"Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men:
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!"
So, in a sweet little thread of a voice, sang Cicely; her tones, though
clear, were so faint that they seemed to come from far away. She was
sitting in an easy-chair, with pillows behind her, her hands laid on the
arms of the chair, her feet on a footstool. Her eyes wandered over the
opposite wall, and presently she began again, beating time with her hand
on the arm of the chair:
"Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home;
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake--awake."
She laughed.
The judge left the room. He walked on tiptoe; but he might have worn
hobnailed shoes, and made all the noise possible--Cicely would not have
noticed it. "I can't stand it!" he said to Paul, outside.
"How it must feel--to be as stiff and old as that!" was the thought
that passed through the younger man's mind. For the judge's features
were no longer able to express the sorrows that lay beneath; even while
speaking his despair his face remained immovable, like a mask.
"But it's merciful, after all," Paul had answered, aloud.
"Merciful?"
"Yes. Come to my room and I'll tell you why."
Straw was laid down before Paul's cottage. Within, all was absolutely
quiet; even little Jack had been sent away. He had been sent to Hollis,
who was taking care of him so elaborately, with so many ingenious
devices for his entertainment, that Porley was wildly idle; there was
nothing for her to do.
Standing beside the white-pine table in Paul's bare bedroom, the two men
held their conference. Paul's explanation lasted three minutes. "Ferdie
was entangled with her long before he ever saw Cicely," he concluded,
"and he always liked her; that was her hold upon him--he liked her, and
she knew it; he didn't drop her even after he was married."
From the rigid old face there came a hot imprecation.
"Let him alone--will you?--now he's dead," suggested Paul, curtly. "I
don't suppose that you yourself have been so immaculate all your life
that you can afford to set up as a pattern?"
"But my wife, sir--Nothing ever touched her."
"You mean that you arranged things so that she shouldn't know. All
decent men do that, I suppose, and Ferdie didn't in the least intend
that Cicely should know, either. He told her to stay here; if she had
persisted in going down there against his wish, and against his
arrangements also, fancy what she would have put her head into! I
couldn't let her do that, of course. But though I told her enough to
give her some clew, she hadn't the least suspicion of the whole truth,
and now she need never know."
"She won't have time, she's dying," answered the grandfather.
Cicely's state was alarming. A violent attack of brain-fever had been
followed by the present condition of comparative quiet; she recognized
no one; much of the time she sang to herself gayly. The doctor feared
that the paroxysms would return. They had been terrible to witness; Paul
had held her, and he had exerted all the force of his strong arms to
keep her from injuring herself, her fragile little form had thrown
itself about so wildly, like a bird beating its life out against the
bars of its cage.
No one in this desolate cottage had time to think of the accumulation of
troubles that had come upon them: the silence, broken only by Cicely's
strange singing, the grief of Paul for his brother, the dumb despair of
the old man, the absence of little Jack, the near presence of Death. But
of the four faces, that of Eve expressed the deepest hopelessness. She
stayed constantly in the room where Cicely was, but she did nothing;
from the first she had not offered to help in any way, and the doctor,
seeing that she was to be of no use, had sent a nurse. On the fourth
day, Paul said: "You must have some sleep, Eve. Go to your room; I will
have you called if she grows worse."
"No; I must stay here."
"Why? There is nothing for you to do."
"You mean that I do nothing. I know it; but I must stay."
On the seventh evening he spoke again; Cicely's quiet state had now
lasted twenty-four hours. "Lying on a lounge is no good, Eve; to-night
you must go to bed. Otherwise we shall have you breaking down too."
"Do I look as though I should break down?"
They had happened to meet in the hall outside of Cicely's door; the
sunset light, coming through a small window, flooded the place with
gold.
"If you put it in that way, I must say you do not."
"I knew it. I am very strong."
"You speak as though you regretted it."
"I do regret it." She put out her hand to open the door.--"Don't think
that I am trying to be sensational," she pleaded.
"All I think is that you are an obstinate girl; and one very much in
need of rest, too."
Her eyes filled, he had spoken as one speaks to a tired child; but she
turned her head so that he should not see her face, and left him,
entering Cicely's room, and closing the door behind her; her manner and
the movement, as he saw them, were distinctly repellent.
Cicely did not notice her entrance; the nurse, who had some knitting in
her hand in order not to appear too watchful, but who in reality saw the
rise and fall of her patient's every breath, was near. Eve went to the
place where she often sat--a chair partially screened by the projection
of a large wardrobe; she could see only a towel-stand opposite, and the
ingrain carpet, in ugly octagons of red and green, at her feet. The
silence was profound.
"I am a murderer, it is a murderer who is sitting here. If people only
knew! But it is enough for _me_ to know.
--"They said he was getting better. Instead of that he is dead,--he is
dead, and I shot him; I lifted the pistol and fired. At the time it
didn't seem wrong. But this is what it means to kill, I suppose;--this
awful agony.
--"I have never been one of the afraid kind. I wish now that I had been;
then this wouldn't have happened; the baby might have been horribly
hurt, Cicely too; but at least I shouldn't have been a murderer. For if
you kill you _are_ a murderer, no matter whether the person you kill is
good or bad, or what you do it for; you have killed some one, you have
made his life come to a sudden stop, and for that you must take the
responsibility.
--"Oh, God! it is too dreadful! I cannot bear it. Sometimes, when I have
been unhappy, I have waked and found it was only a dream; couldn't
_this_ be a dream?
--"I was really going to tell, I was going to tell Cicely. But I thought
I would wait until he was well--as every one said he would be soon--so
that she wouldn't hate me quite so much. If she should die without
coming to her senses, I shouldn't be able to tell her.
--"Hypocrite! even to myself. In reality I don't want her to come to her
senses; I have sat here for days, afraid to leave her, watching every
moment lest she should begin to talk rationally. For then I should have
to tell her; and she would tell Paul. Oh, I cannot have him know--I
_cannot._"
Made stupid by her misery, she sat gazing at the floor, her eyes fixed,
her lips slightly apart.
She was exhausted; for the same thoughts had besieged her ever since she
had read the despatch, "Morrison died this morning,"--an unending
repetition of exactly the same sentences, constantly following each
other, and constantly beginning again; even in sleep they continued,
like a long nightmare, so that she woke weeping. And now without a
moment's respite, while she sat there with her eyes on the carpet, the
involuntary recital began anew: "I am a murderer, it is a murderer who
is sitting here. If people only knew!"
"They may rail at this life; from the hour I began it
I've found it a life full of kindness and bliss;
And until you can show me some happier planet,
More social, more gay, I'll content me with this,"
chanted Cicely, sweetly.
"The song of last Christmas at Romney," Eve's thoughts went on. "Oh, how
changed I am since then--how changed! That night I thought only of my
brother. Now I have almost forgotten him;--Jack, do you care? All I
think of is Paul, Paul, Paul. How beautiful it was in that gray-green
wood! But what am I dreaming about? How can the person who killed his
brother be anything to him?
--"Once he said--he told me himself--'I care for Ferdie more than for
anything in the world.' It's Ferdie I have killed.
--"'Morrison buried this afternoon. Address me Charleston Hotel,
Charleston.' He put those despatches in his pocket and went into the
back room. He sat down by the table, and laid his head upon his arms.
His shoulders shook, I know he was crying, he was crying for his
brother. Oh, I will go down-stairs and tell him the whole; I will go
this moment." She rose.
On the stairs she met the judge. "Is she worse?" he asked, alarmed at
seeing her outside of the room.
"No; the same."
She found Paul in the lower hall. "Is she worse?" he said.
"No. How constantly you think of her!"
"Of course."
"Can I speak to you for a moment?" She led the way to the small back
room where he had sat with his head on his arms. "I want to tell you--"
she began. Then she stopped.
His face had a worn look, his eyes were dull--a dullness caused by
sorrow and the pressure of care. But to her, as he stood there, he was
supreme, her whole heart went out to him. "How I love him!" The feeling
swept over her like a flood, overwhelming everything else.
"What is it you wish to tell me?" Paul asked, seeing that she still
remained silent.
"How can I do it!--how can I do it!" she said to herself.
"Don't tell me, then, if it troubles you," he added, his voice taking
the kindly tones she dreaded.
Her courage vanished. "Another time," she said hurriedly, and, turning,
she left the room.
But as she went up the stairs she knew that there would be no other
time. "Never! never! I shall never tell him. What do I care for
truthfulness, or courage, compared with one word of his spoken in that
tone!"