The following morning, after spending a restless, troublous night in
reflecting over the protestations and threats of Langdon Chester,
Virginia went frequently to the rear door of the house and looked out
towards Ann Boyd's domicile in the hope of seeing her new friend. It was
a cool, bleak day. The skies were veiled in thin, low-hanging, gray
clouds which seemed burdened with snow, and sharp gusts of wind bore the
smoke from the chimney down to the earth and around the house in
lingering, bluish wisps. Finally her fitful watch met its reward, and
she saw Ann emerge from her house and trudge down towards the
cotton-field between the two farms. Hastily looking into the kitchen,
and seeing that her mother was busily engaged mashing some boiled
sweet-potatoes into a pulpy mixture of sugar, butter, and spices, with
which to make some pies, Virginia slipped out of the house and into the
cow-lot. Here she paused for a moment, her glance on the doorway through
which she had passed, and then, seeing that her leaving had not
attracted her mother's attention, she climbed over the rail-fence and
entered the dense thicket near by. Through this tangle of vines, bushes,
and briers she slowly made her way, until, suddenly, the long, regular
rows of Ann's dead cotton-stalks, with their empty boles and withered
leaves, stretched out before her. And there stood Ann, crumbling a
sample of the gray soil in her big, red hand. She heard Virginia's
approach over the dry twigs of the wood, and looked up.
"Oh, it's you!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know but what it was another
catamount that had got out of its beat up in the mountains and strayed
down into civilization."
"I happened to see you leave your house and come this way," Virginia
said, somewhat embarrassed, "and so I--"
"Yes, I came down here to take one more look at this field and make up
my mind whether to have it turned under for wheat or try its strength on
cotton again. There was a lots of fertilizer put on this crop, child. I
can always tell by the feel of the dirt. That's the ruination of farming
interests in the South. It's the get-a-crop-quick plan that has no solid
foundation. An industrious German or Irishman can make more off of an
acre than we can off of ten, and be adding value to the property each
year. But did you want to see me about--anything particular?"
"It seems like I'm born to have trouble," Virginia answered, with
heightening color and a studious avoidance of the old woman's keen
glance.
"I see; I reckon your mother--"
"No, it's not about her," Virginia interrupted. "In fact, it's something
that I could not confide in her."
"Well, you go ahead and tell me about it," Ann said, consolingly, as she
threw the sample of soil down and wiped her hand on her apron. "I think
it's powerful odd the way things have turned around, anyway. Only a few
days ago if anybody had told me I'd ever be half-way friendly with a
daughter of Jane Hemingway, I'd have thought they was clean off their
base. I'm trying to act the impartial friend to you, child, but I don't
know that I can. The trouble is, my flesh is too weak. It's only fair to
tell you that I come in the breadth of a hair the other day of betraying
you outright to your mammy. She met me down the road and drove me too
far. She caught me off my guard and came at me in her old, catlike way,
spitting and snarling--a thing I'm not proof against. She was gloating
over me. I'm ashamed to say it to a sweet, trusting face like yours, but
she came charging on me at such a rate that she drove away my best
intentions and made me plumb forget what I was trying to do for you."
Ann hung her head for a moment, almost sheepishly kicking a cotton-stalk
from its mellow hill with the toe of her shoe.
"Don't bother about that," Virginia said, sweetly. "I know how she can
exasperate any one."
"Well, I'm satisfied I won't do to trust in the capacity of a friend,
anyway," Ann said, frankly. "I reckon I would be safe with anybody but
that woman. There is no use telling you what I said, but I come in an
inch of giving you plumb away. I come that nigh injuring a pure,
helpless little thing like you are to hit her one sousing lick. As it
was, I think I cowed her considerable. She's superstitious, and she
broods as much over an imaginary trouble as a real one. The Lord knows
I've been busy enough in my life tackling the genuine thing."
"I wanted to tell you," Virginia said, "that ever since Langdon Chester
got back from Atlanta he has been trying to meet me, and--"
"The dirty scamp!" Ann broke in, angrily. "I told him if he ever dared
to--"
"Wait a minute, Mrs. Boyd!" Virginia put out her hand and touched the
old woman's arm. "He seems awfully upset over what has happened. I never
saw any one change so completely. He looked very thin, his eyes were
bloodshot, and he shook all over like a man who has been on a long
spree. Mrs. Boyd, he came--and I'm sure he was serious--to ask me to
marry him."
"Marry him? Why, child, you don't mean _that_--surely you don't mean--"
"I only know what he said," Virginia declared. "He says he is absolutely
miserable over it all and wants me to marry him. His cousin, Chester
Sively, advised him to propose to me, and he did. He says he loves me,
and that nothing else will satisfy him."
"Well, well, well!" Ann exclaimed, as her great, astonished eyes bore
down on Virginia's face. "I thought he was a chip off of the old block,
but maybe he's got a little streak of good in him, and yet, let me study
a minute. Let's walk on down to the spring. I want to see if it doesn't
need a new gum--the old one is about rotted out. Well, well, well!"
They strolled along the fence, side by side, neither speaking till the
spring was reached. There was a rustic bench near by, and Ann sat down
on it, putting out her hand and drawing the girl to a seat at her side.
"Yes, there may be a streak of good," she went on. "And yet that may be
just another phase of bad. You must be very careful, child. You have no
idea how beautiful you are. He may mean what he says, all right enough,
but maybe he isn't being led by the best motive. I know men, I reckon,
about as well as any other woman of my age. Now, you see, it may be like
this: Langdon Chester brought to his aid all the _foul_ means he could
command to carry his point and failed. Maybe, now, he's just reckless
enough and his pride is cut deep enough to make him resort to fair means
rather than be plumb beat to a finish. If that's so, marrying him would
be a very risky thing, for as soon as his evil fires smouldered he'd
leave you high and dry. He'd convince himself he'd married below his
standard, and go to the dogs--or some other woman. Sometimes I think
there isn't no real love, like we read about in story-books. I believe a
man or a woman will love their own offspring in a solid,
self-sacrificing way, but the sort of love that makes a continuous happy
dream of marriage is powerful rare. It's generally one-sided and like a
damp fire that takes a lot of fanning and fresh kindling-wood to keep
going. But what did you tell him, I wonder?"
"Why, I refused him," Virginia answered.
"You did? You don't tell me! And how did his high and mighty lordship
take that, I wonder?"
"It made him awfully mad. He almost swore at me, and took hold of my
hand roughly. Then, from something I happened to say, he imagined that I
was in love with--with some one else, and he made awful threats of what
he might do."
"Ah, I see, I see, I see!" Ann muttered, as if to herself, her slow,
thoughtful glance on her broad lands, which stretched out through the
murky atmosphere. "It's wonderful how much your life is like mine used
to be. The other night, lying in bed, I got to studying over it all, and
it suddenly flashed on me that maybe it is the divine intention that I
was to travel that rough road so I'd know how to lead you, that was to
come on later, over the pits I stumbled in. And with that thought I felt
a strange sort of peaceful contentment come over me. You see, I'm nearly
always in a struggle against my inclination to treat Jane Hemingway's
daughter half decent, and such thoughts as those kind o' ease my pride.
If the Lord is making me pity you and like you, maybe it's the devil
that is trying to pull me the other way. That's why I'm afraid I won't
do to trust, wavering about like I am. In this fight I haven't the
slightest idea which influence is going to win in the end. In a tight
pinch I may be tempted to use our very friendship to get even with your
mammy. When she faces me with that confident look in her eye and that
hateful curl to her lip, I loose my grip on all that's worth a red cent
in me."
"You couldn't do a wrong thing to save your life," said Virginia,
putting out her hand and taking that of her companion.
"Don't you bet too high stakes on that," Ann replied, deeply touched.
"I'm no saint. Right now I'm at daggers' points with nearly every
neighbor I've got, and even my own child over the mountain. How I ever
got this way with you is a mystery to me. You certainly were the last
one I'd 'a' lifted a finger to help, but now--well, well--I reckon I'd
worry a lots if you met with any further misfortune. But you are keeping
back something, child. Did Langdon Chester seem to think that other
'_somebody_' could possibly be Luke King?"