King turned towards the Dickerson place and walked on, a great weight of
indecision on him. He had always held up Ann Boyd as his highest human
example. She would laugh the idea to scorn--the idea of putting old Mark
Bruce and his "lay-out" into such a home and circumstances; and yet,
estimable as she was in many things, still she was not a free woman. She
showed that by her slavery to the deepest hatred that ever burned in a
human breast. No, it was plain to the young philosopher that in some
things, at least, she was no guide for him. Rather might it not
eventually result in the hate-hardened woman's learning brighter walks
of life from him, young as he was? And yet, he told himself, the money
was his, not theirs, and few really succeeded in life who gave away
their substance.
The road led him past Jane Hemingway's cottage, and at the fence, in the
barn-yard, he saw Virginia. He saw her, bareheaded, with her wonderful
hair and exquisite profile and curve of neck, shoulder, and breast,
before she was aware of his approach, and the view brought him to a
stand behind some bushes which quite hid him from her view.
"It is Virginia--it must be--yes, it is Virginia!" he said,
ecstatically. "She has become what I knew she would become, the
loveliest woman in the world; she is exactly as I have fancied her all
these years--proud, erect--and her eyes, oh! I must look into her eyes
again! Ah, now I know what brought me home! Now I know why I was not
content away. Yes, this was the cause--Virginia--my little friend and
pupil--Virginia!"
She had turned her head, and with the startled look of a wild young fawn
on the point of running away, she stood staring at him.
"Have you entirely forgotten me, Virginia?" he asked, advancing almost
with instinctive caution towards her.
"Oh no, now I know you," she said, with, he thought, quite the girlish
smile he had taken with him in his roaming, and she leaned over the
fence and gave him her hand. He felt it pulsing warmly in his, and a
storm of feeling--the accumulation of years--rushed over him as he
looked into the eyes he had never forgotten, and marvelled over their
wonderful lights and shadows. It was all he could do to steady his voice
when he next spoke.
"It has been several years since I saw you," he said, quite aimlessly.
"In fact, you were a little girl then, Virginia, and now you are a
woman, a full-grown woman--just think of that! But why are you looking
at me so steadily from head to foot?"
"I--I can hardly realize that it really is you," Virginia said. "You
see, Luke--Mr. King, I mean--I thought you were--really, I thought you
were dead. My mother has said it many times. She quite believed it, for
some reason or other."
"She _wanted_ to believe it, Virginia, with all respect to your mother.
She hates Aunt Ann--Mrs. Boyd, you know--and it seems she almost hoped
I'd never amount to anything, since it was Mrs. Boyd's means that gave
me my education."
"Yes, that's the way it must have been," admitted the girl, "and it
seems strange for you to be here when I have thought I'd perhaps never
see you again."
"So you really thought I was done for?" he said, trying to assume a
calmness he was far from feeling under the titillating spell her beauty
and sweet, musical voice had cast over him.
"Yes, mother often declared it was so, and then--" She broke off, her
color rising slightly.
"And, then, Virginia--?" he reminded her, eagerly.
She looked him frankly in the eyes; it was the old, fearless, childlike
glance that had told him long ago of her strong, inherent nobility of
character.
"Well, I really thought if you _had_ been alive you'd have come back to
your mother. You would have written, anyway. She's been in a pitiful
condition, Mr. King."
"I know it now, Virginia," he said, his cheeks hot with shame. "I'm
afraid you'll never understand how a sane man could have acted as I
have, but I went away furious with her and her husband, and I never
allowed my mind to dwell in tenderness on her."
"That was no excuse," the girl said, still firmly, though her eyes were
averted. "She had a right to marry again, and, if you and her husband
couldn't get along together, that did not release you from your duty to
see that she was given ordinary comfort. I've seen her walk by here and
stop to rest, when it looked like she could hardly drag one foot after
another. The thought came to me once that she was starving to give what
she had to eat to the others."
"You needn't tell me about it," he faltered, the flames of his shame
mounting high in his face--"I stayed there last night. I saw enough to
drag my soul out of my body. Don't form hasty judgment yet, Virginia.
You shall see that I'll do my duty now. I'll work my hands to the bone."
"Well, I'm glad to hear you talk that way," the girl answered. "It would
make her so happy to have help from you."
"Your ideas of filial duty were always beautiful, Virginia," he said,
his admiring eyes feasting on her face. "I remember once--I shall never
forget it--it was the day you let me wade across the creek with you in
my arms. You said you were too big to be carried, but you were as light
as a feather. I could have carried you that way all day and never been
tired. It was then that you told me in all sincerity that you would
really die for your mother's sake. It seemed a strangely unselfish thing
for a little girl to say, but I believe now that you'd do it."
"Yes, in my eyes it is the first, almost the _whole_ of one's duty in
life," Virginia replied. "I hardly have a moment's happiness now, owing
to my mother's failing health."
"Yes, I was sorry to hear she was afflicted," said King. "She's up and
about, though, I believe."
"Yes, but she is suffering more than mere bodily pain. She has her
trouble on her mind night and day. She's afraid to die, Luke. That's
queer to me. Even at my age I'd not be afraid, and she is old, and
really ought not to care. I'd think she would have had enough of life,
such as it has been from the beginning till now, full of strife, anger,
and envy. I hear her calling me now, and I must go in. Come see her,
won't you?"
"Yes, very soon," King said, as she turned away. He stood at the fence
and watched her as she moved gracefully over the grass to the gate near
the cottage. At the door she turned and smiled upon him, and then was
gone.
"Yes, I now know why I came back," he said. "It was Virginia--little
Virginia--that brought me. Oh, God, isn't she beautiful--isn't she
strong of character and noble? Away back there when she wore short
dresses she believed in me. Once" (he caught his breath) "I seemed to
see the dawn of love in her eyes, but it has died away. She has
out-grown it. She thought me dead; she didn't want to think me alive and
capable of neglecting my mother. Well, she shall see. She, too, looks on
me as an idle drift-about; in due time she shall know I am more serious
than that. But I must go slowly; if I am too impulsive I may spoil all
my chances, and, Luke King, if that woman does not become your wife you
will be a failure--a dead failure at everything to which you lay your
hands, for you'd never be able to put your heart into anything
again--you couldn't, for it's hers for all time and eternity."
It was dusk when he returned to his mother's cabin. Jake sat on his warm
bag of meal just inside the door. Old Mark had taken off his shoes, and
sat under a persimmon-tree "cooling off" and yelling impatiently at his
wife to "hurry up supper."
When she heard Luke had returned, she came to the door where he sat
talking to Jake. "We didn't know what had become of you," she said, as
she emerged from the cabin, bending her head to pass through the low
doorway.
"I got interested in looking over the Dickerson farm," he replied, "and
before I realized it the sun was almost down."
"Oh, it don't matter; I saved you a piece of pie; I'm just warming it
over now. I'll bet you didn't get a bite o' dinner."
"Yes, I did. The fact is, Dickerson remembered me, and made me go to
dinner with him; but I'm ready to eat again."
As they were rising from the table a few minutes later, King said, in a
rather constrained tone, "I've got something to say to you all, and I
may as well do it now."
With much clatter they dragged their chairs after him to the front room
and sat down with awkward ceremony--the sort of dignified quiet that
usually governed them during the visit of some strolling preacher or
benighted peddler. They stared with ever-increasing wonder as he placed
his own chair in front of them. Old Mark seemed embarrassed by the
formality of the proceedings, and endeavored to relieve himself by
assuming indifference. He coughed conspicuously and hitched his chair
back till it leaned against the door-jamb.
There was a queer, boyish tremor in Luke King's voice when he began to
speak, and it vibrated there till he had finished.
"Since I went away from you," he began, his eyes on the floor, "I have
studied hard and closely applied myself to a profession, and, though
I've wandered about a good deal, I've made it pay pretty well. I'm not
rich, now, but I'm worth more than you think I am. In big cities the
sort of talent I happen to have brings a sort of market-price, and I
have profited by my calling. You have never had any luck, and you have
worked hard and deserve more than has fallen to your lot. You'd never be
able to make anything on this poor land, even if you could buy your
supplies as low as those who pay cash, but you have not had the ready
money at any time, and the merchants have swindled you on every deal
you've made with them. The Dickerson plantation is the sort of place you
really need. It is worth double the price he asked for it. I happened to
have the money to spare, and I bought it to-day while I was over there."
There was a profound silence in the room. The occupants of the row of
chairs stared at him with widening eyes, mute and motionless. A sudden
breeze came in at the door and turned the oblong flame of the candle on
the mantel towards the wall, and caused black ropes of smoke from the
pine-knots in the chimney to curl out into the room like pyrotechnic
snakes. Mrs. Bruce bent forward and peered into King's motionless face
and smiled and slyly winked, then she glanced at the serious faces of
the others, and broke into a childish laugh of genuine merriment.
"La me! ef you-uns ain't settin' thar with mouths open like bull-frogs
swallowin' down ever'thing that boy says, as ef it was so much law an'
gospel."
But none of them entered her mood; indeed, they gave her not so much as
a glance. Without replying to her, King rose and took the candle from
the mantel-piece. He stood it on the table and laid a folded document
beside it. "There's the deed," he said. "It's made out to mother as long
as she lives, and to fall eventually to her step-daughters and step-son,
Jake."
He left the paper on the table and went back to his chair. An awkward
silence ensued. It was broken by old Mark. He coughed and threw his
tobacco-quid out at the door, and, smiling to hide his half-sceptical
agitation, he moved to the table. His gaunt back was to them, and his
grizzled face went out of view when he bent to hold the paper in the
light.
"By Jacks, that's what it is!" he blurted out. "There's no shenanigan
about it. The Dickerson place is Mariar Habersham Bruce's, ef _I_ kin
read writin'."
With a great clatter of heavy shoes and tilted chairs falling back into
place, they rose and gathered about him, leaving their benefactor
submerged in their combined shadow. Each took the paper, examined it in
reverent silence, and then slowly fell back, leaving the document on the
table. Mark Bruce started aimlessly towards the next room, but finally
turned to the front door, where he stood irresolute, staring out at the
night-wrapped mountain road. Mrs. Bruce looked at Luke helplessly and
went into the next room, and, exchanging glances of dumb wonder with
each other, the girls followed. Jake noticed that the wind was blowing
the document from the table, and he rescued it and silently offered it
to his step-brother.
King motioned it from him. "Give it to mother," he said. "She'll take
care of it; besides, it's been recorded at the court-house. By-the-way,
Dickerson will get out at once; the transfer includes all the furniture,
and the crops, which are in a good condition."
King had Jake's bed to himself again that night. For hours he lay awake
listening to the insistent drone of conversation from the family, which
had gathered under the apple-trees in front of the cabin. About eleven
o'clock some one came softly into his room. The moon had risen, and its
beams fell in at the open door and through a window with a sliding
wooden shutter. It was Mrs. Bruce, and she was moving with catlike
caution.
"Is that you, mother?" he asked.
For an instant she was so much startled at finding him awake that she
made no reply. Then she stammered: "Oh, I was tryin' so hard not to wake
you! I jest wanted to make shore yore bed was comfortable. We put new
straw in the tick to-day, and sometimes new beds lie lumpy and uneven."
"It's all right," he assured her. "I wasn't asleep, anyway."
He could feel her still trembling in excitement as she sat down on the
edge of the bed. "I reckon you couldn't sleep, nuther," she said. "Thar
hain't a shut eye in this cabin. They've all laid down, an' laid down,
an' got up over an' over." She laughed softly and twisted her hands
nervously in her lap. "We are all that excited we don't know which end
of us is up. Why, Luke, boy, it will be the talk of the whole county,
and it'll be a big feather in old Ann Boyd's cap--you goin' off an'
makin' money so fast after she give you your schoolin', an' they all
predicted it ud come to no good end. Sech luck hain't fell to any family
as pore as we are sence I kin remember. I don't know as I ever heard o'
such a thing in my life. La me, it ud make you split your sides laughin'
to set out thar an' listen to all the plans them children are a-makin'.
But Mark, he has the least to say of all, an', Luke, as happy as I am,
I'm sorter sorry fer that pore old fellow. He feels bad about the way
he's always treated you, an' run down yore kind o' work. He's too
back'ard an' shamefaced to ax yore pardon, an' in a sheepish sort of a
way, jest now, he hinted he'd like fer me to plaster it over fer 'im.
He's a good man, Luke, but he's gittin' old an' childish, an' has been
hounded to death by debt an' circumstances."
"He's all right," King said, strangely moved. "Tell him I have not the
slightest ill-will against him, an' I hope he'll get along well on the
new place."
"Somehow you keep talkin' like you don't intend to stay long," she said,
tentatively.
"I know, but I sha'n't be far away," he replied. "I can run up from my
work in Atlanta every now and then, and it would be great to rest up on
a farm among home folks, here in the mountains."
"Well, I'll be glad of that," Mrs. Bruce said, plaintively. "I have got
sorter used to my step-children, but they ain't the same as a body's own
flesh and blood. I'm proud of you, Luke," she added, tremulously. "After
all my fears that you'd not come to much, you've turned out to be my
main-stay. You'll be a great man before you die. Anybody that kin make
an' throw away ten thousand dollars as easy as you have, ain't no small
potato as men go these days. I reckon the trouble with us all is that
none of us had brains enough to comprehend what yore aims was. But Ann
Boyd did. She's the most wonderful woman that ever lived in this part of
the country, anyhow--kicked an' shoved about, hated an' hatin', an' yet
ever' now an' then hittin' the nail square on the head an' doin'
somethin' big an' grand--something Christ-like an' holy--like what she
done when she with-drawed her suit agin Gus Willard, simply because it
would throw Mark out of a job to go on with it."
"Yes, she's a good woman, mother."
Mrs. Bruce went out, so that her son might go to sleep, but he slept
very little. All night, at intervals, the buzz of low voices and sudden
outbursts of merriment reached him and found soothing lodgment in his
satisfied soul. Then, too, he was revelling in the memory of Virginia
Hemingway's eyes and voice, and a dazzling hope that his meeting with
her had inspired.
His mother stole softly into his room towards the break of day. This
time it was to bring an old shawl, full of holes and worn to shreds,
which she cautiously spread over him, for the mountain air had grown
cool. She thought him asleep, but as she was turning away he caught her
hand and drew her down and kissed her.
"Why, Luke!" she exclaimed; "don't be foolish! What's got in you? I--"
But her voice had grown husky, and her words died away in an
irrepressible sob. She did not stir for an instant, then she put her
arms round his neck and kissed him.