ELLEN OR GRACE
Presently once more I departed. My mother also ended her visit at
Dixiana, preferring to return to the quiet of her two little whitewashed
rooms, and the old fireplace, and the sooty pot-hooks which our people's
slaves had used for two generations in the past.
As to what I learned at Huntington, which place I reached after some
days of travel, I need say no more than that I began to see fully
verified my father's daring and his foresight. The matter of the coal
land speculation was proved perfectly feasible. Indeed, my conference
with our agents made it clear that little remained excepting the
questions of a partition of interests, or of joint action between
Colonel Meriwether and my father's estate. The right of redemption still
remained, and there offered a definite alternative of selling a part of
the lands and retaining the remainder clear of incumbrance. We wrote
Colonel Meriwether all these facts from Huntington, requesting his
immediate attention. After this, I set out for home, not ill-pleased
with the outlook of my material affairs.
All these details of surveying and locating lands, of measuring shafts
and drifts, and estimating cubic yards in coal, and determining the
status of tenures and fees, had occupied me longer than I had
anticipated. I had been gone two days beyond a month, when finally,
somewhat wearied with stage travel, I pulled up at Wallingford.
As I approached the little tavern I heard much laughing, talking,
footfalls, hurrying, as men came or went on one errand or another. A
large party had evidently arrived on a conveyance earlier than my own. I
leaned against the front rail of the tavern gallery and waited for some
stable-boy to come. The postmaster carried away his mail sack, the
loungers at the stoop gradually disappeared, and so presently I began to
look about me. I found my eyes resting upon a long figure at the farther
end of the gallery, sitting in the shade of the steep hill which came
down, almost sharp as a house roof, back of the tavern, and so cut off
the evening sun. It was apparently a woman, tall and thin, clad in a
loose, stayless gown, her face hid in an extraordinarily long, green
sun-bonnet. Her arms were folded, and she was motionless. But now and
then there came a puff of smoke from within the caverns of the
sun-bonnet, accompanied with the fragrant odor of natural leaf, whose
presence brooked no debate by the human nose. I looked at this stranger
again and yet again, then slowly walked up and held out my hand. No one
in all the world who could counterfeit Mandy McGovern, even so far away,
and under conditions seemingly impossible for her presence!
Mandy's pipe well-nigh fell from her lips. "Well, good God A'mighty! If
it ain't you, son!" she exclaimed.
"Yes," I smiled.
"They told me you-all lived somewheres around here."
"Aunt Mandy," I interrupted. "Tell me, what in the world are you doing
here?"
"Why, me and the folks just come down to look around. Her and her Pa was
comin', and I come, too."
"_Who_ came with you, Aunt Mandy?"
"Still askin' fool questions like you didn't know! Why, you know who it
was. The Colonel's ordered to jine his rigiment at Fort Henry. Gal come
along o' him, o' course. I come along with the gal, o' course. My boy
and my husband come along with me, o' course."
"Your son, Andrew Jackson?"
"Uh-huh. He's somewheres 'round, I reckon. I see him lickin' a nigger a
few minutes ago. Say, that boy's come out to be the fightenest feller I
ever did see. Him allowin' he got that there Injun, day we had the fight
down on the Platte, it just made a new man out'n him. 'Fore long he
whupped a teamster that got sassy with him. Then he taken a rock and
lammed the cook 'cause he looked like he was laffin' at him. Not long
atter that, he killed a Injun he 'lowed was crawlin' 'round our
place--done kilt him and taken his skulp 'fore I had time to explain to
him that like enough that Injun was plum peaceful, and only comin' in to
get a loaf o' bread."
"Bread? Aunt Mandy, where was all this?"
"Where d'ye suppose it was unlessen at our _ho_tel? My man and me seen
there was a good openin' there on the trail this side o' the south fork,
and we set up a hotel in a dugout. Them _emigrants_ would give you
anything you aste for a piece o' pie, or a real baked loaf o' bread. We
may go back there some time. We could make our pile in a couple o'
years. I got over three hundred dollars right here in my pocket."
"But I don't quite understand about the man--your husband--"
"Yep, my lastest one. Didn't you know I married ole man Auberry? He's
'round here somewheres, lookin' fer a drink o' licker, I reckon.
Colonel Meriwether 'lowed there'd be some fightin' 'round these parts
afore long. My man and my son 'lowed the West was gettin' right quiet
for them, and they'd just take a chanct down here, to see a little life
in other parts."
"I hadn't heard of this last marriage of yours, Aunt Mandy," I ventured.
"Oh, yes, me and him hooked up right soon atter you and the gal got
lost. Don't see how you missed our place when you come East. We done
took at least six bits off'n every other man, woman or child that come
through there, east or west, all summer long. You see I was tired of
that lazy husband o' mine back home, and Auberry he couldn't see nothin'
to that woman o' his'n atter he found out how I could bake pie and
bread. So we both seem' the chanct there was there on the trail, we done
set up in business. Say, I didn't know there was so many people in the
whole world as they was of them emi_grants_. Preacher come along in a
wagon one day--broke, like most preachers is. We kep' him overnight,
free, and he merried us next mornin' for nothin'. Turn about's fair
play, I reckon."
I scarcely heard her querulous confidences. "Where is Colonel
Meriwether?" I asked her at last.
"Inside," she motioned with her pipe. "Him and the gal, too. But say,
who's that a-comin' down the street there in that little sawed-off
wagon?"
I looked. It was my fiancée, Grace Sheraton!
By her side was my friend, Captain Stevenson, and at the other end of
the seat was a fluttering and animated figure that could be no one else
but Kitty. So then I guessed that Stevenson and his wife had come on
during my absence and were visiting at Dixiana. No doubt they had
driven down now for the evening mail.
Could anything have lacked now to set in worse snarl my already tangled
skein of evil fortune! Out of all the thousand ways in which we several
actors in this human comedy might have gone without crossing each
other's paths, why should Fate have chosen the only one to bring us thus
together?
Kitty seemed first to spy me, and greeted me with an enthusiastic waving
of her gloves, parasol, veil and handkerchief, all held confusedly,
after her fashion, in one hand. "P-r-r-r-t!" she trilled,
school-girl-like, to attract my attention meanwhile. "Howdy, you man! If
it isn't John Cowles I'm a sinner. Matt, look at him, isn't he old, and
sour, and solemn?"
Stevenson jumped out and came up to me, smiling, as I passed down the
steps. I assisted his vivacious helpmeet to alight. I knew that all this
tangle would presently force itself one way or the other. So I only
smiled, and urged her and her husband rapidly as I might up the steps
and in at the door, where I knew they would immediately be surprised and
fully occupied. Then again I approached Grace Sheraton where she still
sat, somewhat discomfited at not being included in these plans, yet not
unwilling to have a word with me alone.
"You sent me no word," began she, hurriedly. "I was not expecting you
to-day; but you have been gone more than two weeks longer than you said
you would be." The reproach of her voice was not lost to me.
Stevenson had run on into the tavern after his first greeting to me, and
presently I heard his voice raised in surprise, and Kitty's excited
chatter. I heard Colonel Meriwether's voice answering. I heard another
voice.
"Who is in there?" asked Grace Sheraton of me, curiously. I looked her
slowly and fully in the face.
"It is Colonel Meriwether," I answered. "He has come on unexpectedly
from the West. His daughter is there also, I think. I have not yet seen
her."
"That woman!" breathed Grace Sheraton, sinking back upon her seat. Her
eye glittered as she turned to me. "Oh, I see it all now--you have been
with them--_you have met her again!_ My God! I could kill you both--I
could--I say I could!"
"Listen," I whispered to her, putting a hand on her wrist firmly. "You
are out of your head. Pull up at once. I have not seen or heard from
either of them. I did not know they were coming, I tell you."
"Oh, I say, Cowles," sang out Stevenson, at that moment running out,
flushed and laughing. "What do you think, here's my Colonel come and
caught me at my leave of absence! He's going across the mountains, over
to his home in Albemarle. We're all to be at Henry together. But I
suppose you met them--"
"No, not yet," I said. "I've just got in myself."
We both turned to the girl sitting pale and limp upon the seat of the
wagonette. I was glad for her sake that the twilight was coming.
The courage of her family did not forsake Grace Sheraton. I saw her
force her lips to smile, compel her face to brighten as she spoke to
Captain Stevenson.
"I have never met any of the Meriwethers. Will you gentlemen present
me?"
I assisted her to alight, and at that time a servant came and stood at
the horse's head. Stevenson stepped back to the door, not having as yet
mentioned my presence there.
There came out upon the gallery as he entered that other whose presence
I had for some moments known, whom I knew within the moment I must
meet--Ellen!
Her eyes fell upon me. She stepped back with a faint exclamation,
leaning against the wall, her hands at her cheeks as she stared. I do
not know after that who or what our spectators were. I presume Stevenson
went on into the house to talk with Colonel Meriwether, whom I did not
see at all at that time.
The first to speak was Grace Sheraton. Tall, thin, darker than ever, it
seemed to me, and now with eyes which flickered and glittered as I had
never seen them, she approached the girl who stood there shrinking. "It
is Miss Meriwether? I believe I should know you," she began, holding out
her hand.
"This is Miss Grace Sheraton," I said to Ellen, and stopped. Then I drew
them both away from the door and from the gallery, walking to the
shadows of the long row of elms which shaded the street, where we would
be less observed.
For the first time in my life I saw the two together and might compare
them. Without my will or wish I found my eyes resting upon Ellen.
Without my will or wish, fate, nature, love, I know not what, made
selection.
Ellen had not as yet spoken. "Miss Sheraton," I repeated to her finally,
"is the lady to whom I am engaged to be married."
The vicious Sheraton temper broke bounds. There was more than half a
sneer on my fiancée's face. "I should easily know who this lady is," she
said.
Ellen, flushed, perturbed, would have returned to the gallery, but I
raised my hand. Grace Sheraton went on. "An engagement is little. You
and he, I am advised, lived as man and wife, forgetting that he and I
were already pledged as man and wife."
"That is not true!" broke in Ellen, her voice low and even. She at least
had herself in hand and would tolerate no vulgar scene.
"I could not blame either of you for denying it."
"It was Gordon Orme that told her," I said to Ellen.
She would not speak or commit herself, except to shake her head, and to
beat her hands softly together as I had seen her do before when in
distress.
"A gentleman must lie like a gentleman," went on Grace Sheraton,
mercilessly. "I am here to congratulate you both."
I saw a drop of blood spring from Ellen's bitten lip.
"What she says is true," I went on to Ellen. "It is just as Gordon Orme
told your father, and as I admitted to you. I was engaged to be married
to Miss Sheraton, and I am still so engaged."
Still her small hands beat together softly, but she would not cry out,
she would not exclaim, protest, accuse. I went on with the accusation
against myself.
"I did not tell you. I had and have no excuse except that I loved you. I
am here now for my punishment. You two shall decide it."
At last Ellen spoke to my fiancée. "It is true," said she. "I thought
myself engaged to Mr. Cowles. I did not know of you--did not know that
he had deceived me, too. But fortunately, my father found us before it
was too late."
"Let us spare ourselves details," rejoined Grace Sheraton. "He has
wronged both of us."
"Yes, he has done wrong," I heard Ellen say. "Perhaps all men do--I do
not want to know. Perhaps they are not always to blame--I do not want to
know."
The measure of the two women was there in those words, and I felt it.
"Could you want such a man?" asked Grace Sheraton, bitterly. I saw Ellen
shake her head slowly. I heard her lips answer slowly. "No," she said.
"Could you?"
I looked to Grace Sheraton for her answer, and as I looked I saw a
strange and ghastly change come over her face. "My God!" she exclaimed,
reaching out a hand against a tree trunk to steady herself, "Your
leavings? No! But what is to become of me!"
"You wish him?" asked Ellen. "You are entirely free. But now, if you
please, I see no reason why I should trouble you both. Please, now, I
shall go."
But Grace Sheraton sprang to her side as she turned. I was amazed at her
look. It was entreaty on her face, not anger! She held out her hands to
Ellen, her face strangely distorted. And then I saw Ellen's face also
change. She put out her hand in turn.
"There," she said, "time mends very much. Let us hope--" Then I saw her
throat work oddly, and her words stop.
No man may know the speech with which women exchange thought. I saw the
two pass a few paces apart, saw Grace Sheraton stoop and whisper
something.
It was her last desperate resource, a hazard handsomely taken. It won,
as courage should, or at least as much as a lie may win at any time; for
it was a bitter, daring, desperate shaming lie she whispered to Ellen.
As Ellen's face turned toward me again I saw a slow, deep scorn invade
it. "If I were free," she said to me, "if you were the last man on
earth, I would not look at you again. You deceived me--but that was only
a broken word, and not a broken life! This girl--indeed she may ask what
will become of her!"
"I am tired of all these riddles," I broke out, my own anger now
arising, and myself not caring to be made thus sport of petticoats.
"Your duty is clear," went on my new accuser, flashing out at me. "If
you have a trace of manhood left, then let the marriage be at
once--to-morrow. How dare you delay so long!" She choked in her own
anger, humiliation, scorn--I know not what, blushed in her own shame.
Orme was right. I have always been a stupid ass. It took me moments to
grasp the amazing truth, to understand the daring stroke by which Grace
Sheraton had won her game. It had cost her much. I saw her standing
there trembling, tearful, suffering, her eyes wet. She turned to me,
waiting for me to save her or leave her damned.
I would not do it. All the world will say that I was a fool, that I was
in no way bound to any abhorrent compact, that last that any man could
tolerate. Most will say that I should have turned and walked away from
both. But I, who have always been simple and slow of wit, I fear, and
perhaps foolish as to certain principles, now felt ice pass through all
my veins as my resolution came to me.
I could not declare against the woman who had thus sworn against me.
With horror I saw what grotesque injustice was done to me. I broke out
into a horrible laughter.
I had said that I had come for my punishment, and here it was for me to
take. I had told Orme that one day I would pay him for my life. Here now
was Orme's price to be paid! If this girl had not sinned with me, she
had done so by reason of me. It was my fault; and a gentleman pays for
his fault in one way or another. There seemed to me, I say, but one way
in which I could pay, I being ever simple and slow of wit. I, John
Cowles, without thinking so far as the swift consequences, must now act
as the shield of the girl who stood there trembling, the girl who had
confessed to her rival her own bitter sin, but who had lied as to her
accomplice in her sin!
"It is true," I said, turning to Ellen. "I am guilty. I told you I
deserved no mercy, and I ask none. I have not asked Miss Sheraton to
release me from my engagement. I shall feel honored if she will now
accept my hand. I shall be glad if she will set the date early as may
be."
Night was now coming swiftly from the hills.
Ellen turned to pass back toward the door. "Your pardon!" I exclaimed to
Grace Sheraton, and sprang after Ellen.
"Good-by," I said, and held out my hand to her. "Let us end all these
heroics, and do our best. Where is your husband? I want to congratulate
him."
"My husband!" she said in wonder. "What do you mean?"
Night, I say, was dropping quickly, like a shroud spread by a mighty
hand.
"Belknap--" I began.
"Ah," she said bitterly. "You rate me low--as low as I do you!"
"But your father told me himself you two were to be married," I broke
out, surprise, wonder, dread, rebellion now in every fiber of my body
and soul.
"My father loves me dearly," she replied slowly. "But he cannot marry me
until I wish. No, I am not married, and I never will be. Good-by."
Again I heard my own horrible laughter.
Night had fallen thick and heavy from the mountains, like a dark, black
shroud.