East Angels Part 52

"To the garden?"

"Farther; out on the barren."

"I know where,--to take the medicine to that sick child. Why don't you send somebody?"

"I like to go."

"No, you don't," said Garda, laughing. "You're as good as gold, Margaret, but you don't really like to go, you don't really like the negroes, personally, one bit. You would do anything in the world for them, give them all your money and all your time, teach school for them, make clothes for them, and I don't know what all; but you would never understand them though you should live among them all the rest of your life, and never see a white face again. Now _I_ wouldn't take one grain of the trouble for them that you would, because I don't think it's in the least necessary. But, personally, I _like_ them, I like to have them about, talk to them and hear them talk; I am really attached to all the old servants about here. And I venture to say, too, that they would all prefer me forever, though I didn't lift a finger for them, prefer me to you, no matter what sacrifices you might make to help them, because they would see and feel that _I_ really liked them, whereas _you_ didn't. But I really think you like to be busy just for the sake of it; when there's nothing else you can do, you go tramping all over the country until I should think your feet would spread out like a duck's. I should like to know when you have given yourself an hour or two of absolute rest--such as I am taking now?"

"I can't sleep in the daytime," was Margaret's answer to this general southern remonstrance; "and a duck's feet are very useful to the duck."

"Oh, of course I know your feet are lovely. But I shouldn't think they could stay so, long."

"There seems to be no end at least to _your_ powers of 'staying so,'

especially when you get into a hammock," remarked Margaret. But she spoke with a smile on her lips, she was well satisfied to see the girl swinging there contentedly, her eyes already misty with sleep.

"Good-by," she said, closing the door. Then she put on her hat and gloves, and started on her mission. The sick child, for whom Dr. Kirby had prepared the medicine, lived in a cabin two miles and a half from East Angels, on the barren. In addition to the taste for unnecessary philanthropy which Garda had attributed to her, as well as that for unnecessary exercise, Margaret appeared to have a taste for solitude: she generally took her long walks alone. That is, she took them whenever she had the opportunity. This was not so often as it might have been, because of Aunt Katrina's little wishes, which had a habit of ramifying through all the hours of the day. It was not that Aunt Katrina expected you to occupy yourself in her behalf the whole afternoon, she would have exclaimed at the idea that she made such exactions as that; she only wished you to do some one little thing for her at two; and then something else "a little before three;" and then again possibly she might "feel like" this or that later, say, "any time" (liberally) "between half-past four and five." In this way she was sure that you had almost the whole time to yourself.

In addition Margaret was house-keeper, and with the heterogeneous a.s.semblage of servants at East Angels, the position required an almost hourly exercise of diplomacy. Celestine, so excellent in her own sphere, could not be relied upon in this, because, pressed by her desire to "educate the black man," she was constantly introducing primers "in words of one syllable" into the sweeping, dusting, and bed-making; she had even been known to suspend one open on the crane in the kitchen fireplace for the benefit of Aunt Dinah-Jim during the process (for which she was celebrated) of roasting wild-turkey. But "the black man,"

including Aunt Dinah, would have been much more impressed by primers in words of six.

For the rest of this afternoon, however, Margaret was free; she had several hours of daylight still before her. She walked on across the barren, and had gone about half the distance, when she was overtaken by Joe, the elder brother, the sixth elder brother, of the little Jewlyann for whom the medicine was intended. Joe, a black lad in a military cap, and a pair of his father's trousers which were so well strapped up over his shoulders by fragmentary braces that they covered his breast and back, and served as jacket as well, took the vial from the lady who was so kind to them; and then Margaret, promising to pay her visit another day, turned back. As she approached East Angels again, she made a long detour, and entered on the southern side at the edge of the Levels.

Here, pausing, she looked at her watch; it was not yet half-past five, she turned and entered the south-eastern woods, which came up at this point to the East Angels border. Once within the shaded aisles, she walked on, following no path, but wandering at random. Any one seeing her then would have said that the expression of her face was singularly altered; instead of the composure that usually held sway there, it was the expression of a person much agitated mentally, and agitated by unhappiness. She walked on with irregular steps, her hands interlocked and hanging before her, palms downward, her eyes on the ground. After some time she paused, and seemed to make an effort to press back her troubles, not only a mental effort, but a physical one, after the manner of people whose sensibilities are keen; she placed her hands over her forehead and eyes, and held them there with a firm pressure for several minutes; then she let them drop, and looked about her.

She had wandered far, she was near the eastern boundary of the wood; Madam Giron's house was in sight--only a field lay between. She was sufficiently acquainted with the forest to know that one of the paths must be near; three paths crossed it, leading from East Angels to the Giron plantation and beyond, this should be the most easterly of the three; she turned to look for it.

It was not distant, and before long she came upon it. But at the moment she did so she caught a glimpse of Evert Winthrop's figure; he was on the other side of the path, at some distance from her; in the wood, but nearer its edge than she was. Seated on a camp-stool, he was apparently using the last of the daylight to finish a sketch. For he had taken to sketching during his long stay at East Angels, producing pictures which were rather geometrical, it is true; but he maintained that there was a great deal of geometry in all landscape.

Margaret had now entered the path, and was walking towards home.

It happened that Winthrop at this moment looked up; but he did not do so until her course had carried her so far past him that it was not necessary for her to give sign of having seen him. He was too far off to speak; there was, in fact, a wide s.p.a.ce between them, though they could see each other perfectly. But though, by the breadth of a second, he had failed to look up in time to bow to her, he was in time to see that she had observed him--her eyes were in the very act of turning away. In that same instant, too, Margaret perceived that he saw she had observed him.

She pa.s.sed on; a minute later a sharp bend in the path took her figure out of his sight. He looked after her for a moment, as though hesitating whether he would not follow her. Then he seemed to give up the idea; he returned to his sketch.

Margaret, meanwhile, walking rapidly along the path on the other side of the bend, came upon some one--Garda.

"Garda! you here?" she said, stopping abruptly.

"I might rather say _you_ here," answered Garda. "I thought you were out on the barren." She spoke in her usual tone.

"I didn't go far on the barren," Margaret answered; "I met one of the boys and gave him the vial, then I came round this way for a walk. But it's late now, we must both go home."

Garda gave a long sigh, which, however, ended in a smile. "Oh _dear_!

it's too bad I've met you at this moment of all others, for of course now I shall have to tell you, and you'll be sure to be vexed. I'm not going home, I'm going over to Madam Giron's to see Lucian."

Margaret looked at her, her eyes for one brief instant showed uncertainty. But the uncertainty was immediately replaced by a decision: no, it was, it must be, that this girl did not in the least realize what she was doing. "It is foolish to go, Garda," she said at last, putting some ridicule into her tone; "Lucian has said good-by to you, he doesn't want to see you again."

Garda did not a.s.sert the contrary. And she remained perfectly unmoved by the ridicule. "But _I_ want to see him," she explained.

"We can send for him, then--though he will laugh at you; there is plenty of time to send."

"No," replied Garda. "For I want to see him by myself, and that I couldn't do at the house; there'd be sure to be somebody about; you yourself wouldn't be very far off, I reckon. No, I've thought it all over, and I would rather see him at Madam Giron's."

"Absurd! You cannot have anything of the least importance to say to him," said Margaret, still temporizing. She took the girl's hand and drew it through her arm.

"Oh, the important thing, of course, is to _see_ him," answered Garda.

Winthrop was so far from the path that the low sound of their voices, speaking their usual tones, could not reach him. But the bend was near; let Garda once pa.s.s it, and he would see her plainly; he would not only see her pa.s.s through the wood, but, from where he sat, he commanded the field which she would have to cross to reach Madam Giron's. All this pictured itself quickly in Margaret's mind, she tightened her hold on the girl's hand, and the ridicule left her voice. "Don't go, Garda," she said, beseechingly.

"I must; it's my last chance."

"I shouldn't care much for a last chance which I had had to arrange entirely myself."

"Well, that is the difference between us--_I_ should," Garda answered.

"I shall have to speak more plainly, then, and tell you that you must not go. It would be thought extremely wrong."

"Who would think so?"

"Everybody."

"You know you mean Evert," said Garda, amused.

"I mean everybody. But if it should be Evert too!"

"I shouldn't care."

"If he were somewhere about here now, and should see you, shouldn't you care for that?" asked Margaret, a change of expression, in spite of her effort to prevent it, pa.s.sing over her face.

But Garda did not see the change; her eyes had happened to fall upon a loosened end of her sash, she drew her hand away in order to retie the ribbons in a new knot, while she answered: "Do you mean see me going into Madam Giron's? No, provided he didn't follow me. I give you my word, Margaret, that I should really like to have Evert see me, I believe I'd go half a mile out of my way on purpose; he is so exasperatingly sure of--"

"Of what?"

"Of everything," answered Garda, making a grimace; "but especially of me." Having now adjusted the knot to her satisfaction, she raised her eyes again. "But _you_ are the one that cares," she said, looking at her friend. "I can't tell you how sorry I am that you have met me here," she went on, in a tone of regret. "But how was I to imagine that you would change your mind, and come way round through this wood? It's too late now." And she walked on towards the bend.

Margaret stood still for a moment. Then she hurried after her. "Garda,"

she said, "I beg you not to go; I beg you here on my knees, if that will move you. Your mother left you to me, I stand in her place; think what she would have wished. Oh, my dear child, it would be very wrong to go, listen to me and believe me."

Garda, struck by her agitation, had stopped; with a sort of soft outcry she had prevented her from kneeling. "Margaret! _you_ kneel to _me_?--you dear, good, beautiful Margaret! You care so much about it, then?--so _very_ much?"

"More than anything in the world," Margaret answered, in a voice unlike her own.

With one of her sudden impulses, Garda exclaimed, "Then I won't go! But somebody must tell Lucian," she added.

"Do you mean that he expects you?"

"Not at the house. When he came over to say good-by, of course I made up my mind at once that I should see him again in some way before he started; so when you had gone out on the barren (as I supposed), I wrote a note and sent Pablo over with it."