situation. Being to a degree a man of the world and of a somewhat large
experience, he began to argue within himself that he could scarcely have
expected a different reception in these conditions. The great river
being at the stage known as "dead low water," steamboat travel was
practically suspended for the season, or he could have reached his
destination more directly than by rail. An accident had delayed the
train some seven hours, and although the gasoline launch sent to meet
him at the nearest way-station had been withdrawn at nightfall, since he
did not arrive, as his sable attendant informed him, the dug-out had
been substituted, with instructions to wait all night, on the remote
chance that he might come, after all.
Nevertheless, it was with an averse, disaffected gaze that he silently
watched the summit-line of foliage on either bank of the river glide
slowly along the sky, responsive to the motion of the boat. It seemed a
long monotony of this experience, as he sat listless in the canoe,
before a dim whiteness began to appear in a great, unbroken expanse in
the gradually enlarging riparian view--the glister of the moon on the
open cotton-bolls in the fields. The forests were giving way, the region
of swamp and bayou. The habitations of man were at hand, and when at
last the dug-out was run into a plantation landing, and Kenneth Gordon
was released from his cramped posture in that plebeian craft, he felt
so averse to his mission, such a frivolous, reluctant distaste that he
marvelled how he was to go through with it at all, as he took his way
along the serpentine curves of the "dirt road," preceded by his guide,
still with eyes averted and sullen mien, silently bearing his suit-case.
A few turns, and suddenly a large house came into view, rearing its
white facade to the moonlight in the midst of a grove of magnolia trees,
immense of growth, the glossy leaves seeming a-drip with lustre as with
dew. The flight of steps and the wide veranda were here cumbered with
potted ferns and foliage plants as elsewhere, and gave the first
suggestion of conformity to the ways of the world that the adventure had
yet borne. The long, broad, silent hall into which he was ushered,
lighted only by a kerosene hand-lamp which the servant carried as he led
the way, the stairs which the guest ascended in a mansion of unconscious
strangers, all had eerie intimations, and the comfort and seclusion of
the room assigned to Gordon was welcome indeed to him; for, argue as he
might, he was conscious of a continuous and acute nervous strain. He had
had a shock, he was irritably aware, and he would be glad of rest and
quiet.
It was a large, square, comfortable room in one of the wings,
overlooking a garden, which sent up a delectable blend of fragrance and
dew through the white muslin curtains at the long, broad windows,
standing open to the night. On a table, draped with the inevitable
"drawn-work" of civilization, stood a lamp of finer fashion, but no
better illuminating facilities, than the one carried off by the darky,
who had made great haste to leave the room, and who had not lifted his
eyes toward the ill-omened "ghost-seer" nor spoken a word since Gordon
had blurted out his vision on Bogue Holauba. This table also bore a tray
with crackers and sandwiches and a decanter of sherry, which genially
intimated hospitable forethought. The bed was a big four-poster, which
no bedizenment could bring within the fashion of the day. Gordon had a
moment's poignant recoil from the darkness, the strangeness, the
recollection of the inexplicable apparition he had witnessed, as his
head sank on the pillow, embroidered after the latest fads.
He could see through the open window that the moon was down at last and
the world abandoned to gloom. He heard from out some neighboring swamp
the wild lamenting cry of the crane; and then, listen as he might, the
night had lapsed to silence, and the human hearts in this house, all
unknown to him, were as unimagined, as unrelated, as unresponsive, as if
instead of a living, breathing home he lay in some mute city of the
dead.
The next moment, as it seemed, a sky as richly azure as the boasted
heavens of Italy filled his vision as he lifted himself on his elbow. A
splendid, creamy, magnolia bloom was swaying in the breeze, almost
touching the window-sill. There was a subdued, respectful knocking at
the door, which Gordon had a vague idea that he had heard before this
morning, preceding the announcement that breakfast was waiting. Tardily
mindful of his obligations as guest, he made all the speed possible in
his toilet, and soon issued into the hall, following the sound of voices
through the open doors, which led him presently to the threshold of the
breakfast-room.
There were two ladies at the table, one of venerable aspect, with short,
white curls, held from her face by side-combs, a modish breakfast-cap,
and a morning-gown of thin gray silk. The other was young enough to be
her daughter, as indeed she was, dressed in deep mourning. Rising
instantly from her place as hostess behind the silver service, she
extended her hand to the stranger.
"Mr. Gordon, is it not? I was afraid you would arrive during the night.
Mercy! So uncomfortable! How good of you to come--yes, indeed."
She sank into her chair again, pressing her black-bordered handkerchief
to her dark eyes, which seemed to Gordon singularly dry, round, and
glossy--suggestive of chestnuts, in fact. "So good of you to come," she
repeated, "to the house of mourning! Very few people have any talent for
woe, Mr. Gordon. These rooms have housed many guests, but not to weep
with us. The stricken deer must weep alone."
She fell to hysterical sobbing, which her mother interrupted by a
remonstrant "My dear, my dear!" A blond young man with a florid cheek
and a laughing blue eye, who sat in an easy posture at the foot of the
table, aided the diversion of interest. "Won't you introduce me, Mrs.
Keene?--or must I take the opportunity to tell Mr. Gordon that I am Dr.
Rigdon, very much at his service."
"Mercy! yes, yes, indeed!" Mrs. Keene acceded as the two young men shook
hands; then, evidently perturbed by her lack of ceremony, she exclaimed
pettishly, "Where is Geraldine? She always sees to it that everybody
knows everybody, and that everybody is served at a reception or a tea. I
never have to think of such things if _she_ is in the house."
The allusions seemed to Gordon a bit incongruous with the recent heavy
affliction of the household. The accuracy with which the waves of red
hair, of a rich tint that suggested chemicals, undulated about the brow
of the widow, the art with which the mourning-gown brought out all the
best points and subdued the defects of a somewhat clumsy figure, the
suspicion of a cosmetic's aid in a dark line, scarcely perceptible yet
amply effective, under the prominent eyes, all contributed to the
determination of a lady of forty-five years of age to look thirty.
"Geraldine is always late for breakfast, but surely she ought to be down
by this time," Mrs. Brinn said, with as much acrimony as a mild old lady
could well compass.
"Oh, Geraldine reads half the night," explained Mrs. Keene. "Such an
injurious habit! Don't you think so, Mr. Gordon?"
"Oh, _she_ is all right," expostulated the young physician.
"Geraldine has a constitution of iron, I know," Mrs. Keene admitted.
"But, mercy!--to live in books, Mr. Gordon. Now, _I_ always wanted to
live in life,--in the world! I used to tell Mr. Keene"--even she
stumbled a trifle in naming the so recent dead. "I used to tell him that
he had buried the best years of my life down here in the swamp on the
plantation."
"Pleasant for Mr. Keene," Gordon thought.
"I wanted to live in life," reiterated Mrs. Keene. "What is a glimpse of
New Orleans or the White Sulphur Springs once in a great while!"
"'This world is but a fleeting show,'" quoted Rigdon, with a palpable
effort to laugh off the inappropriate subject.
"Oh, that is what people always tell the restricted, especially when
they are themselves drinking the wine-cup to the bottom."
"And finding the lees bitter," said Rigdon.
The widow gave an off-hand gesture. "You learned that argument from
Geraldine--he is nothing but an echo of Geraldine, Mr. Gordon--now,
isn't he, Mamma?" she appealed directly to Mrs. Brinn.
"He seems to have a great respect for Geraldine's opinion," said Mrs.
Brinn primly.
"If I may ask, who is this lady who seems to give the law to the
community?" inquired Gordon, thinking it appropriate to show, and really
beginning to feel, an interest in the personnel of the entourage. "Am I
related to her, as well as to Mr. Keene?"
"No; Geraldine is one of the Norris family--intimate friends of ours,
but not relatives. She often visits here, and in my affliction and
loneliness I begged her to come and stay for several weeks."
Not to be related to the all-powerful Geraldine was something of a
disappointment, for although Gordon had little sentiment or ideality in
his mental and moral system, one of his few emotional susceptibilities
lay in his family pride and clannish spirit. He felt for his own, and
he was touched in his chief altruistic possibility in the appeal that
had brought him hither. To his amazement, Mr. Keene, a second cousin
whom he had seldom even seen, had named him executor of his will,
without bond, and in a letter written in the last illness, reaching its
destination indeed after the writer's death, had besought that Gordon
would be gracious enough to act, striking a crafty note in urging the
ties of consanguinity.
But for this plea Gordon would have doubtless declined on the score of
pressure of business of his own. There were no nearer relatives,
however, and with a sense of obligation at war with a restive
indisposition, Gordon had come in person to this remote region to offer
the will for probate, and to take charge of the important papers and
personal property of the deceased. A simple matter it would prove, he
fancied. There was no great estate, and probably but few business
complications.
"Going home, Dr. George?" his hostess asked as the young physician made
his excuses for quitting the table before the conclusion of the meal.
"Dr. Rigdon is not staying in the house, then?" Gordon queried as the
door closed upon him, addressing the remark to the old lady by way of
politely including her in the conversation.
"No, he is a neighbor of ours--a close and constant friend to us." Mrs.
Brinn spoke as with grateful appreciation.
Mrs. Keene took a different view. "He just hangs about here on
Geraldine's account," she said. "He happens to be here to-day because
last night she took a notion that he must go all the way to Bogue
Holauba to meet you, if the train should stop at the station above; but
he was called off to attend a severe case of ptomaine poisoning."
"And did the man die?" Mrs. Brinn asked, with a sort of soft awe.
"Mercy! I declare I forgot to ask him if the man died or not," exclaimed
Mrs. Keene. "But that was the reason that only a servant was sent to
meet you, Mr. Gordon. The doctor looked in this morning to learn if you
had arrived safely, and we made him stay to breakfast with us."
Gordon was regretting that he had let him depart so suddenly.
"I thought perhaps, as he seems so familiar with the place he might show
me where Mr. Keene kept his papers. I ought to have them in hand at
once." Mrs. Keene remembered to press her handkerchief to her eyes, and
Gordon hastily added, "Since Dr. Rigdon is gone, perhaps this lady--what
is her name?--Geraldine--could save you the trouble."
"Mercy, yes!" she declared emphatically. "For I really do not know where
to begin to look. Geraldine will know or guess. I'll go straight and
rouse Geraldine out of bed."
She preceded Gordon into the hall, and, flinging over her shoulder the
admonition, "Make yourself at home, I beg," ran lightly up the stairs.
Meantime Gordon strolled to the broad front door that stood open from
morning to night, winter and summer, and paused there to light his
cigar. All his characteristics were accented in the lustre of the vivid
day, albeit for the most part they were of a null, negative tendency,
for he had an inexpressive, impersonal manner and a sort of aloof,
reserved dignity. His outward aspect seemed rather the affair of his
up-to-date metropolitan tailor and barber than any exponent of his
character and mind. He was not much beyond thirty years of age, and his
straight, fine, dark hair was worn at the temples more by the
fluctuations of stocks than the ravages of time. He was pale, of medium
height, and slight of build; he listened with a grave, deliberate
attention and an inscrutable gray eye, very steady, coolly observant, an
appreciable asset in the brokerage business. He was all unaccustomed to
the waste of time, and it was with no slight degree of impatience that
he looked about him.
The magnolia grove filled the space to the half-seen gate in front of
the house, but away on either side were long vistas. To the right the
river was visible, and, being one of the great bends of the stream, it
seemed to run directly to the west, the prospect only limited by the
horizon line. On the other side, a glare, dazzlingly white in the sun,
proclaimed the cotton-fields. Afar the gin-house showed, with its
smoke-stack, like an obeliscal column, from which issued heavy coils of
vapor, and occasionally came the raucous grating of a screw, telling
that the baler was at work. Interspersed throughout the fields were the
busy cotton-pickers, and now and again rose snatches of song as they
heaped the great baskets in the turn-rows.
Within the purlieus of the inclosure about the mansion there was no stir
of industry, no sign of life, save indeed an old hound lying on the
veranda steps, looking up with great, liquid, sherry-tinted eyes at the
stranger, and, though wheezing a wish to lick his hand, unable to muster
the energy to rise.
After an interval of a few moments Gordon turned within. He felt that he
must forthwith get at the papers and set this little matter in order. He
paused baffled at the door of the parlor, where satin damask and
rosewood furniture, lace curtains and drawn shades, held out no promise
of repositories of business papers. On the opposite side of the hall was
a sitting-room that bore evidence of constant use. Here was a desk of
the old-fashioned kind, with a bookcase as a superstructure, and a
writing-table stood in the centre of the floor, equipped with a number
of drawers which were all locked, as a tentative touch soon told. He had
not concluded its examination when a step and rustle behind him
betokened a sudden entrance.
"Miss Geraldine Norris!" a voice broke upon the air,--a voice that he
had not before heard, and he turned abruptly to greet the lady as she
formally introduced herself.
A veritable Titania she seemed as she swayed in the doorway. She was a
little thing, delicately built, slender yet not thin, with lustrous
golden hair, large, well-opened, dark blue eyes, a complexion daintily
white and roseate,--a fairy-like presence indeed, but with a prosaic,
matter-of-fact manner and a dogmatic pose of laying down the law.
Gordon could never have imagined himself so disconcerted as when she
advanced upon him with the caustic query, "Why did you not ask Mrs.
Keene for her husband's keys? Surely that is simple enough!" She flung a
bunch of keys on a steel ring down upon the table. "Heavens! to be
roused from my well-earned slumbers at day-break to solve this problem!
'Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!'" She mimicked Mrs. Keene's urgency, then broke
out laughing.
"Now," she demanded, all unaffected by his mien of surprised and
offended dignity, "do you think yourself equal to the task of fitting
these keys,--or shall I lend you my strong right arm?"
It is to be doubted if Gordon had ever experienced such open ridicule as
when she came smiling up to the table, drawing back the sleeve of her
gown from her delicate dimpled wrist. She wore a white dress, such as
one never sees save in that Southern country, so softly sheer, falling
in such graceful, floating lines, with a deep, plain hem and no touch of
garniture save, perhaps, an edge of old lace on the surplice neck. The
cut of the dress showed a triangular section of her soft white chest and
all the firm modelling of her throat and chin. It was evidently not a
new gown, for a rent in one of the sleeves had been sewed up somewhat
too obviously, and there was a darn on the shoulder where a rose-bush
had snagged the fabric. A belt of black velvet, with long, floating
sash-ends, was about her waist, and a band of black velvet held in place
her shining hair.
"I am sorry to have been the occasion of disturbing you," he said with
stiff formality, "and I am very much obliged, certainly," he added, as
he took up the keys.
"I may consider myself dismissed from the presence?" she asked saucily.
"Then, I will permit myself a cup of chocolate and a roll, and be ready
for any further commands."
She frisked out of the door, and, frowning heavily, he sat down to the
table and opened the top-drawer, which yielded instantly to the first
key that he selected.
The first paper, too, on which he laid his hand was the will, signed and
witnessed, regularly executed, all its provisions seeming, as he glanced
through it, reasonable and feasible. As he laid it aside, he experienced
the business man's satisfaction with a document duly capable of the ends
desired. Then he opened with a sudden flicker of curiosity a bulky
envelope placed with the will and addressed to himself. He read it
through, the natural interest on his face succeeded by amazement,
increasing gradually to fear, the chill drops starting from every pore.
He had grown ghastly white before he had concluded the perusal, and for
a long time he sat as motionless as if turned to stone.
The September day glowed outside in sumptuous splendor. A glad wind
sprang up and sped afield. Geraldine, her breakfast finished, a broad
hat canted down over her eyes, rushed through the hall as noisily as a
boy, prodded up the old hound, and ran him a race around the semicircle
of the drive. A trained hound he had been in his youth, and he was wont
to conceal and deny certain ancient accomplishments. But even he
realized that it was waste of breath to say nay to the persistent
Geraldine. He resigned himself to go through all his repertoire,--was a
dead dog, begged, leaped a stick back and forth, went lame, and in his
newly awakened interest performed several tricks of which she had been
unaware. Her joyful cries of commendation--"Played an encore! _an
encore!_ He did, he did! Cutest old dog in the United States!" caught
Mrs. Keene's attention.
"Geraldine," she screamed from an upper window, "come in out of the sun!
You will have a sun-stroke--and ruin your complexion besides! You know
you ought to be helping that man with those papers,--he won't be able to
do anything without you!" Her voice quavered on the last words, as if
she suddenly realized "that man" might overhear her,--as indeed he did.
But he made no sign. He sat still, stultified and stony, silently
gazing at the paper in his hands.
When luncheon was announced, Gordon asked to have something light sent
in to him, as he wished not to be disturbed in his investigation of the
documents. He had scant need to apprehend interruption, however, while
the long afternoon wore gradually away. The universal Southern siesta
was on, and the somnolent mansion was like the castle of Sleeping
Beauty. The ladies had sought their apartments and the downy couches;
the cook, on a shady bench under the trellis, nodded as she seeded the
raisins for the frozen pudding of the six-o'clock dinner; the waiter had
succumbed in clearing the lunch-table and made mesmeric passes with the
dish-rag in a fantasy of washing the plates; the stable-boy slumbered in
the hay, high in the loft, while the fat old coachman, with a
chamois-skin in his hand, dozed as he sat on the step of the surrey,
between the fenders; the old dog snored on the veranda floor, and Mrs.
Keene's special attendant, who was really more a seamstress than a
ladies' maid, dreamed that for some mysterious reason she could not
thread a needle to fashion in a vast hurry the second mourning of her
employer, who she imagined would call for it within a week!
Outside the charmed precincts of this Castle Indolence, the busy
cotton-pickers knew no pause nor stay. The steam-engine at the gin
panted throughout all the long hot hours, the baler squealed and rasped
and groaned, as it bound up the product into marketable compass, but
there was no one waking near enough to note how the guest of the mansion
was pacing the floor in a stress of nervous excitement, and to comment
on the fact.
Toward sunset, a sudden commotion roused the slumbrous place. There had
been an accident at the gin,--a boy had been caught in the machinery and
variously mangled. Dr. George Rigdon had been called and had promptly
sewed up the wounds. A runner had been sent to the mansion for bandages,
brandy, fresh clothing, and sundry other collateral necessities of the
surgery, and the news had thrown the house into unwonted excitement.
"The boy won't die, then?" Geraldine asked of a second messenger, as he
stood by the steps of the veranda, waiting for the desired commodities.
"Lawdy,--_no_, ma'am! He is as good as new! Doc' George, _he_ fix him
up."
Gordon, whom the tumult had summoned forth from his absorptions, noted
Geraldine's triumphant laugh as she received this report, the toss of
her spirited little head, the light in her dark blue eyes, deepening to
sapphire richness, her obvious pride in the skill, the humanitarian
achievement, of her lover. Dr. George must be due here this evening, he
fancied. For she was all freshly bedight; her gown was embellished with
delicate laces, and its faint green hue gave her the aspect of some
water-sprite, posed against that broad expanse of the Mississippi River,
that was itself of a jade tint reflected from a green and amber sky; at
the low horizon line the vermilion sun was sinking into its swirling
depths.
Gordon perceived a personal opportunity in the prospect of this guest
for the evening. He must have counsel, he was thinking. He could not act
on his own responsibility in this emergency that had suddenly confronted
him. He was still too overwhelmed by the strange experience he had
encountered, too shaken. This physician was a man of intelligence, of
skill in his chosen profession, necessarily a man worth while in many
ways. He was an intimate friend of the Keene family, and might the more
heartily lend a helping hand. The thought, the hope, cleared Gordon's
brow, but still the impress of the stress of the afternoon was so marked
that the girl was moved to comment in her brusque way as they stood
together on the cool, fern-embowered veranda.
"Why, Mr. Gordon," she exclaimed in surprise, "you have no idea how
strange you look! You must have overworked awfully this afternoon. Why,
you look as if you had seen a ghost!"
To her amazement, he recoiled abruptly. Involuntarily, he passed his
hand over his face, as if seeking to obliterate the traces she had
deciphered. Then, with an obvious effort, he recovered a show of
equanimity; he declared that it was only because he was so tousled in
contrast with her fresh finery that she thought he looked supernaturally
horrible! He would go upstairs forthwith and array himself anew.
Gordon proved himself a true prophet, for Rigdon came to dine. With the
postprandial cigars, the two gentlemen, at Gordon's suggestion, repaired
to the sitting-room to smoke, instead of joining their hostess on the
veranda, where tobacco was never interdicted. Indeed, they did not come
forth thence for nearly two hours, and were palpably embarrassed when
Geraldine declared in bewilderment, gazing at them in the lamplight that
fell from within, through one of the great windows, that now _both_
looked as if they had seen a ghost!
Despite their efforts to sustain the interest of the conversation, they
were obviously distrait, and had a proclivity to fall into sudden
silences, and Mrs. Keene found them amazingly unresponsive and dull.
Thus it was that she rose as if to retire for the night while the hour
was still early. In fact, she intended to utilize the opportunity to
have some dresses of the first mourning outfit tried on, for which the
patient maid was now awaiting her.
"I leave you a charming substitute," she said in making her excuses.
"Geraldine need not come in yet--it is not late."