The Desired Woman Part 38

The insane set that helped to wreck her life will chuckle and grin now."

A musical gong in the dining-room sounded softly.

"That's luncheon," Mrs. Moore said. "Let's go out. Do you want to run up and wash your hands?"

He shook his head dumbly, looking at his splayed fingers with the vacant stare of an invalid just recovering consciousness. "I want only the coffee; make it strong, please. I really am not hungry. The thought of food, somehow, is sickening. I've worked hard this morning."

Late that afternoon, still shrinking under his weighty secret, he went home. The slanting rays of the setting sun lay like kindling flames on the gra.s.s of the lawn. He saw little d.i.c.k and Hilda seated on the lowest step of the veranda; and, seeing him entering the gate, the child rose and slowly limped toward him.

"d.i.c.k got a stomach-ache," the boy said, a wry look on his rather sallow and pinched face.

Mostyn paused and bent down. "Where does it hurt you?" he asked, automatically, for the complaint seemed a slight thing compared to the tragedy lowering over them both.

"It's here, Daddy." d.i.c.k put his little tapering hand on his right side.

"He eats too many sweet things," the nurse said, coming up. "He's been complainin' of his stomach for the last week, but he will eat what he oughtn't to. I've got some good stomach medicine. I'm goin' to dose 'im well to-night an' make 'im stay out o' the kitchen. The cook lets him have everything he wants."

"Give him the medicine, and tell the cook she must stop feeding him."

Mostyn took the boy in his arms and started on to the house. "You will stop eating trash, won't you, d.i.c.k?" The child nodded, worming his fingers through his father's hair. He took off Mostyn's hat, put it on his bonny head, and laughed faintly. Reaching the veranda, Mostyn turned him over to Hilda, who said she was going to give him a bath and put him to bed. When they had gone Mostyn went into the library. The great portrait-hung room in the shadows seemed a dreary, accusing place, and he was turning to leave when the rustling of a newspaper and a little nasal snort called his attention to a high-backed chair of the wing type in which his father-in-law reclined and was just waking from a nap.

"Oh, is that you?" Mitch.e.l.l yawned and stretched his arms. "I was wondering when you'd get here. I've been to the gate several times."

"Anything you want?" Mostyn regretted the impulsive question the instant the words had been spoken.

The old man put his hands on the arms of the chair and stood up, feebly. "Yes, I want to know if your wife has written or telegraphed you since she got to Knoxville?"

"No," Mostyn thought rapidly, "but--but I hardly expected her to. She doesn't usually when she is away."

"It is the very Old Nick in you both!" Mitch.e.l.l sniffed. "I don't expect you to know or care what she's up to; but I'm her own flesh and blood, and supposed to be interested more or less. Home is lonely enough when she is here in town, without her being off so much.

Besides, I know some things--humph! Well, I'm no fool, if I _am_ a back number. To-day I made it my business to inquire if a certain party--you know who I mean--was in town. I knew in reason that he wouldn't be, but I just asked to satisfy my mind. Do you get at my meaning, sir?"

"I think I do." Mostyn's own words seemed to him to come from the heavy folds of the portiere hiding the desolate drawing-room beyond.

"I thought you would." The retort was all but a snarl. "And, do you know, when I asked some of his friends about the club if they knew, I caught them looking at one another in an odd sort of way with twinkles in their eyes? Oh no, they didn't know where he was. But I found out, all the same. I met his mother down-town. She said he had gone on a hurried trip to Norfolk. You can see through that, can't you? I can, if you can't. Knoxville is on the way to Norfolk. The two are at that party together; and, not only that, I'll bet this whole town knows it.

That ought to be stopped. I know my daughter, if you don't, sir. She is not acting right. She has plunged into pleasure and excitement till she doesn't know what she wants. A new string of diamonds wouldn't amuse her a minute. This giddy, fast life has actually cursed her. The other night I caught her taking morphine tablets to make her sleep--said she'd lie awake and think till morning if she didn't. She hasn't contracted the habit yet, but she can easy enough if she keeps it up.

She takes a bottle of them wherever she goes. When I was young, a woman who was a mother of a child like hers loved it, nursed it, petted it, got natural joy out of it; but Irene seldom speaks to d.i.c.k, and he doesn't care for her any more than for a stranger, but he loves you--G.o.d only knows why, but he does. It is 'Daddy, Daddy, Daddy' with nearly every breath he draws."

Mostyn felt a force within him rising and expanding. A sob lodged in his tight throat and pained him. He was grateful for the deepening shadows, for the droning prattle from the old lips. He sank into a chair. The droning continued, sounding far off. A thousand incidents and faces (smiling and blending) sprang upon him out of the past--the happy, irresponsible past, the seductive, confident, ambitious past.

Surely Fate was a mental ent.i.ty, capable of crafty design against the heedless young. He remembered the vows of chast.i.ty and honor he had made during a revival in a country church under a blazing faith. He recalled how soon they were forgotten, how sure he was, later on, that Nature's physical laws were the highest known. Man was made to live, enjoy, and conquer all if he could. And he had succeeded. He had become rich and prosperous. Next he found his memory swimming through that black period of satiated desire and disgust of self.

"I wish folks would not mix _me_ up with your private matters." The words rose sharply from the senile prattle and penetrated Mostyn's lethargy. "There's old Jeff Henderson--he had the cheek to come to me to-day to borrow money. Said his family was in rags and starving. Said you euchred him out of all he had and got your start on it. What in the name of common sense does he come to _me_ for? I don't own you, and I knew nothing about that transaction, either. I reckon he's going crazy, but that doesn't keep him from bothering me."

Seeing the futility of explaining a thing he had many times explained, Mostyn rose. Before him the open doorway framed an oblong patch of calm gray sky, and toward it he moved, his mental hands impotently outstretched, a soundless cry welling up from the depths of himself.

CHAPTER XIV

On the first morning after his permanent removal to his plantation Jarvis Saunders waked with a boundless sense of freedom from care, which had not been his since his boyhood. Through all his short visits to the spot hitherto he had been haunted with the unpleasant thought of having to return to the city and the rigid demands of business. But it was different now. He lay in the wide, high-posted Colonial bed, stretched himself, looked at the sunlight on the small-paned windows, and sighed with complete content. From the outside came the chirping of birds, the crowing of roosters, the cackle of hens, the quacking of ducks, the scream of geese, the thwack of an ax at the wood-pile, the mellow song of the lank negro chopper, Uncle Zeke, one of the ex-slaves of his family.

Rising and standing at a window, and parting the pink and blue morning-glories which overhung it in dew-dipped freshness, Saunders looked down into the yard. He saw Aunt Maria, Zeke's portly wife, approach from the kitchen door and begin to fill her ap.r.o.n with the chips his ax had strewn upon the ground.

"You go on en ring dat fus' breakfus'-bell, Zeke," she said, peremptorily. "De fus' litter o' biscuits is raidy to slide in de stove, en de chicken en trout is fried brown. Everthing is got ter be des right dis fus' mawnin' dat Ma.r.s.e Jarvis is home ter stay. Fifteen minutes is long 'nough fer 'im ter dress."

"Ring de bell _yo'se'f_, 'ooman!" Zeke laughed, loudly. "Yo' gittin' so heavy en waddly yo' don' want ter turn yo' han's over. Look yer, 'ooman, Ma.r.s.e Jarvis ain't gwine ter let yo' cook fer 'im regular, nohow. He gwine ter fix de house up spank new, fum top ter bottom, en git de ol' 'fo'-de-wah style back ergin. He gwine ter sen' away off som'er's fer er spry up-date cook. Yo' know what, 'ooman? I'm gwine be his head house-servant, I is. My place'll be in de front hall ter mix mint-juleps fo' 'im en his frien's fum de city when dey skeet by in deir automobiles en stop over fer er smoke en er howdy-do. He gwine ter order me er long-tail, jimswingin' blue coat. He done say dat he'll look ter me ter keep you-all's j'ints oiled up so yo' won't walk in yo'

sleep so much in de day-time."

"Go 'long, yo' fool n.i.g.g.e.r!" Maria sniffed, as she shook her chips down into her ap.r.o.n. "When Ma.r.s.e Jarvis stick er black scarecrow lak yo' in de front part de house he sh.o.r.e will be out his senses. He gwine ter mek yo' haul manure wid er dump-cart, dat what he is."

Saunders smiled as he stepped back and began to dress. "G.o.d bless their simple, loyal souls!" he said. "They shall never suffer as long as I live. My parents loved them, and so do I."

At the sound of the second bell he went downstairs. How cool, s.p.a.cious, and inviting everything looked! The oblong drawing-room, into which he glanced in pa.s.sing, with its white wainscoting and beautiful oriel window at the end on the left of the entrance-hall, brought back many memories of his childhood and youth. He recalled the gay a.s.semblages of summer visitors to his father and mother from Augusta and Charleston--the dances, the horseback rides, the hunting-parties, the music, the singing of hymns on Sundays.

"I must bring it all back," he mused. "That was normal living."

These memories followed him to the great dining-room in the rear of the house. As he took his usual seat at the head of the long table the delicious aroma of fine coffee, the smell of frying meats and hot biscuits came in from the adjoining kitchen. The wide fireplace had been freshly whitewashed, and was filled with the resinous boughs of young pines. The several windows were open, and through them he had glimpses of his verdant lands and the mountains beyond. The portraits of his mother, father, and grandparents seemed to smile down from their ma.s.sive frames on the white walls. The same silverware and cut gla.s.s which they had used were before him on the mahogany sideboard; the same china.

Aunt Maria had put the hot, tempting dishes before him and gone away.

The pot of coffee was steaming at his side. Suddenly an impulse, half sentimental, came over him which he could not resist. He recalled how his father had always said grace; and, bowing his head, he whispered the long-silent words over his unturned plate and folded napkin. How odd! he thought: it was as if the short prayer had been laid upon his lips by the spirit of his father; the fervent "Amen" seemed to be echoed by his mother's voice from the opposite end of the board.

Saunders's soul was suddenly filled with a transcendent ecstasy. His parents seemed to be actually present, invisible, and yet flooding his being with their spiritual essence.

"Surely," he said, the wonder of the thing bursting upon him like ineffable light, "there is 'a peace which pa.s.seth understanding.'"

After breakfast he went to the front veranda to smoke. He saw Tom Drake walking across a meadow to some drainage ditches which were being dug to destroy some objectionable marshes. The results of the man's work as manager had been more than satisfactory.

Presently Saunders descried a few hundred yards down the main road a woman on a horse. It was Dolly Drake; and, throbbing with delight, he hastened down to the gate, thinking that she might be coming to speak to her father, and would need a.s.sistance in alighting. But she had no intention of stopping, and with a merry bow was about to ride by when he stepped out and playfully held up his hands.

"Your money or your life!" he cried.

She reined the spirited young black horse in and sat jauntily on the side-saddle. Her color was high; she wore a pretty riding-hat, a close-fitting gray habit, and her eyes were sparkling from the exhilaration of the gallop along the level road.

"Take my life, but for Heaven's sake spare my money!" she retorted, with an ironical laugh.

"I think I have some news for you," he said, approaching and testing the girth of her saddle. "Sit still and let me draw it tighter."

"News," she said, with the eagerness of a child, as he pulled upward on the strap, "for me?"

"Yes, for you. I knew you would be interested in the bill before the House and Senate, and so I asked the Governor to write me if it went through."

"Oh, oh! and did you hear?" She leaned closer to him, her lips rigid with expectation. "I'm afraid there was a hitch after all. The taxpayers are so opposed to spending money."

"It went through like greased lightning," he smiled. "Your name and suggestions were mentioned in every speech that was made in both houses."

He saw her face fill with delight. She put the b.u.t.t of her riding-whip to her lips, and her breast heaved high and sank, quivering.

"Oh, isn't it splendid--splendid?" she exclaimed.