At Fault Part 16

"Don't you fool yourself, as Melicent says, about what Mrs. Hosmer means to do. I take no account of it. But you take it so easily; so as a matter of course. That's what exasperates me. That you, you, you, shouldn't have a suspicion of the torture of it; the loathsomeness of it. But how could you--how could any woman understand it? Oh forgive me, Therese--I wouldn't want you to. There's no brute so brutal as a man," he cried, seeing the pain in her face and knowing he had caused it. "But you know you promised to help me--oh I'm talking like an idiot."

"And I do," returned Therese, "that is, I want to, I mean to."

"Then don't tell me again that I have done right. Only look at me sometimes a little differently than you do at Hiram or the gate post.

Let me once in a while see a look in your face that tells me that you understand--if it's only a little bit."

Therese thought it best to interrupt the situation; so, pale and silently she prepared to mount her horse. He came to her a.s.sistance of course, and when she was seated she drew off her loose riding glove and held out her hand to him. He pressed it gratefully, then touched it with his lips; then turned it and kissed the half open palm.

She did not leave him this time, but rode at his side in silence with a frown and little line of thought between her blue eyes.

As they were nearing the store she said diffidently: "Mr. Hosmer, I wonder if it wouldn't be best for you to put the mill in some one else's charge--and go away from Place-du-Bois."

"I believe you always speak with a purpose, Mrs. Lafirme: you have somebody's ultimate good in view, when you say that. Is it your own, or mine or whose is it?"

"Oh! not mine."

"I will leave Place-du-Bois, certainly, if you wish it."

As she looked at him she was forced to admit that she had never seen him look as he did now. His face, usually serious, had a whole unwritten tragedy in it. And she felt altogether sore and puzzled and exasperated over man's problematic nature.

"I don't think it should be left entirely to me to say. Doesn't your own reason suggest a proper course in the matter?"

"My reason is utterly unable to determine anything in which you are concerned. Mrs. Lafirme," he said checking his horse and laying a restraining hand on her bridle, "let me speak to you one moment. I know you are a woman to whom one may speak the truth. Of course, you remember that you prevailed upon me to go back to my wife. To you it seemed the right thing--to me it seemed certainly hard--but no more nor less than taking up the old unhappy routine of life, where I had left it when I quitted her. I reasoned much like a stupid child who thinks the colors in his kaleidoscope may fall twice into the same design. In place of the old, I found an entirely new situation--horrid, sickening, requiring such a strain upon my energies to live through it, that I believe it's an absurdity to waste so much moral force for so poor an aim--there would be more dignity in putting an end to my life. It doesn't make it any the more bearable to feel that the cause of this unlooked for change lies within myself--my altered feelings.

But it seems to me that I have the right to ask you not to take yourself out of my life; your moral support; your bodily atmosphere. I hope not to give way to the weakness of speaking of these things again: but before you leave me, tell me, do you understand a little better why I need you?"

"Yes, I understand now; and I thank you for talking so openly to me.

Don't go away from Place-du-Bois: it would make me very wretched."

She said no more and he was glad of it, for her last words held almost the force of action for him; as though she had let him feel for an instant her heart beat against his own with an echoing pain.

Their ways now diverged. She went in the direction of the house and he to the store where he found Gregoire, whom he sent for his wife.

VI

One Night.

"Gregoire was right: do you know those nasty creatures have gone and left every speck of the supper dishes unwashed? I've got half a mind to give them both warning to-morrow morning."

f.a.n.n.y had come in from the kitchen to the sitting-room, and the above homily was addressed to her husband who stood lighting his cigar. He had lately taken to smoking.

"You'd better do nothing of the kind; you wouldn't find it easy to replace them. Put up a little with their vagaries: this sort of thing only happens once a year."

"How do you know it won't be something else just as ridiculous to-morrow? And that idiot of a Minervy; what do you suppose she told me when I insisted on her staying to wash up things? She says, last whatever you call it, her husband wanted to act hard-headed and staid out after dark, and when he was crossing the bayou, the spirits jerked him off his horse and dragged him up and down in the water, till he was nearly drowned. I don't see what you're laughing at; I guess you'd like to make out that they're in the right."

Hosmer was perfectly aware that f.a.n.n.y had had a drink, and he rightly guessed that Morico had given it to her. But he was at a loss to account for the increasing symptoms of intoxication that she showed.

He tried to persuade her to go to bed; but his efforts to that end remained unheeded, till she had eased her mind of an acc.u.mulation of grievances, mostly fancied. He had much difficulty in preventing her from going over to give Melicent a piece of her mind about her lofty airs and arrogance in thinking herself better than other people. And she was very eager to tell Therese that she meant to do as she liked, and would stand no poking of noses in her business. It was a good while before she fell into a heavy sleep, after shedding a few maudlin tears over the conviction that he intended to leave her again, and clinging to his neck with beseeching enquiry whether he loved her.

He went out on the veranda feeling much as if he had been wrestling with a strong adversary who had mastered him, and whom he was glad to be freed of, even at the cost of coming inglorious from the conflict.

The night was so dark, so hushed, that if ever the dead had wished to step from their graves and take a stroll above ground, they could not have found a more fitting hour. Hosmer walked very long in the soothing quiet. He would have liked to walk the night through. The last three hours had been like an acute physical pain, that was over for the moment, and that being over, left his mind free to return to the delicious consciousness, that he had needed to be reminded of, that Therese loved him after all. When his measured tread upon the veranda finally ceased to mark the pa.s.sing hours, a quiet that was almost pulseless fell upon the plantation. Place-du-Bois slept.

Perhaps the only night in the year that some or other of the negroes did not lurk in fence corners, or make exchange of nocturnal visits.

But out in the hills there was no such unearthly stillness reigning.

Those restless wood-dwellers, that never sleep, were sending startling gruesome calls to each other. Bats were flapping and whirling and darting hither and thither; the gliding serpent making quick rustle amid the dry, crisp leaves, and over all sounded the murmur of the great pine trees, telling their mystic secrets to the night.

A human creature was there too, feeling a close fellowship with these spirits of night and darkness; with no more fear in his heart than the unheeded serpent crossing his path. Every inch of the ground he knew.

He wanted no daylight to guide him. Had his eyes been blinded he would no doubt have bent his body close to earth and scented his way along like the human hound that he was. Over his shoulder hung the polished rifle that sent dull and sudden gleamings into the dark. A large tin pail swung from his hand. He was very careful of this pail--or its contents, for he feared to lose a drop. And when he accidentally struck an intervening tree and spilled some upon the ground, he muttered a curse against his own awkwardness.

Twice since leaving his cabin up in the clearing, he had turned to drive back his yellow skulking dog that followed him. Each time the brute had fled in abject terror, only to come creeping again into his master's footsteps, when he thought himself forgotten. Here was a companion whom neither Jocint nor his mission required. Exasperated, he seated himself on a fallen tree and whistled softly. The dog, who had been holding back, dashed to his side, trembling with eagerness, and striving to twist his head around to lick the hand that patted him. Jocint's other hand glided quickly into his pocket, from which he drew forth a coil of thin rope that he flung deftly over the animal's head, drawing it close and tight about the homely, s.h.a.ggy throat. So quickly was the action done, that no sound was uttered, and Jocint continued his way untroubled by his old and faithful friend, whom he left hanging to the limb of a tree.

He was following the same path that he traversed daily to and from the mill, and which soon brought him out into the level with its soft tufted gra.s.s and clumps of squat thorn trees. There was no longer the protecting wood to screen him; but of such there was no need, for the darkness hung about him like the magic mantle of story. Nearing the mill he grew cautious, creeping along with the tread of a stealthy beast, and halting at intervals to listen for sounds that he wished not to hear. He knew there was no one on guard tonight. A movement in the bushes near by, made him fall quick and sprawling to earth. It was only Gregoire's horse munching the soft gra.s.s. Jocint drew near and laid his hand on the horse's back. It was hot and reeking with sweat.

Here was a fact to make him more wary. Horses were not found in such condition from quietly grazing of a cool autumn night. He seated himself upon the ground, with his hands clasped about his knees, all doubled up in a little heap, and waited there with the patience of the savage, letting an hour go by, whilst he made no movement.

The hour past, he stole towards the mill, and began his work of sprinkling the contents of his pail here and there along the dry timbers at well calculated distances, with care that no drop should be lost. Then, he drew together a great heap of crisp shavings and slathers, plentifully besprinkling it with what remained in the can.

When he had struck a match against his rough trousers and placed it carefully in the midst of this small pyramid, he found that he had done his work but too surely. The quick flame sprang into life, seizing at once all it could reach. Leaping over intervals; effacing the darkness that had shrouded him; seeming to mock him as a fool and point him out as a target for heaven and earth to hurl destruction at if they would. Where should he hide himself? He only thought now of how he might have done the deed differently, and with safety to himself. He stood with great beams and loose planks surrounding him; quaking with a premonition of evil. He wanted to fly in one direction; then thought it best to follow the opposite; but a force outside of himself seemed to hold him fast to one spot. When turning suddenly about, he knew it was too late, he felt that all was lost, for there was Gregoire, not twenty paces away--covering him with the muzzle of a pistol and--cursed luck--his own rifle along with the empty pail in the raging fire.

Therese was pa.s.sing a restless night. She had lain long awake, dwelling on the insistent thoughts that the day's happenings had given rise to. The sleep which finally came to her was troubled by dreams--demoniac--grotesque. Hosmer was in a danger from which she was striving with physical effort to rescue him, and when she dragged him painfully from the peril that menaced him, she turned to see that it was f.a.n.n.y whom she had saved--laughing at her derisively, and Hosmer had been left to perish. The dream was agonizing; like an appalling nightmare. She awoke in a fever of distress, and raised herself in bed to shake off the unnatural impression which such a dream can leave.

The curtains were drawn aside from the window that faced her bed, and looking out she saw a long tongue of flame, reaching far up into the sky--away over the tree tops and the whole Southern horizon a glow.

She knew at once that the mill was burning, and it was the affair of a moment with her to spring from her bed and don slippers and wrapper.

She knocked on Melicent's door to acquaint her with the startling news; then hurried out into the back yard and rang the plantation bell.

Next she was at the cottage rousing Hosmer. But the alarm of the bell had already awakened him, and he was dressed and out on the porch almost as soon as Therese had called. Melicent joined them, highly agitated, and prepared to contribute her share towards any scene that might be going forward. But she found little encouragement for heroics with Hosmer. In saddling his horse rather hastily he was as unmoved as though preparing for an uneventful morning canter. He stood at the foot of the stairs preparing to mount when Gregoire rode up as if pursued by furies; checking his horse with a quick, violent wrench that set it quivering in its taut limbs.

"Well," said Hosmer, "I guess it's done for. How did it happen? who did it?"

"Jocint's work," answered Gregoire bitingly.

"The d.a.m.ned scoundrel," muttered Hosmer, "where is he?"

"Don' botha 'bout Jocint; he ain't goin' to set no mo' mill afire,"

saying which, he turned his horse and the two rode furiously away.

Melicent grasped Therese's arm convulsively.

"What does he mean?" she asked in a frightened whisper.

"I--I don't know," Therese faltered. She had clasped her hands spasmodically together, at Gregoire's words, trembling with horror of what must be their meaning.

"May be he arrested him," suggested the girl.

"I hope so. Come; let's go to bed: there's no use staying out here in the cold and dark."

Hosmer had left the sitting-room door open, and Therese entered. She approached f.a.n.n.y's door and knocked twice: not brusquely, but sufficiently loud to be heard from within, by any one who was awake.

No answer came, and she went away, knowing that f.a.n.n.y slept.

The unusual sound of the bell, ringing two hours past midnight--that very deadest hour of the night--had roused the whole plantation. On all sides squads of men and a few venturesome women were hurrying towards the fire; the dread of supernatural encounters overcome for the moment by such strong reality and by the confidence lent them in each other's company.