Life at High Tide Part 13

"Oh, I'd much rather," Nettie answered. "I couldn't have stood having other people find it out, and I'm not going to give anybody that knows me a chance to find out now. You see, I've been afraid of this so long that I've had time to make my plans and to save up money a little.

Before I came here I gave up my place and told folks I was going to join Mr. Blake; so I'll not go back. I'll go to New York and get work there."

Charlotte looked at her keenly. "I suppose you're depending on Mr.

Blake to help you?" she said.

Again the color sprang into Nettie's face. "Oh no, ma'am," she answered. "I couldn't let him help me now. I did wrong to live with him, but I didn't know he was married, so I don't feel like one of that kind of women; but if I was to take money from him now, I--I shouldn't feel that I was raising my child honest."

Charlotte lifted her baby so that it hid her face. "For him to help you would only be right," she said, from its shelter. "He owes you--money, at least."

The other shook her head. "I couldn't bear it," she said, chokingly.

"Oh, you can't understand--n.o.body could understand unless she'd been through what I have, being left before my baby came, and having people ask me close questions, and then, little by little, losing my own faith. You can't see why, but if I was to take money from him now, it would make me feel my shame, and I don't want to,--I want to feel honest."

Charlotte lowered Hope to her knee. "Perhaps I can understand that--in a way," she said, with twitching lips.

Nettie looked into her face with a helpless, childish perception of the suffering shown in its drawn lines. "You're so good to me--I believe you feel 'most as bad as I do," she declared; "and if I were you, I wouldn't say a word to anybody about my having been here.

n.o.body knows it. I didn't have to ask my way. There aren't many women would treat me the way you do, and I won't stay here any longer making you feel bad." She rose, still holding her heavy child in her arms.

"There isn't anything more we've got to say to each other, is there?"

she asked.

"Wait a moment," Charlotte said. She, too, rose, and as she stood looking at the other woman, so much smaller, so much weaker, so blindly trustful, and so patient, her heart, which had sunk in shame, rose suddenly in pity; at that moment if she had opened her lips the truth would have escaped from them, but her stubborn will held her lips closed.

Nettie eyed her with troubled uncertainty, but after a moment moved towards the door.

"Well, I must go," she declared.

"Wait a moment," Charlotte said again. Her voice was so dry and strange that after she had spoken she paused to moisten her lips. Her limbs trembled, and in the gla.s.s door which she had opened against the wall she could see the ashen whiteness of her face.

Nettie turned, and the two women confronted each other, each holding her child.

Charlotte put a hand up to her throat. "I have money I could give you," she offered. "Not his, my own."

The other shook her head. "Oh, I couldn't," she exclaimed. "Anyway, I don't need it. I've saved up a good deal. And you've done better than give me money; you've been kind to me." She put out her hand with a little appealing gesture and took Charlotte's, which lay cold in it.

"You'd better go," Charlotte broke out. "You'll meet him coming home if you wait any longer. Here; I'll tell you how to go a roundabout way."

She walked out on to the piazza and led the way down the steps and round to the back of the house, where she stood giving short, sharp directions, when across her hurried words came Blake's voice calling from the front:

"Charlotte! Charlotte! Where are you and Hope?"

For the first time since they had lived together Blake had come home before his hour.

The two women looked at each other. Charlotte pointed to the path which hid itself quickly in the shelter of an orchard. "Run," she whispered. "I'll keep him in the house."

But Nettie stood as if paralyzed, her eyes widening and filling with tears. "Oh, you've been so good--mayn't I see him--mayn't I bid him good-by?" she begged.

Charlotte lifted her voice to answer Blake. "Yes, Emory; stay where you are; I'm bringing Hope," she called. "Hurry!" she whispered to the other woman. "It won't do you any good to see him. Think of what he's done. Hurry, I say!"

Nettie put her hand up to her head. "I--I can't," she murmured. She swayed a little, and before Charlotte could reach out to catch her she had slipped to the ground.

At the same moment Blake came out of the back door of the house. For an instant he stared in bewilderment. Then he was at Nettie's side and had lifted her in his arms.

Charlotte saw his face as he kissed her. A moment later she was indoors on her knees beside her bed, with her face buried in the cover and her hands clutching it.

A cold wind swept through the house. Front and back the doors stood open. The sun was already low in the west and the evening promised to be chill. Presently Charlotte rose. She closed the front door carefully, wrapped Hope in a cloak, and, with her child on her arm, pa.s.sed out at the back.

Blake had stretched his wife on the back porch and was bending over her. He looked up, and at sight of Charlotte's face he straightened himself.

She paused an instant. "I'm starting to harness the horse," she said.

"You can catch the night train at Antioch if I drive fast."

He stood silent, his face working. It was as if strength were being born in him to say something in his own defence.

"She has plans," Charlotte added. "You'd better pick up some of your things in the house."

She pa.s.sed on, and laying Hope in the bottom of the wagon, harnessed the horse with swift, shaking hands. The sun was out of sight when she drove back to the house. Nettie sat on the steps staring dazedly around her. Blake was not in sight.

"Are you ready?" Charlotte called.

He came out, carrying an old handbag. At the step he hesitated.

She pointed to the back seat, where he was to sit with Nettie and the child, and after an instant he helped them in.

The ride was long and cold. Night fell, and the stars came out in remote, hostile legions. The children slept. Occasionally Nettie and Blake advised together in hushed voices. Charlotte whipped the horse.

As they drew near to the end of their journey Blake leaned forward and touched her arm.

"What about the store?" he asked.

Charlotte broke her long silence harshly. "Your stock will cover what you owe on it, I guess."

At the station she stayed in the wagon. Blake took his wife and Dorcas into the waiting-room and came back for his bag. Charlotte had it ready for him, resting on the wheel.

He did not offer to take it at first, but stood in the beam from the station window, trying to speak.

"Well?" she said.

"I guess there's not much I can say," he choked out.

For a long time she made no answer. Then her breath came with an unexpected gasp. "It wasn't your fault--I made you do it." For a moment more they were silent. Then she shifted the sleeping baby towards him.

"Don't you want to kiss her?" she asked.

He bent his face to the child with a sudden pa.s.sionate tenderness. As he looked up, his wet eyes met Charlotte's, which were full of tears.

She put out her hand to him. "I guess I've been hard on you," she said.