Oldfield Part 19

"My dear Miss Judy, nothing was further from my thoughts than to startle or offend you; but you know that--I only meant to tell you that--that a small matter has arisen which--that an unimportant suit has been filed--"

Miss Judy arose suddenly, and stood before him like a sentinel guarding a post. "Am I to understand, John, that some one is suing my father for debt," she said stiffly, and almost coldly; but the stiffness and coldness now were not for him. "Tell me all about it at once, please."

"It is nothing to trouble you. If such a note be in existence, it must have been barred by the statute of limitation long ago. How long has it been since your father died?" asked the judge.

"Over twenty-five years,--twenty-six years this coming October." And as Miss Judy spoke she turned, with a soft sigh, and looked tenderly at Miss Sophia, and was glad to see that she was fast asleep, sitting straight up in her chair.

"And this note, if given at all, must, of course, have been drawn before that date. Your father was in Virginia a long time."

"Yes," sighed Miss Judy, glancing again lovingly and protectingly at Miss Sophia. "It is very painful to sister Sophia and myself to remember how long."

"Don't think any more about it," said the judge. "There can be no necessity for your giving it another thought. The length of time, the statute of limitation, protects you. The note cannot possibly be of any value."

Miss Judy stood still for a moment in perplexed thought, with her little hands very tightly clasped before her.

"But if my father gave the note,--if he ever owed Colonel Fielding the money, and it never has been paid, I don't see that time can make any difference," she said at last, a little absently and a little uncertainly, as if she did not yet quite understand, but was, nevertheless, firmly feeling her way to the light.

"Well, most people would think it made a difference," the judge responded, smiling in spite of his sympathy with her troubled perplexity.

"I can't believe that Colonel Fielding can have meant to bring such a suit. He loved my father and honored him above all other men. I cannot believe that he would knowingly smirch the memory of his best friend; unless, poor old man, his mind is entirely gone. And why has the note not been known about before? Why have I never been told--all these years? Are you sure, John, that there is no mistake? Are you sure that the colonel has actually brought the suit?" asked Miss Judy, piteously, with her blue eyes--clouded and filling with tears--fixed on the judge's face.

"It is not the colonel," murmured the judge.

"Then who is it?" persisted Miss Judy, with growing bewilderment and distress. "Who comes at this late day claiming that my father did not pay what he owed,--when he could have paid?"

"Alvarado," John Stanley said, in so low a tone that she barely heard, thus forced himself to utter the name of the Spaniard for the first time since it had become to him an unspeakable thing.

"John--John, I humbly beg your pardon. I didn't dream--oh, my son," Miss Judy cried, forgetting her own trouble.

She ran to him and laid her tender little hands on his broad shoulders, and gazed into his pale, calm face, all unconscious that her own was quivering and wet with tears--tears for the pain which she saw in his set face, for his sacrificed youth, for his lost happiness--tears most of all for gentle Alice Fielding, the girl whom he still loved, although she had rested so long in the grave of the broken-hearted.

XXIII

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Misfortune never comes singly to a community any more than to an individual. No life anywhere may ever stand or fall quite alone, so are the living all bound together. In a village where every door stands wide and all lives are in the open, and where no high, hard walls rise between the people,--as they do in a city,--the bond is closer than it can be elsewhere. So that the uneasiness which the judge communicated so unwillingly to Miss Judy on that quiet midsummer night was the beginning of the end of the peace of many of the good people of Oldfield, for a long time afterward.

Sorely troubled, Miss Judy had lain awake hour after hour looking into the darkness, and trying to see the way to do that which she knew was right. She had seen her duty distinctly enough as soon as the judge's meaning was clear; the only uncertainty was as to the means of doing it.

The money must be paid, the length of time during which it had been owing only making the payment more urgent. No loophole of the law could afford any means of escape to a sense of honor as fine and true as hers.

Such a possibility did not cross her mind as she lay thinking in the silence of the night, which was broken only by the peaceful little puffing sound that came tranquilly from Miss Sophia's side of the big, high bed. Miss Judy again softly put out her thin little hand in the dark, and softly patted her sister's round, plump shoulder with protecting tenderness, as she always instinctively caressed her when trouble drew near. Come what would, this sister, so tenderly loved, should not know or suffer any privation that could be prevented. It would be hard to keep her from knowing if the payment of the note should require the entire amount of the next pension money, which was every cent they would have for months. Still, Miss Judy remembered how she had managed, several times ere this, in keeping other unpleasant things from her sister's knowledge, and she now lay revolving transparent schemes and innocent fictions, alternately smiling and sighing, half proud and half ashamed of her own deep duplicity.

The result of the night's reflection was that she went early on the next morning to the tavern to see Judge Stanley, hoping to be able to speak to him before he left his room for the court-house. But some little delay had been required--so at least Miss Judy imagined--in order to allay Miss Sophia's suspicions, and the judge was already gone when Miss Judy reached the tavern. She hesitated for a few moments, blushing, embarra.s.sed, confused, and utterly thrown out of her plans. She had never entered the court-house; she had never heard of a gentlewoman's doing such a thing. The very thought of approaching the door of it shocked her as something improper and almost immodest. And yet it was absolutely necessary for her to see the judge immediately, so that she might tell him of her decision before the case could be called. She would do almost anything rather than allow her father's honored name to be dishonorably mentioned in the hearing of the people of Oldfield, who had revered him all their lives, and looked up to him as the finest of gentlemen, the most valiant of soldiers. Without giving herself time to shrink or to flinch, she turned desperately and hurried toward the court-house, as she would have marched to the cannon's mouth.

The court was barely opened, the judge was just taking his seat on the bench, when the sheriff came and told him that Miss Judy was at the door and would like to see his Honor if he "would kindly step outside." The sheriff smiled in bringing him the message, his broad, kind face broadening and growing kinder with the affectionate indulgence which everybody always felt for Miss Judy's harmless peculiarities. Even the judge's grave face relaxed somewhat, lighting and softening, as he promptly arose from the bench and went to do the little lady's bidding.

He found her on the other side of the big road, and not at the door of the court-house, where he had expected to find her. She had, indeed, hastily retreated as far as she dared, after sending for him, and now stood awaiting him, terrified and trembling, at being even as near the door as she was--hovering like a bird just alighted but ready to take flight. In her agitation she held the front breadth of her best bombazine very, very high indeed, so that her neat little prunella gaiters were plainly visible, and even her trim ankles were quite distinctly in sight; and there were also unmistakable glimpses of snow-white ruffles of an antiquated fashion, like the delicate feathers about the feet of a white bantam.

"I wanted to see you, John, before the suit could come up," she began pantingly at once. "I thought it all over last night,--after you were gone."

"Everything is right, Miss Judy. I considered the matter again when I went back to the tavern. Don't give it another thought. The suit is barred by limitation long ago," the judge said gently, as if soothing a frightened child.

"But is it really a note of my father's? Did he ever owe the money? And is it true that the debt never has been paid? That is what I wish to know," persisted Miss Judy, with all the earnestness of a woman who knows well the meaning of her words.

Her blue eyes were uplifted to his face, and she read in it the answer which he would have been glad to withhold.

"Then it must be paid," she said firmly, promptly, conclusively. She had been drifting out of her depth ever since the stunned plunge of the first shock; but she now felt solid ground once more under her feet.

"There is my dear and honored father's pension for his services in the War for Independence. A portion of that could scarcely be better used than in discharging any pecuniary obligation of his, which he may naturally have forgotten, or chanced to overlook."

This was said loftily, almost carelessly, as though the large size of the pension made any unexpected demand upon it a mere trifle, and with a gentle, sweet look of pride. The judge could not help smiling, notwithstanding that he was touched and even troubled, knowing how grave a matter any call for money must be to Miss Judy. Looking down upon her from his great height, he thought he never before had known what a frail pretty little creature she was, nor how deeply, purely blue her eyes were, with the blue of fresh-blown flax-flowers, nor how like silver floss her hair was, till he now saw it new burnished by the sunlight.

But he stood in silence, uncertain what to say, fearing to wound her.

"And the amount of the note? How much is it?" Miss Judy asked suddenly, after the momentary silence.

Nothing could have been more like her, more entirely characteristic of her whole life, than that this question, which would have been the first with many, should have been the last with her. Yet now that it had occurred to her, she held her breath with fear. If it should be more than the amount of the whole pension,--more than she had or ever hoped to have in the wide world,--what should she do then?

"It was drawn for a hundred dollars. I have not yet calculated the interest," the judge answered reluctantly.

Miss Judy gasped and turned white; the earth seemed suddenly sliding beneath her feet. Then in another instant a scarlet tide swept the paleness from her alarmed face. The blood in her gentle veins was, after all, the blood of a soldier, and she fought on to the last trench.

"It must be paid, as soon as possible," she said formally, as if speaking to a stranger; but she laid her trembling little hand in John Stanley's warm, firm clasp with a look of perfect love and trust before she turned from him and went on her troubled way homeward.

He stood still for a moment when she had left him, gazing after the little figure in black fluttering against the warm wind. Then he turned slowly and went back to his seat on the bench, and the routine of the court forthwith began to drone throughout the long, hot day. A feeling of foreboding, a vague dread of some unknown calamity, had hung over him when he had first awakened on that morning; as though a formless warning had come through the mists of unremembered dreams. He was not able to cast off the depression which it caused, and the feeling deepened with the dragging of the heavy hours. But it wavered still without distinct form. It had nothing to do with his hourly, momentary expectation of seeing the Spaniard's threatening face and wild eyes confronting him through the gloom of the low-ceiled court-room. He was used to the sight and he never had feared it, save as he always feared himself and the enforced shedding of blood. The only unusual thing was that Alvarado should not be in his accustomed place that day, as he invariably had been heretofore, whenever the judge had been on the bench; but this fact gave the judge no uneasiness, he hardly thought of it at all, for his mind was filled with other things. He leaned his aching head on his hand as the business of the court droned dully along and the heat grew steadily greater. He thought, vaguely, that it must be the heat and the scent of the catalpa flowers which weighed so heavily upon him. For a few large, white bells swung uncommonly late amongst the heavy, dusty foliage of the catalpa trees, crowding close to the deep windows, darkening the court-room and shutting out every breath of the fitful, sultry breeze.

He left the court-house as soon as he could get away, and strolled slowly toward the farthest, highest hillside, whither he often went at the close of a tiring day. The warm wind had died out of the valley, but the air would, so he thought, be cooler on the hilltop; a cool breeze nearly always stirred the tall cedars of the graveyard, as if with the chill air of the tomb. He found the gate open, as it always was. There was never any need for closing it. Within were no gilded bones to be stolen: without were no inhuman robbers of graves. So that here those who rested within had nothing more to fear; and those who strove without could not be barred when they also came to stay.

Leaning on the fence, he turned and looked down upon the drowsing village; at the men, white and black, who were going homeward with the unhasting pace of the country; at the black women with milk-pails, crossing the back lots whence the cows were calling; at the farmers, already far in the distance, riding away from court; at the great road wagons, with their mighty teams of four and six horses. These great wagons were the huge ships of this vast inland sea of wheat and corn and tobacco, and now but lately launched, heavy-laden, with the newly garnered grain.

And then, as his wandering, absent gaze fell near by, upon the path from the village leading up the hillside, he saw that Lynn and Doris were slowly climbing it after him toward the graveyard. He had met the young man at the tavern on the previous day, and he had known his father. He had always known Doris in the distant way in which he knew all the people of Oldfield, with the sole exception of Miss Judy. He therefore greeted them with the formal courtesy that he gave to every one; and he talked with them for a few moments, in his grave, impersonal way, but he was disappointed in his wish for solitude, and he lingered no longer than good breeding required. He did not stay to go over to an isolated corner of the graveyard as he had intended, to see if the tangle of weeds and briers, which makes the desolation of neglected burial-grounds, had been taken away from one solitary grave, as it always was when he came and never at any other time. He could not do this in the presence of any one, so that, lifting his hat with a faint smile, he now turned his face toward the village and the tavern.

At the foot of the hill he happened upon the little Frenchman, who sat groaning by the roadside, unable to walk because he had wrenched his ankle, spraining it very badly, in getting over the fence.

"But it is not that I do care for the pain. Bah!" cried monsieur, with a Gallic gesture and an inflection that belonged to no nation and was wholly his own. "It is--helas!--the ploughing for the spring wheat. A man may not hobble after the plough, neither may he follow with crutches."

"Oh, you needn't trouble about that. There's plenty of time, and you can't plough, anyway, until a rainfall has softened the ground," said the judge, kindly.

"The black man, devoid of intelligence, who tills the fields of monsieur the doctor, ploughs to-day in the dust. Should the grain of the fields of monsieur the doctor grow quicker and thrive better than the grain of the fields of madame the mistress, whose fields I myself do till, then I shall surely mortify."

"There's nothing to be done in the fields now," the judge said, trying not to smile. "Let me help you," bending over and offering his strong arm and broad shoulder. "You'll be all right again in good time for the spring wheat. A sprained ankle is no Waterloo!"

The Frenchman shrunk, dropping away from the outstretched arm as though it had struck him down. His face, open and transparent as a child's, had been confidingly upturned; now it fell, reddened and clouded with anger, indignation, and shame. Falling back, he tried at once to rise again, only to sink--groaning and helpless--more p.r.o.ne than before, while hissing through his clenched teeth something about _le sentiment du fer_.

"It is the fatal misfortune of my father that you do insult!" he said fiercely, in English, striving vainly to maintain an icy civility. "When it is that I may again stand on my feet, your Highness will perhaps--"

"Come, come, Beauchamp. You are suffering. Here, let me help you."