yo' awful temper didn't do no mo'
harm 'n it done. Not but what it done 'nuff an' mo'n I shu'd like ter
hev 'pon my conscience."
"If you'd take a few of your son's sins upon your conscience it might
give you something to do."
"Oh, I don't look fur nothin' but sass from you, 'Mandy Powell. Yo've a
tongue the devil hisself 'd fly frum."
"If Vivian Thomas has run from it you must be right," answered Amanda.
Mrs. Thomas rocked back and forth till her chair creaked with a
spiteful sound that seemed to her hearers to be an echo of her
whining voice. She expatiated upon the deplorable effects of her
daughter-in-law's fearful outbreak of the morning, and warned her that
no man on earth was called on to put up with such tantrums, and that
if she was locked up in the lunatic asylum it would be no more than she
had a right to expect.
Amanda put a severe break upon her imperious spirit and said no more
words in reply until at last Mrs. Thomas brought out her final taunt,
that she had only run away for the purpose of getting Vivian to come
after her and bring her back; and for this time she was mistaken. She
would have to stay away a mighty long while if she waited for him to
fetch her, and she'd be glad to creep home again by the time everybody
cried shame upon her.
Then Amanda arose and stood before her adversary, tall and majestic,
with her arms folded across her swelling chest, and her black brows
bent in such a frown as made Jane Thomas' cowardly heart flutter, until
she thought of the impossibility of a personal encounter with this
woman, whom she would have given half her possessions to conquer and
humiliate.
"I say to you here and now," said Amanda, using unconsciously an
orotund quality of voice that, together with her pose, rendered her
delivery so forceful that her words stamped themselves upon the memory
of both her hearers: "I have left Vivian Thomas' roof forever. Spread
the fact as fast as you please; gloat upon the scandal it will create
in this gossiping little place, and tear my reputation to pieces as
fast as you want to. No power under Heaven can make me look upon that
man's face again, or pass a moment in his company!"
For a few seconds there was a hush in the air, as if a missile had been
thrown, and an effect was looked for. People often experience this
momentary apprehension when some peculiarly definite and emphatic stand
has been taken by anyone; as if definiteness, in this changing world,
was a crime to bring down punishment.
But effects rarely follow so swiftly as those that came upon the heels
of Amanda's declaration. Hardly had her voice died away when her
mother arose hastily, crying:
"Hark, what's that?"
There were sounds of dogs barking, voices exclaiming, and the quick,
irregular gallop of a horse's feet coming up to the front porch. The
three women stood looking at each other, when a wild figure with eyes
starting out of its head, wool standing on end, and gown half torn from
its back, burst into the room, and Admonia cried out in a hoarse voice:
"Mis' Mandy, Mis' Mandy! Fur de Lawd's sake, Mis' Mandy--Mr. Vivian
done fell off'n he's horse inter Mowbry Gulch an' b'oke he's neck!"
III.
MOWBRAY GULCH was a danger-pit lying midway between Sampson's Tavern
and Benvenew. The road narrowed after passing Bloomdale, and wound
around the spur of the Blue Ridges known as Round Peak, in a manner
only a native could have understood. Vivian had traversed the narrow
bridle-path thousands of times without a thought of danger, galloping
past at night in that spirit of confidence characteristic of a Virginia
boy, said to be "born on horseback."
The accident must have occurred early in the evening, for a passer-by
on his way home to supper found a hat and whip on the road near the
edge of the Gulch, and looking down, discovered a man's form on the
rocks, twenty feet below, lying perfectly motionless, with a white face
upturned to the sky.
At least three hours had intervened between that and Admonia's
alarm, and when the three women arrived in Jane Thomas' wagon (she
had wept, and abused her daughter-in-law all the way) they had found
many neighbors upon the scene, and the doctor bending over something
stretched out on a mattress by the road-side.