The Ghost Girl Part 37

It stood between him and Phyl. He was conscious of no struggle with it because it took the form of helplessness.

Nothing but force could make her give him what he wanted. The thing was impossible, beyond him. He felt that he could do everything, fight everything, subdue everything--but the subdued.

There was something else. Weakness had always repelled him, whether it was the weakness of the knees of a horse or the weakness of the will of a man.

Phyl's weakness did not repel him but it took the edge from his pa.s.sion.

It was almost a form of ugliness.

He had determined on finding help to send some one back for Phyl; any of the coloured folk hereabouts would be able to pilot her to Grangersons. He was not troubling about the broken phaeton or the horses; the horses had plenty of food and water; so far from suffering they would have the time of their lives. They might be stolen--he did not care, and nothing was more indicative of his mental upset than this indifference toward the things he treasured most.

All to the left of the gra.s.s road, the trees were thin, showing tracts of marsh land and pools, and the melancholy green of swamp weeds and vegetation.

The vegetable world has its reptiles and amphibians no less than the animal; its savages, its half civilised populations, and its civilised.

The two worlds are conterminous, and just as cultivated flowers and civilised people are mutually in touch, here you would find poisonous plants giving shelter to poisonous life, and the amphibious giving home to the amphibious.

The woods on the right were healthier, more dense, more cheerful, on higher ground; one might have likened the gra.s.s road to the life of a man pursuing its way between his two mysteriously different characters.

Silas had determined to make straight for home after having sent a.s.sistance for Phyl, what he was going to do after arriving home was not evident to his mind; he had a vague idea of clearing out somewhere so that he might forget the business. He had done with Phyl, so he told himself.

But Phyl had not done with him. He had been scarcely ten minutes on his road when her image came into his mind. He saw her, not as he had seen her last seated on the straw in the miserable cabin, but as he had seen her at the ball.

The curves of her limbs, the colour of her hair, her face, all were drawn for him by imagination, a picture more beautiful even than the reality.

Well, he had done with her, and there was no use in thinking of her--she cared for that cursed Pinckney and she was as good as dead to him, Silas.

An ordinary man would have seen hope at the end of waiting, but Silas was not an ordinary man, a long and dubious courtship was beyond his imagination and his powers. Courtship, anyhow, as courtship is recognised by the world was not for him. He wanted Phyl, he did not want to write letters to her.

There is something to be said for this manner of love-making, it is sincere at all events.

He tried to think of something else and he only succeeded in thinking of Phyl in another dress. He saw her as he saw her that first day in the stable yard at Grangersons. Then he saw her as she was dressed that day in Charleston.

Then he remembered the scene in the churchyard. He could still feel the smack she had given him on the face. The smack had not angered him with her but the remembrance of it angered him now. She would not have done that to Pinckney.

Turning a corner of the road he came upon a clear s.p.a.ce and on the borders of the clearing to the right some cottages. There were some half-naked pikaninnies playing in the gra.s.s before them; and a coloured woman, washing at a tub set on trestles, catching sight of him, stood, shading her eyes and looking in his direction.

Silas paused for a moment as if undecided, then he came on. He asked the woman his whereabouts and then whether she could sell him some food. She had nothing but some corn bread and cold bacon to offer him and he bought it, paying her a dollar and not listening to her when she told him she could not make change.

He was like a man doing things in his sleep; his mind seemed a thousand miles away. The woman packed the bread and bacon in a mat basket with a plate and knife and watched him turn back in his tracks and vanish round the bend of the road, glad to see the last of him. She reckoned him crazy.

He was going back to Phyl.

His resolution never to see her again had vanished. She was his and he was going to keep her, no matter what happened.

He would never part with her alive, if she killed him, if he killed her, what matter. Nothing would stand in his path.

He reached the turning and there in the sunlight lay the half ruined cabins and the well.

Walking softly he came to the door of the cabin where he had left Phyl.

She was there lying on the straw fast asleep. It was the sleep that comes after exhaustion or profound excitement; she scarcely seemed to breathe.

Putting his bundle down by the door he came in softly and knelt down beside her. His face was so close to hers that he could feel her breath upon his mouth.

It only wanted that to complete his madness. He was about to cast himself beside her when a pain, vicious and sharp as the stab of a red hot needle struck him just above his right instep.

CHAPTER V

When Richard Pinckney came down to breakfast that morning, he found Miss Pinckney seated at the table reading letters.

"Phyl went out early and has not come back yet," said she putting the letters aside and pouring out the tea.

"Gone out," said he. "Where can she have gone to?"

Miss Pinckney did not seem to hear the question. She was not thinking of Phyl or her whereabouts. Richard's engagement to Frances Rhett was still dominating her mind, casting a shadow upon everything. It was like a death in the family.

"I hope she's not bothered about what happened last night," went on Richard. "I didn't tell you at the time, but I had--some words with Silas Grangerson, and--Phyl was there. Silas is a fool, but it's just as well the thing happened for it has brought matters to a head. I want to tell you something--I'm not engaged to Frances Rhett."

"Not engaged?"

"I was, but it's broken off. I had a moment's talk with her before we left last night. I was in a temper about a lot of things, and the business with Silas put the cap on it. Anyhow, we had words, and the thing is broken off."

"Oh, dear me," said Miss Pinckney. The joyful shock of the news seemed to have reduced her mind to chaos for a moment. One could not have told from her words or manner whether the surprise was pleasant or painful to her.

She drew her chair back from the table a little, and sought for and found her handkerchief. She dried her eyes with it as she found her voice.

"I don't know, I don't know, I'm sure. I've prayed all night that this might be, and now that the Lord has heard my prayer and answered it, I feel cast right down with the wonder of it. Had I the right to interfere?

I don't know, I'm sure. It seems terrible to separate two people but I had no thought only for you. I've spoken against the girl, and wished against her, and felt bad in my heart against her, and now it's all over I'm just cast down."

"She did not care for me," said Pinckney. "Why she was laughing at me last night with him. They were sitting outside together, and when I pa.s.sed them I heard them laughing at me."

Miss Pinckney put her handkerchief away, drew in her chair, and poured herself out some more tea energetically and with a heightened colour.

"I don't want to speak bad about any one," said she, "but there are girls and girls. I know them, and time and again I've seen girls hanging themselves out with labels on them. 'I'm the finest apple on the tree,'

yet no one has picked them for all their labels, because every one has guessed that they aren't--That crab apple labelling itself a pippin and daring to laugh at you! And that long loony Silas Grangerson, a man without a penny to bless himself with, a creature whose character is just kinks. Well, I'm sure--pa.s.s me the b.u.t.ter--laughing at you. And what were they laughing at pray? Aren't you straight and the best looking man in Charleston? Couldn't you buy the Rhetts twice over if you wanted to buy such rubbish? Aren't you the top man in Charleston in name and position and character? Why, they'll be laughing at the jokes in the N'York papers next--They'll be appreciating their own good sense and cleverness and personal beauty next thing--They'll be worshipping Bryan."

"Oh, I don't think they'll ever get as bad as that," said he laughing, "but I don't think I care whether people grin at me or not; it's only just this, she and I were never meant for each other, and I found it out, and found it out in time. You see the engagement was never made public, so the breaking of it won't do her any harm. She would not let me tell people about it, she said it would be just as well to keep it secret for a while, and then if either of us felt disposed we could break it off and no harm done."

"Meaning that she could break it off if she wanted to but you couldn't."

"Perhaps. When I went back last night and told her I wanted to be free, she flew out."

"Said you must stick to your word?"

"Nearly that. Then I told her she herself had said that it was open to either of us to break the business off."

"What did she say to that?"