Roden wondered a good deal during such moments as his thoughts reverted
not to his ladylove, concerning Virginia’s recent neglect of him.
Popocatepetl was his attendant now at meals, dried his newspapers, and
gambolled for his amusement. Virginia had come to him on the afternoon of
the day following that upon which he had announced to her his engagement,
and had said she “didn’ know what took her las’ night. She cert’n’y was
glad he was so happy. He mus’ please scuse her ’f she’d ben unperlite.
She cert’n’y was glad.” But Roden missed her very much. Besides, he
wished exceedingly to hear her sing again. He wanted to be quite sure
that he had not deluded himself in regard to the possibilities contained
in her sonorous voice.
Virginia continued to be very economical of her presence, however, and
three days afterwards he was summoned to New York by telegraph to attend
the bedside of an ailing thorough-bred.
Virginia did not come to tell him good-by. He thought it strange at the
moment, but did not have time to ponder over it subsequently. She, in
the mean time, kneeling behind the “slats” of her bedroom window-blinds,
watched the little Canadian fishing-wagon as it drove away, with
Popocatepetl proudly installed on the back seat. She held something
crushed against her breast--an old Trinity College boating-cap which
belonged to Roden. She knelt there for full a half-hour after the last
grinding of the cart-wheels on the carriage-drive. No tears rose to
soothe the burning in her eyes. She had not wept since that night spent
by those lonely graves. At last she rose and went over beside the fire.
The day was unusually raw for the season of the year.
Rebellious robins chattered on the eaves. A fitful wind swept rudely over
the fields. Virginia, with unseeing eyes on the low-smouldering fire,
caressed the bit of blue cloth in her hands with absent, slow-moving
fingers. Anon she lifted and examined it closely. It seemed to her that
the lion on the coat of arms might have been better done. She remembered
an old print of Daniel in the lions’ den which was in the big family
Bible. Therein the king of beasts was, she thought, far more ably
depicted. This lion had an inane expression, owing probably to the two
black dots which stood for his fierce eyes, a paucity of mane, and a
superfluity of tail which struck her as undignified. Suddenly she burst
out laughing. Peal after peal of the merry, staccato sound rang through
the winding passageways above, and echoed down into the lower halls;
ripple upon ripple of wild merriment; a rush, an abandonment of jollity,
in which she had not indulged for many a day. She tried in vain to stop.
She could not. That little oblong lion with his much-curled tail was
too much for her. Ha! ha! Oh, how funny--how funny it was! and how she
enjoyed a good laugh! And was it not far, far better to laugh than to
cry? Oh, that funny, funny, funny little beast! How merry he made her,
how jolly, how care-free, once more!
A voice rang out suddenly, calling her name: “Faginia! O-o-o-o Faginia!
O-o-o-o Faginia!”
Startled into sudden gravity, she slipped the cap into the breast of her
brown stuff gown, and went to the door.
“That you, father?”
“Yase, ’tis. What ’n th’ name o’ goodness ’r’ you hyahhyahin’ ’bout up
thar all by yo’self? Howsomdever, the beauty of the question air, thar’s
a young lady down here as wants ter see you, an’ I’d never ’a’ knowed
yo’ was in the house ef yo’ hadn’ been goin’ on like a wil’-cat with the
stomach-ache.”
“Who is it?” said Virginia.
Back came the name in strident unmistakable syllables,
“Miss--Ma-ry--Er-roll.”
There was a second’s pause.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” Virginia called back.
Miss Mary Erroll was walking up and down the “front hall” in her
Quorn-cloth habit, whistling softly to herself. Her short riding-skirt
needed no holding up to enable her to move comfortably, and her hands
were clasped behind her about her hunting-crop.
Virginia, coming slowly down the many convolutions of the broad
stair-way, noticed the dark sheen of the thick braid folded away
under the smart little hat, the glimpse of fair cheek and throat, the
thorough-bred lines of the slight figure.
“Mornin’,” she said, briefly.
Miss Erroll stopped in the midst of an intricate aria, unbent her red
lips, and held out her hand in its loose dog-skin glove: evidently she
intended to ignore the unpleasantness of their last interview.
“I came to Caryston for two reasons,” she announced, cheerily. “First,
to give your father a message which Mr. Roden left with me. Secondly, to
bring you something, Miss Virginia. I believe you like dogs?”
“Some dawgs,” said Virginia, speaking in a dull, even tone.
Miss Erroll, nothing daunted, led the way to the library; she pulled off
the wrappings from about a wicker basket, and lifted out a sturdy mastiff
pup, who, supported across the palm of his whilom mistress’s fair hand,
made ungainly motions with his great paws, as though trying to swim.
“Won’t you take him, Miss Virginia? We have so many dogs at home, it
would be a real kindness.”
“Most likely my father ’d like to have him,” said Virginia. “I don’t have
much time ter ’tend ter dawgs. I’m much obliged ter you, though.”
Miss Erroll, thus rebuffed, set down the little mastiff on the floor, and
pushed it with the toe of her riding-boot. One of the characteristics
of this young woman was an insatiate desire for the good-will of every
one. It was weak, no doubt; but, as the celebrated saying hath it, the
weakness was very strong. Somehow it made Mary uncomfortable to think
that the overseer’s daughter, humble though her position was, should not
succumb to the charm which she chose to exert for her benefit.
The unconscious little peace-offering in the mean time was making
abortive efforts to peer into every object out of his reach which the
room contained.
A sudden revulsion of feeling came over Virginia, a sense of unnecessary
rudeness, and of the uselessness of it all.
“I--I’ll take him, thank you,” she said, stooping and lifting the puppy
into her capable young embrace. “I’m mighty glad to have him. He cert’n’y
is pretty.”
Poor Virginia! She felt the baldness of these phrases without knowing how
to remedy them. “He cert’n’y is cunnin’,” she added.
Mary was much relieved. “I thought you would like him,” she said. “I have
named him ‘Mumbo,’ after one of his ancestors. If you don’t like the
name, please be sure to change it.”
“Oh, I like it!” said Virginia. “I couldn’t give him a better one to save
my life. I kyarn’t never scarsely think o’ names fur the critters on th’
farm. Does he know it yet?”
“Oh no!” Miss Erroll assured her.--“You’ll have to teach him that.”
She looked down intently at one of her gloves, and began to unbutton it.
“I suppose you have heard of my engagement?” she said, without looking up.
Yes, Virginia had heard of it. She said so in an even monotone which
had in it no suggestions either of approval or disapproval. She was
astonished to feel Miss Erroll’s hand on her arm.
“Miss Virginia,” said that young lady, with a sweet and whole-souled
blush, “I’m going to ask you to do me a tremendous favor. I--I would like
so much to see Jack’s--Mr. Roden’s room just as he left it, don’t you
know--with his boots and coats and whips lying about. I don’t want your
father or any of the servants to know, because they would think me crazy;
but I’m sure you’ll understand.”
Virginia led the way without a word. The mastiff pup made playfully
affectionate dabs at her round chin with his rose-leaf tongue. Roden’s
bedroom was on the ground-floor. He did not occupy the majestically
gloomy apartment in which his first night at Caryston had been spent.
This room was in the east wing of the house, plentifully perforated with
small casements, and panelled from floor to ceiling. This panelling had
all been painted white, and the result of the heavy coatings, renewed
from time to time, was a rich, ivory-like smoothness of tint and tone.
A little single iron bedstead stood in one corner of the room, between
two windows. There were some capital old sporting prints upon the walls,
numberless hunting-crops and riding-canes stacked on the high mantle,
spurs, gloves, tobacco-bags, cartridges, and what not heaped pell-mell on
tables and chairs, about twenty pairs of boots and shoes ranged along one
side of the room, some on and some not on trees. Garments of divers kind
were pitched recklessly about. It is perhaps needless to say, after the
foregoing description, that confusion reigned supreme.
Miss Erroll, at first shyly conscious of Virginia’s presence, soon began
to move about after her usual airy fashion. She lifted the brier-wood
pipe, so often smoked in Virginia’s presence, and pressed her lips
playfully to its glossy bowl.
“Aren’t women geese, Miss Virginia, when they care for any one?” she
said, turning to laugh at the girl over her graceful shoulder.
She was entirely at her ease now, and went about from object to object,
touching some and merely looking at others, with a little conscious air
of possession which was like the turning of a rusty knife in the girl’s
heart. She tossed an old shooting-coat from the bed’s foot to a chair,
remarking, as she did so, “What careless creatures the best of men are!
I shall have to give Master Jack a lesson in the old proverb concerning
places and things--when--when I am Mrs. Jack!” she ended, merrily.
Turning over some things on a table near one of the windows she came
across an old-fashioned netted purse of red silk, with steel rings and
tassels--the purse Virginia had netted for him during such odd moments as
she could steal from her many occupations. She watched Miss Erroll now
with hungry eyes, the eyes of a wounded lioness who watches, helpless,
the taking away of one of her cubs. Her heart beat against her homespun
bodice with short, quick throbs. She stooped and set the struggling puppy
upon the floor. It seemed to her as though she had been holding fire in
her arms.
“Oh, this is so pretty!” said unconscious Mary. “This is so very quaint
and pretty! I must have it. Of course he’d give it me. I’m just going to
take it without saying by your leave;” and with that she slipped it in
the pocket of her habit.
Virginia shut her eyes for a moment, dizzy with pain and anger; but the
red light which seemed to surround and envelop her when she did so made
her fainter than ever. She lifted her dark lids and stared out at the
blank strip of sky above the box-bushes outside the window, vacantly,
unseeingly.
She had no distinct recollection of the remainder of Miss Erroll’s visit.
That one fact concerning the taking away of the purse which Roden had
promised to keep always alone remained distinctly in her mind. She had
tried honestly to overcome the all-powerful, unreasoning dislike of Miss
Mary Erroll, and the result had been worse than if it had not been tried.
The discordant, insistent yapping of the mastiff pup irritated her almost
beyond endurance. He seemed bent on intruding upon her his regret for the
departure of his former mistress.
As she went wearily into her father’s work-room, and sat down to her
spinning-wheel, she heard his voice at the window calling her.
“Well?” she said, listlessly.
“’Pears to me,” said he, jocosely, “as having rained, it air cert’n’y
pourin’. Heah’s Joe Scott come ter bring yo’ them jorhnny-jump-ups he sez
as he promised yo’.”
She got violently to her feet, upsetting the wheel and tearing her skirt
against a projecting nail as she hastened to the window. “Tell him I’m
sick,” she said. “Tell him I’m in bade. I ain’t a-goin’ ter see him;
that’s flat. If needs be, tell him so.”
But Mr. Joseph Scott had already entered the room. He was a person of
sinuous, snake-like presence, and seemed capable of shedding his complete
attire by means of one deft wriggle. His neck rose from a turn-down
celluloid collar, after the fashion of the neck of “Alice in Wonderland,”
after she had partaken of the cake which caused her to exclaim,
“Curiouser, and curiouser!” His long locks, of a vague, smoky tint,
exuded an unsavory smell of (I am ashamed to say) rancid pomatum. He wore
a threadbare summer overcoat, though in his case the “over” was a decided
misnomer, as there was nothing under it but an unbleached cotton shirt,
and a sporting vest which had evidently belonged to some Briton. His
necktie would have put an October forest to the blush. His mud-colored
trousers were pulled down outside of his great cowhide boots, which
presented their very apparent tops in a ridgy circle beneath the stuff of
his trousers.
A strangling sense of loathing and revolt rose in Virginia’s throat.
She felt as though she would indeed suffocate beneath that terrible
combination of smell and vulgarity. She leaned far out of the window, and
spoke to him without turning her head.
“Mornin’,” she said, curtly. “P’r’aps you heard me tell father I was
sick.”
“Lor’! air you?” said Mr. Scott. “I cert’n’y am sawry. Here’s them
jorhnny-jump-ups I hearn you seh ez how you wanted.”
“Thank you,” said Virginia, in a stifled voice. She still leaned out of
the window, and the conversation flagged.
“Larse night,” suddenly announced Mr. Scott, with spasmodic
assertiveness, “Larse night a peeg-horg came down th’ mounting and
gneawed all pa’s corn orf.”
“He must ’a’ had a mighty leetle crop,” said Virginia from without the
window. Her voice came back into the room softened by the purring air
without.
“I’m tawkin’ ’bout gyarden corn,” said Mr. Scott, failing to appreciate
the sarcasm.
Again a silence. The mastiff pup, diverted by the arrival of the
new-comer, went sniffing about his redolent person.
“Ef he was a fox,” thought Virginia, dryly, “’twouldn’t take no houn’s
ter foller his scent. I could track him a week arter-wards myself.” Out
aloud she said, “Air them roots or flowers you brought me?”
“Both,” said Mr. Scott.
Another pause.
“The tarryfied fever’s a-ragin’ up ter Annesville,” he announced,
presently.
Virginia faced about for the first time. “Is it?” she asked. “Who’s down?”
“Nigh all o’ them Davises. The doctor says as how it’s ’count o’ their
makin’ fertilizer in their cellar.”
[Illustration: “HE MUST ’A’ HAD A MIGHTY LEETLE CROP.”]
“What?” said Virginia.
He repeated his assertion.
“Ef that’s true,” she said, slowly, “I ain’ goin’ to bother my head ’bout
’em; such fools oughter die.”
(Be that as it may, she “bothered” herself enough to tramp on foot all
the way to Annesville, some eight miles, that very afternoon, and offer
her services as sick-nurse. The house fortunately was under quarantine,
and there was assistance enough.)
“But that ain’ nothin’ ter th’ skyarlet-fever over the mounting,” Mr.
Scott pursued, in a tone whose threadbare lugubriousness revealed the
morbid satisfaction which lined it. “That’s fyar howlin’; an’ they sez,
moresomeover, ez how it can be kyard an’ took from a little bit o’ rag.”
Old Herrick, who had come again to the window, was listening intently.
“’S that so?” he said, finally. “Well, consequently were, the beauty of
that question air, thar ain’ much rag trade goin’ on between that side o’
th’ mounting an’ t’other. Hyeah! hyeah!”
“How can you laugh, father?” said the girl.
“Godamighty, gyrl! I ain’ laufin’ at the folks as is got the fever, but
at them as ain’t.”
“They says as how it kin be kep’ in a piece o’ ribbon or sich fur over
twenty year,” pursued Mr. Scott, who, apparently not content with his own
fragrance, continued from time to time to bury his long nose in the bunch
of johnny-jump-ups which he still held.
“’S that so?” said old Herrick again. “I tell yo’ what, darter, ’f that
thar’s true, yo’d better have them things ez th’ las’ Englisher’s wife
lef up in th’ attic burned up.”
“Why?” said Mr. Scott, before Virginia could reply.
“’Case thar baby died o’ th’ red fever, and thar’s some o’ its belonging
up thar inter a cradle--some little odds an’ eens ez they furgot ter take
away with ’em in their trouble.”
“Yo’d cert’n’y better burn ’em,” said Mr. Scott, with knowing gloom. “I’d
as soon sleep with a bar’l o’ gunpowder over my hade.”
“Well, seems to me ef there’s danger ’n either, ’twouldn’t be in th’
gunpowder,” said Miss Herrick, dryly, “seein’ as it don’ never blow down,
an’ yo’d be onder it.”
“G’long, Miss Faginia!” exclaimed her not-to-be-rebuffed admirer. “Yo’d
have yo’ joke ’bout a dyin’ minister!”
He left a half-hour afterwards, all unconscious of the seeds of disaster
which he had sown, and the next day Roden returned from New York in
excellent spirits. On the following Tuesday he went into the kitchen and
had a private conference with Aunt Tishy, which resulted in his leaving
it with pockets considerably lightened, and shoulders laden with the
thanks and praise of its proprietress. He also confided in Virginia, and
asked her assistance. He wished to give his bride-elect and her mother a
little dinner--wouldn’t Virginia help him? She was so very clever about
such things. He knew if she would only help him that everything would be
perfectly satisfactory. She promised, and he went off on Bonnibel to
Windemere entirely content.
Miss Erroll drove her mother over to Caryston in a village-cart, and,
as luck would have it, a sudden shower caught them about a quarter of a
mile from the house. Mary, however, got the brunt of the shower, as she
was driving, and had at once wrapped her mother in all available rugs and
wraps.
Mrs. Erroll stepped out upon the front porch at Caryston with the ruffle
at her throat, and a little damp, and the plumes in her bonnet somewhat
limp; but Mary’s dress of white wool was soaked through and through, and
her hat a sodden mass of white lace and straw.
Roden relapsed at once into the agonies of alarm in which newly engaged
men are apt to indulge when the health of their _fiancées_ is called into
question. He went again to Virginia, and overwhelmed her with instruction
and entreaties. Miss Erroll was conducted to a bedroom bright with blue
chintz and many wax-candles, and Virginia, having provided her with some
of her own clothes, went off to dry the soaked garments. That, however,
Roden would not hear of. It was too far to Windemere to send back for dry
garments. Then Virginia must lend Miss Erroll one of her dresses.
Virginia had three dresses besides the one she wore. She brought them all
in and laid them on the bed. Miss Mary, who had an artistic eye, chose
a gown of garnet wool with plain round waist and short skirt. When she
had turned it in a little at the throat, and fastened a bit of cambric,
which Virginia brought her, kerchiefwise about her neck, she looked
like a charming Cinderella who had resumed her humble attire to please
her Prince. Mary’s throat, however, could not stand the severe test of
laceless exposure. It was too slender and long. Where Virginia’s massive
column of cream-hued flesh rose from the clasp of such a kerchief with
infinite suggestions of mythical forests and Amazonian warriors, Miss
Erroll announced that she looked “scraggy.” She took up the bit of
black velvet with its buckle of Scotch pebbles which she had worn about
her throat when she arrived. But the wet stuff left dark stains on her
fingers, and had assumed a cottony, lack-lustre hue. “If only I had a bit
of velvet to go about my throat!” she said, regretfully. “I can’t go down
this way--I’m so indecently thin!” She laughed a little and sat down as
in despair.
A sudden thought leaped hot in Virginia’s breast. A bit of velvet? She
had no velvet of any kind, but she knew where a piece was. A bit of
dark-blue velvet ribbon, just such a bit as Miss Erroll wanted. True, it
had been used to loop a baby’s sleeve, but around that slender throat it
would reach most amply.
“I--kin--get--you a piece,” she heard herself saying.
Her voice sounded strange and disembodied to herself, as though it did
not issue from her own lips. She thought that she to whom she spoke
must start up with horror for the change. But no, she only smiled
blandly, sweetly, with that faint suggestion of patronage which was as
perceptible, though not as palatable, as the dash of bitter in orange
marmalade.
“Thank you so much!” she said. “I shall quite suit myself then.”
Virginia took a candle and went up into the attic, as ten days ago she
had gone. The damp, dusty smell brought back to her that terrible memory
as only a perfume can recall the past.
Her veins throbbed ever hotter and fiercer. Her time was come. Revenge
was in her hands. What fever could be more virulent, more deadly, than
the fever that dark-haired girl had set raging in her veins? What was
the verse that she had read only last night to Aunt Tishy out of what
the old negress called “de Holy Wud?” An eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth. Joe Scott was not the only person she had ever heard speak of
such a thing. It had simply served to recall it to her mind. Ha! ha! She
had never liked Joe Scott before, and she had been very rude about those
johnny-jump-ups. Poor Joe! She would thank him the very best she knew how
when next she saw him. Poor Joe! good Joe! dear Joe! Yes, there it was,
the pretty bassinet cradle, with its faded blue and pink ribbons. That
little English baby had died full four years ago. She walked towards it,
shielding the candle with one scooped hand from the playful assaults of
the night wind. The cradle stood just in front of an old hair-covered
chest. As she neared it, a consciousness of eyes regarding her came upon
her. Ah! there they were. A rat, paralyzed for the moment by the sudden
light, had paused on the edge of the old chest, and fixed her with his
little, protruding, evil-looking eyes. She made a spasmodic, terrified
movement with her hand, and he leaped down, his sleek, tight-skinned
body striking the floor with a repulsive sound as of unsavorily nurtured
corpulence. The girl turned with a strong, uncontrollable fit of
shivering towards the cradle. It was rocking slowly back and forth in
the uncertain light, its pink and blue ribbons fluttering with a ghostly
and ill-timed gayety. A cry almost broke from between her gripped lips,
but she remembered suddenly that the rat must have set it in motion when
he leaped from the top of the chest. Setting the candle on the floor
beside her, she stooped over and began lifting out the little sheets
and blankets and bundles of linen and silk. One of those sudden noises
which disturb sleep at night in an old house jarred through the room.
She stuffed the things hastily back and looked behind her. Nothing
there. But as her glance went round the room she saw before her, black,
assertive, monstrous, the likeness of a huge cradle, cast by the candle
against the whitewashed wall of the garret. Her heart beat with laboring,
heavy thuds. If it were not quite so black, she thought, or if it had
only been more the size of the real cradle; but its vast presence in the
low-roofed room seemed like the presence of some presiding fate. She tore
away her look from it by sheer force of will, found what she wanted,
caught up the candle, and rushed headlong from the room.
Miss Erroll received her with the same sweet smile. “You were pretty
long,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve given you a lot of trouble.”
“No, none,” said Virginia. She cleared her throat and repeated the words.
They were indistinct at first, because of the dryness of her tongue and
the roof of her mouth. She watched with hot, moveless eyes the slim
fingers of Miss Erroll as she first crimped the curling bit of velvet
between her fingers, with a deft, almost imperceptible movement, and
forced the teeth of her little buckle through it.
“How damp it smells!” she said, as she lifted it to her throat to put it
on; “just as if it had been stuffed away in some old attic.”
Virginia’s knees smote together. She put out her hand to steady herself,
and sank heavily into a chair.
“’Taint nuthin’--’tain’t nuthin’,” she said, roughly, as Mary ran to her
side. “I’m better jess so. Don’ tech me, please. An’ please ter scuse me.
I kyarn’ bear no one to tech me when--when I’m like this.”
Alas! alas! Virginia, when were you ever “like this” before, in the whole
course of your seventeen years of strength and health and placid, if
bovine, contentment?
* * * * *
The dinner, thanks to Virginia, was a success. Roden’s wines were
excellent. They were going to ask Virginia to sing for them. Roden said
he thought it would please her so much. After dinner Mrs. Erroll sat down
to the piano, and the sweethearts wandered off into the “greenhouse,”
leaving open the door between the rooms. A rhomboid of pale yellow light
from the candles on the dinner-table fell into the narrow, flower-crowded
corridor, touching the great geranium-leaves into a soft distinctness,
and showing here and there the flame-colored and snow-white glomes of
blossom.
Roden, out of sight of Mrs. Erroll, had straightway put an arm about the
supple waist of his betrothed, and one of her hands had found its way to
his short curls with a movement as of long habit. As the slanting light
from the room beyond caught the sheen of her delicate throat above its
velvet ribbon, he bent his head and pressed down his lips upon it and
upon the bit of velvet.
Virginia, by some strange coincidence or freak of fate, was at this
moment crossing the lawn to put the mastiff pup into his kennel.
Attracted by the unusual light in the greenhouse, she looked up. Looking
up, she saw Roden as he stooped and kissed his sweetheart’s throat. She
gave a fierce broken cry, like an angered beast, and turning, ran with
all her might into the house.
Poor Mrs. Erroll, summoning up musical ghosts from her maidenhood’s
_répertoire_ on the old piano, thought that one of Roden’s horses had
gone mad and galloped through the room.
In the mean time Virginia, panting, wordless, seized Mary with one
strong hand, and with the other tore off the velvet from about her neck.
“I--I--I’ve read as how it was pizen; I jess remembered. Here’s yo’
buckle.”
She rushed madly out again, and flinging herself upon the bare floor of
her little bedroom, beat the hard boards with her hand and dragged at her
loosened hair.