It was through no will of her own that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney had remained at
Duciehurst. She had been eager and instant in the preparations for
departure as soon as the approach of the boat was heralded. She had
aided the old nurse with convulsive haste by hustling the baby’s effects
into his suitcase, jamming his cap down on his head and shaking him into
his coat with little ceremony. She had seen from the broken windows of
the deserted music-room the Ducie brothers, the last of all the
procession of travelers, wending down toward the great white shell in
the river slowly approaching, throwing off the foam in wreaths on each
side. The two men walked shoulder to shoulder; now and again they paused
to confer; then going on; and there was something so affectionate in
their look and attitude, almost leaning on one another, so endearing in
the way in which one would lay his hand on the other’s arm that tears
sprang to her eyes, and, for the moment, she felt that nothing was worth
having in the world but the enduring affection of a simple heart, which
asks naught but love in return.
The momentary weakness was gone as it had come. She could feel only
elation--to be going, to get out of the house of Randal Ducie, which she
had entered with reluctance, even when she had doubted his claim, and
now that it had been proved valid in fact, if not in law, she could
scarcely wait to be quit of it.
In the hall, as she flustered forth--as Floyd-Rosney would have
described her agitated movements--she was astonished to come upon her
husband, placidly pacing up and down, his deliberate cigar between his
lips, his hands clasped behind him.
“Why, dear,”--she used the connubial address from force of habit, for
her voice was crisp and keenly pitched--“aren’t you ready?”
“Seems not,” he said, looking at her enigmatically.
“But we shall be left!” she exclaimed.
“Exactly.” He took his cigar from his mouth and emitted a puff of
fragrant nicotian.
He was wont to consult his own whims, but hitherto her supine
acquiescence had been actuated less by a realization of helplessness
than endorsement of his right of mastery, his superior and prevailing
will. She thought of her submissiveness at the moment.
How she had loved money! His money, of which she had enjoyed such share
as he saw fit to dole forth. All the stiffness, the induration of long
custom was at war with her Impulse as she cried:
“But I want to go! What do you mean by staying here?”
“But I want to stay,” he said imperiously, “and that is what I mean, and
all I mean.”
This was hardly comprehensive. He could scarcely control the rage that
from the first of this ill-omened detention had possessed him upon the
discovery of her lingering interest in the face of her old lover--a
simple matter and explicable; without latent significance it would have
been in the mind of any other man. Had it involved no sequence of
subsequent events even he, perhaps, would have brought himself to let it
pass unconsidered. He could not expect her to forget the fashion of
Randal Ducie’s features, and the presence of the twin brother conjured
up his face anew--his face which she had subtly distinguished from its
counterpart. That revolted his pride. His wife must have no thought, no
care, no memory, even, for aught save him! But her protest as to his
ownership of Duciehurst, her revolt against owing any phase of her
prosperity to the misfortunes of the Ducies, argued latent
sensitiveness, an unprobed wound that he had not suspected, thoughts
that he could not divine, memories that he did not share. Never, in all
his experience of her, had her individuality, or even a question of his
authority, been asserted save since that remembered face reappeared,
affecting their matrimonial accord--he, imperious to command, from his
plenitude of wealth and power, she eager to fawn and obey.
“You don’t consider me at all. You don’t consult my wishes.”
“I do better, my love. I consult our mutual interests.”
“You treat me like a child, an idiot! You let me know nothing of our
plans. Why should we not leave this battered old ruin with the rest of
the passengers? How and when are we to leave? If, for nothing but to
make a decent response to Aunt Dorothy’s questions, I ought to be told
something. I hardly know how to face her.”
“Well _I_ am not posing for that old darkey’s benefit,” he said,
satirically smiling.
There was a pause full of expectancy.
“This battered old ruin!” he exclaimed. “It will be the finest mansion
in Mississippi by the time I am through with it.”
He cast his imperative eyes in approval over the great spaces of its
open apartments. “And you, my dear, will be proud to be its chatelaine,
and dispense its hospitalities.”
“Never,” she cried impetuously--“an abasement of pride for me!”
He changed color for a moment, and then held his ground.
“The ante-bellum glories will be revived in a style that has not been
attempted in this country.”
“The ante-bellum glories--that were the Ducies’,” she said, with a
flushed face and a flashing eye.
He was of so imperious a personality that he seldom encountered rebuke
or contradiction. He was of such potential endowments that effort was
unknown and failure was annihilated in his undertakings. He scarcely
understood how he should deal with this unprecedented insolence, this
revolt on the part of the being who had seemed to him most devoted, most
adoring. The incense of worship had been dear to him,--and now the
worshiper had lapsed to revilings and sacrilege!
“Paula, you are a fool absolute,” he said roughly.
“Ah, no--not I--not I!” she cried significantly. She lifted her head
with a quick motion. The boat at the landing was getting up steam. She
heard the exhaust of the engines, then the sonorous beat of the paddles
on the water, and the swishing tumult of the waves as the wheels
revolved.
“They are going,” she cried, “and we are left!”
She turned to him in agitation. He stood, splendid in his arrogant
assurance, in his unrelenting dominance, his fine presence befitting the
great hall which he would so amply grace in its restored magnificence.
It was well for him that he was so handsome. Such a man, less graciously
endowed, would have been intolerable in his arrogance, his selfishness,
his brutality.
He showed no interest in the departure at the landing; he knew, by the
sound, that the steamboat was now well out in midstream, and he secretly
congratulated himself upon the termination of this ill-starred revival
of old associations with the Ducies. Never again should they cross his
wife’s path. Never again should he submit to the humiliation imposed
upon him by the revival of old memories which had incited in her this
strange restiveness to his supreme control. She had been wont to hug her
chains--not that he thus phrased the gentle constraints he had imposed,
rather wifely duty, conjugal love, admiration, trust.
The steamboat was gone at length, and his wife, standing in the hall and
looking through the wide doorless portal, had seen the last of the
passengers. Looking with a strange expression on her strained face which
he could not understand,--what series of mysteries had her demeanor set
him to interpret during these few hours, she who used to be so
pellucidly transparent! Looking with frowning brow and questioning
intent eyes, then with a suddenly clearing expression and a vindictive
glance like triumph, she turned away with an air of bridling dignity,
as if the steamer and its passengers had no concern for her, and, the
next moment, Randal Ducie ascended the steps and entered the hall.