"Are you warmer?" he asked. "You were chilled through all the way down the river; every now and then I could feel you shiver."
"It was more fatigue than cold." His voice had roused her, she sat up. "Oh, I ought to be doing something – trying – "
"You can do no more now; you must have some coffee, and then you must go to bed. But, in the mean while, I will do everything possible."
"But you don't believe – I don't know what you believe!" She rose.
He put her back in her chair. "I will believe nothing if you will go and rest – I mean my beliefs shall not interfere with my actions; I will simply do everything I can – all I should do if I were sure he was lost, somewhere about here."
She remained where he had placed her. After a while she said, "I was so certain he was in the swamp!" Her tired eyes, beginning to glisten a little with tears, had a childlike look as she raised them to his.
Old Rose now came hurrying in with the coffee, its fragrant aroma filled the room. Winthrop poured it out himself, and made Margaret swallow it, spoonful by spoonful, until the cup was empty.
"You have a little color now," he said.
She put the cup down, and rose.
"You're going? Yes, go; go to bed, and sleep as long as you can, it must be near dawn. I will meet you here for a late breakfast at eleven."
She still stood there. "But will you – will you really – "
"Haven't I given you my word?" he said. "Are you afraid that I shall not be tender enough to him? Don't you comprehend that no matter how much I may hate him myself, his being your husband protects him perfectly, because, so long as you persist in continuing so subservient, he could visit anything else upon you?"
She went out without reply.
He sank into the chair she had left vacant to rest for a moment or two; he was desperately tired.
When he came back to the room at eleven, she was already there. It was a dark day, with the same New-England-feeling wind blowing over river and land; there had been spurts of rain, and he was wet. "Why have you no fire?" he asked.
"It did not seem cold enough."
"It's not cold, but it's dreary. I don't believe you have slept at all?" he continued, looking at her. Opening the door, he called Rose, and told her to light the fire. When the old woman had finished her task – it was but a touch, and again the magic wood was filling the room with its gay light and faint sweet odor of the pine – he repeated his question. "I don't believe you have slept at all?"
"How could I sleep!"
He sat down before the fire. "You are wet. And you must be very tired," she went on.
"I am glad you have thought of it – I like sympathy. Yes, I am tired; but the room is cheery now. Let us breakfast in here?"
"You have found no trace?" Her nervousness showed itself in her tone.
"No."
She went to the door, and gave Rose an order. Then she closed it, and walked first to one window; then to another.
"Do come and sit down. You wander about like a ghost."
"I will step softly." She began to walk up and down the room with her light, rather long-paced step. "You are not afraid," she said at last.
"No, I am not afraid; if he were wrecked in mid-ocean, he would make the whales cook his dinner for him, and see to it, too, that it was a good one."
"Oh, don't speak in that tone; don't jest about him when we cannot tell – Here we are safe at home, safe and comfortable, when perhaps he – " she stopped.
"You are haunted by the most useless terrors. 'Safe,' are we? How 'safe' were we last night, for his sake too, in that deadly swamp? – how safe were you? And 'comfortable' – I sitting here wet and exhausted, and you walking up and down, white as a sheet, eating your heart out with anxiety! 'And home,' did you say? I like that! Pretty place it was to bring you to – hideous barrack miles from every living thing. Of course you've made it better, you would make a cave better; he knew you would do it when he brought you here!"
He changed his bitter tone into a laugh, "Instead of abusing him, I ought rather to admire him – admire him for his success – he has always done so entirely as he pleased! If one wishes to be virtuous or heroic, I don't know that it is the best way; but if one wishes simply to be comfortable, it most certainly is. You can't philosophize?" he went on, turning his head to look at her as she continued her walk.
"No, no. Would you mind telling me what you have done?"
"I have three parties out; one has gone up the shore, and one down; the third is across the river."
"You are very good. For I know you don't believe he is here."
"No, I don't."
"But where, then, can he be?"
"You have asked me that before. This time I will answer that he is probably where he intended to be when he left here early yesterday morning – after ridding himself of Eliot and Dodd."
"You think he planned it. But why should he have been so secret about it? No one could have prevented him from taking a journey if he wished to take one."
"You would have prevented it; you wouldn't have thought him strong enough."
"That would not have deterred him."
"You're right, it wouldn't. Probably he didn't care even to explain that he did not intend to be deterred, Lanse was never fond of explanations."
"I am not at all convinced."
"I didn't expect to convince you. You asked me, and I had to say something."
After breakfast – she could eat nothing – he said, "I have sent for a little steamer; it is to take me to all the landings within ten miles of here. I shall not be back until late, probably; don't sit up." He left the room.
Fifteen minutes later, he appeared again.
"I was waiting for the steamer down by the water, when I saw the boy who brings the mail going away; you have had a letter?"
She did not answer. Her hands were empty.
"You heard me coming and concealed it."
"I have nothing to conceal." She rose. "Yes, I have had a letter, Lanse is on his way to New York; he is taking a journey – for a change."
"You will let me see the letter?"
"Impossible." She was trembling a little, but she faced him inflexibly.
"Margaret, I beg you to let me see it. Show me that you trust me; you seem never to do that – yet I deserve – Tell me, then, of your own accord, what he says. If he has left you again, who should help you, care for you, if not I?"
"You last of all!" She walked away. "Of course now that I know, I am no longer anxious, – I was foolish to be so anxious. We are very much obliged to you for all you have done."
"Very well, if you take that tone, let me tell you that I too have had a letter – Primus has just brought it from East Angels – it was sent there."
She glanced at him over her shoulder with eyes that looked full of fear – a fear which he did not stop to analyze.
"It is possible that Lanse has written to me even more plainly than he has to you," he went on. "At any rate, he tells me that he is going to Italy – it is the old affair revived – and that he has no present intention of returning. What he has said in his letter to you, of course I don't know; but it can hardly be the whole, because he asks me to 'break' it to you. 'Break' it, – he has chosen his messenger well!"
"O my God," said Margaret Harold.
Her words were a prayer. She sank down on her knees beside the sofa, and buried her face in her clasped arms.
CHAPTER XXIX
Evert Winthrop had felt that her words were a prayer, that she was praying still.
Against what especial danger she was thus invoking aid, he did not know; before he could speak, old Rose had opened the door, and Margaret, springing up, was going forward to meet the Rev. Mr. Moore, who with his usual equable expression entered, hat in hand, to pay Mrs. Harold a short visit; he had been obliged to come over to the river that morning on business, and had thought that he would take the occasion for a little social pleasure as well.
Margaret put out her hands eagerly; "It's wonderful – your coming now! You will stay with me, won't you? – I am in great trouble."
Mr. Moore took her hand; all the goodness of his nature came into his long narrow face, making it lovely in its sympathy as he heard her appeal. She was clinging to him – she had put her other hand on his arm. "You will stay?" she repeated urgently.
"If I can be of any use to you, most certainly I will stay."
Upon hearing this, she made an effort to recover herself, to speak more coherently. "I shall need your advice – there are so many things I must decide about. Mr. Winthrop will tell you – but why should I leave it to him? I will tell you myself. My husband has gone north, he is going abroad again. You will understand – it was so sudden. I did not know – " She made another effort to steady her voice. "If you will stay with me for a day or two, I will send over to Gracias for anything you may need."
"I will stay gladly, Mrs. Harold."
"Oh, you are good! But I always knew you were. And now for a few minutes – if you will excuse me – I have only just heard it – I will come back soon." And with swift step she hastened from the room.
Mr. Moore, his face full of sympathy, turned to Winthrop.
But Evert Winthrop's expression showed only anger; he walked off, with his back turned, and made no reply.
"Is it true, then?" said Mr. Moore, infinite regret in his mild tones.
Winthrop was standing at the window, he bit his lips with impatience; he was in no mood for what he would have called "the usual platitudes," and especially platitudes about Lansing Harold.
It could not be denied that Mr. Moore's conversation often contained sentences that were very usual.
"Perhaps he will return," pursued the clergyman, hopefully. "Influences might be brought to bear. We may be able to reach him?" And again he looked at Winthrop inquiringly.
But Winthrop had now forgotten his presence, at this very moment he was leaving the room; he was determined to see Margaret and speak to her, if but for a second. He found Rose, and sent her with a message; he himself followed the old woman up the stairs, and stood waiting in the upper hall as she knocked at Margaret's closed door.
But the door did not open; in answer to Rose's message delivered shrilly outside the door, Margaret replied from within, "I can see no one at present."
Rose came back. "She can't see nobody nohow jess dis minute, marse," she answered, in an apologetic tone. Then, imaginatively, "Spec she's tired."
"Go back and tell her that I'm waiting here – in the hall, and that I will keep her but a moment. There is something important I must say."
Rose returned to the door. But the answer was the same. "She done got mighty tired, marse, sho," said the old servant, again trying to clothe the refusal in polite terms, though unable to think of a new apology.
"Her door is locked, I suppose?" Winthrop asked. Then he felt that this was going too far; he turned and went down the stairs, but with a momentary revival in his breast all the same of the old despotic feeling, the masculine feeling, that a woman should not be allowed to dictate to a man what he should say or not say, do or not do; in refusing to see him even for one moment, Margaret was dictating.
He walked down the lower hall, and then back again. Happening to glance up, he saw that old Rose was still standing at the top of the stairs; she dropped one of her straight courtesies as he looked up – a quick ducking down of her narrow skirt; she was much disturbed by the direct refusal which she had had to give him.
"I can't stay here, if they are going to watch me," he thought, impatiently. He turned and re-entered the sitting-room.
Mr. Moore was putting more wood on the fire. His mind was full of Margaret and her troubles; but the fire certainly needed replenishing, it would do no one any good to come back to a cold room, Mrs. Harold least of all; Winthrop therefore found him engaged with the coals.
Mr. Moore went on with his engineering feats. He cherished no resentment because Winthrop had left him so suddenly. Still, he had observed that such sudden exits were sometimes an indication of temper; in such cases there was nothing better than an unnoticing, and if possible an occupied, silence; so he went on with his fire.
"It's most unfortunate that there's no one who has any real authority over her," Winthrop began, still smarting under the refusal. Margaret had chosen the clergyman as her counsellor; it would be as well, then, to indicate to that gentleman what course should be pursued.
"You have some plan to recommend to her?" said Mr. Moore, putting the tongs away and seating himself. He held out his long hands as if to warm them a little by the flame, and looked at Winthrop inquiringly.
"No, I don't know that I have. But she is sure to be obstinate in any case." He too sat down, and stared moodily at the flame.
"You think it will be a great grief to her," observed the clergyman, after a while. "No doubt – no doubt."
"No grief at all, as far as that goes. Lanse has always treated her abominably." He paused. Then continued, as if there were now good reasons for telling the whole tale. "Before he had been married a year, he left her, she did not leave him, as my aunt supposes; he went abroad, and would not allow her to come to him. There had never been the least fault on her side; there hasn't been up to this day."
"I cannot understand such fickleness, such dark tendencies towards change," said Mr. Moore, in rebuking wonder.
"As far as regards change, I ought to say, perhaps, that there hasn't been much of that," Winthrop answered. "What took him abroad was an old interest – something he had felt long before his marriage, and felt strongly; he has never changed in that respect."
"Do you allude – is it possible that you are alluding to an interest in a person?" asked Mr. Moore, in a lowered tone.
"It certainly wasn't a thing; I hardly think you would call a beautiful French woman of rank that, would you?"
Mr. Moore looked at him with a stricken face. "A beautiful French woman of rank!" he murmured.
"That's what is taking him abroad now, this second time. She threw him over once, but she has evidently called him back; in fact, he admits it in his letter to me."
"Oh, sin! sin!" said Middleton Moore, with the deepest sadness in his voice. He leaned his head upon his hand and covered his eyes.
"I suppose so," answered Winthrop. "All the same, she is the only person Lanse has ever cared for; for her and her alone he could be, and would be if he had the chance, perhaps, unselfish; I almost think he could be heroic. But, you see, he won't have the chance, because there's the husband in the bush."
"Do you mean to say that this wretched creature is a married woman?" demanded the clergyman, aghast.
"Oh yes; it was her marriage, her leaving him in the lurch, that made Lanse himself marry in the first place – marry Margaret Cruger."
"This is most horrible. This man, then, this Lansing Harold, is an incarnation of evil?"
"I don't know whether he is or not," Winthrop answered, irritably. "Yes, he is, I suppose; we all are. Not you, of course," he added, glancing at his companion, and realizing as he did so that here was a man who was an incarnation of good. Then the opposing feeling swept over him again, namely, that this man was good simply because he could not be evil; it was not that he had resisted temptation so much as that he had no capacity for being tempted. "An old woman," he thought.
He himself was very different from that, he knew well what temptation meant! A flush crossed his face. "Perhaps Lanse can't help loving her," he said, flinging it out obstinately.
"A man can always help a shameful feeling of that sort," the clergyman answered, with sternness. He drew up his tall figure, his face took on dignity. "We are not the beasts that perish."
"We may not be altogether beasts, and yet we may not be able to help it," Winthrop answered, getting up and walking across the room. Margaret's little work-table stood there, gay with ribbons and fringes; mechanically he fingered the spools and bright wools it held.
"At least we can control its manifestations," replied Middleton Moore, still with a deep severity of voice and eyes.
"You would like to have all sinners of that disposition (which doesn't happen to be yours) consumed immediately, wouldn't you? for fear of their influencing others," said Winthrop, leaving the work-table and walking about the room. "In the days of the burnings, now, when it was for strictly wicked persons of that tendency, I suspect you would have brought a few fagots yourself – wouldn't you? – even if you hadn't taken a turn at the bellows."
Mr. Moore turned and surveyed him in unfeigned astonishment.
"I beg your pardon," said the younger man, "I don't know what I'm saying. I'll go out for a while, and try the fresh air."
When he came back half an hour later, Margaret had returned.
"Ah! you have had a walk? The air is probably pleasant," said the clergyman, welcoming him kindly. He wished to show that he had forgotten the bellows. "I was on the point of saying to Mrs. Harold, as you came in, that in case she should be thinking of leaving this house, I will hope most warmly that she will find it consistent with her plans to return to us at Gracias."
"I should much rather stay here," responded Margaret. "I could have Dinah's son Abram to sleep in the house, if necessary."
"You could never stay here alone, you ought not to think of it," said Winthrop. "We know better than you do about that." He had seated himself at some distance from her. Mr. Moore still kept his place before the fire, and Margaret was beside him; she held a little fan-shaped screen in her hand to shade her face from the glow.
"I am sure Mr. Moore will say that it is safe," she answered.
"I included him; I said 'we,'" said Winthrop, challengingly.
Mr. Moore extended his long legs with a slightly uneasy movement. "I regret to say that I fear Mr. Winthrop is right; it would not be safe at present, even with Abram in the house. The river is no longer what it was" (he refrained from saying "your northern steamers have made the change;") "the people who live in the neighborhood are respectable, but the increased facilities for traffic have brought us dangerous characters."
"Of course you will go back to East Angels," Winthrop began.
"I think not. If I cannot stay here, I shall go north."
"North? Where?"
"There are plenty of places. There is my grandmother's old house in the country, where I lived when I was a child; it is closed now, but I could open it; I should like to see the old rooms once more." She spoke quietly, her manner was that she was taking it for granted that the clergyman knew everything, that Winthrop had told him all. She was a deserted wife, there was no need for any of them to go through the form of covering that up.
"That would be a perfectly crazy idea," began Winthrop. Then he stopped.
"We should be exceedingly sorry to lose you, Mrs. Harold – Penelope would be exceedingly sorry," said Mr. Moore, in his amiable voice. "I can understand that it would afford you much pleasure to revisit your childhood's home. But East Angels, too – after so long a stay there, may we not hope that it presents to you a friendly aspect?"
"I prefer to go north," Margaret answered.
Mr. Moore did not combat this decision; he did not, in truth, know quite what to advise just at present; it required thought. Here was a woman who had been cruelly outraged by the scandalous, by the incredibly abandoned conduct of the worst of husbands. She had no mother to go to (the clergyman felt this to be an unspeakable misfortune), but she was not a child; they could not dictate to her, she was a free agent. But women – women of refinement – were generally timid (he glanced at Margaret, and decided that she was timid also); she might talk a little about her house at the north, but probably it would end in her returning to East Angels after all.
"If I find that I don't care for the country-house, the life there, I can go abroad," Margaret continued. She rose and went out.
This was not much like returning to East Angels!
"Is she thinking, do you suppose, of going to him?" asked the clergyman, in a cautious voice, when the door was closed.
"I don't know what she is thinking of. She is capable of the most mistaken ideas!" Winthrop answered.
"She is possessed of a wonderful sense of duty, if she does go; I mean, in case she is acquainted with the cause of his departure?"
"She is acquainted with everything."
Margaret came back and sat down again. "You decidedly think, then, that I cannot stay here?" she said to the clergyman.
"Do you wish to stay so very ranch?" he asked, kindly.
"Yes, I should much rather stay, much rather make no change; this is my home."
"How can you talk in that way?" said Winthrop. He had risen again, and begun to walk up and down the room; as he spoke, he stopped his walk and stood before her. "You came here against your will; you disliked the place intensely; you said so of your own accord, I heard you." "I know I have said so. Many times. Still, I should like to stay now."
"You cannot. Even Mr. Moore tells you that."
"Yes," said the clergyman, conscientiously, "I must say it though I do not wish to; the place is unusually lonely, it stands quite by itself; it would be unwise to remain."
"I must give it up, I see," Margaret answered; "I am sorry. But at least I can retain the house; I should like to keep it open, too; the servants could stay here, I suppose."
Winthrop turned and looked at her, a quick surprised suspicion in his glance.
"I could do that, couldn't I?" she repeated, addressing Mr. Moore.
Again the clergyman looked uncomfortable. He crossed his legs, and extending the pendent foot a little in its long, thin-soled boot, he looked at it and moved it to and fro slightly, as if he had been called upon to give an opinion upon the leather. "I fear," he said, as the result of his meditation, "that it might not be altogether prudent. The negroes have much hospitality; with a large house at their command, and nobody near, I fear they might be tempted to invite their friends to visit them."
"The place would swarm with them," said Winthrop.
"At any rate, I shall keep the house even if I close it," said Margaret. "It must be ready for occupancy at any time."
"Then you are thinking of coming back?" Winthrop asked. His face still showed an angry mistrust.
"I may come back. At present, however, I shall go north; and as I prefer to go immediately, I shall set about arranging the rooms here so that I can leave them. It will not take long, two days, or three at most; it would be a great kindness, Mr. Moore, if you would stay with me until I leave – by next Saturday's steamer, probably."
"I hardly think you will be able to accomplish so much in so short a time," answered the clergyman, a good deal bewildered by this display of energy. To Mr. Moore's idea, a woman who had been deserted by her husband, even though that husband had been proved to be abnormally vicious, could not well be in the mood for the necessary counting of chairs, for the proper distribution of gum-camphor among carpets and curtains, all so important.
Then, reading again the deep trouble in Margaret's face, under all the calmness of her manner, he dismissed his objections, and said, heartily, "In any case, I will stay with you as long as you wish."
"Possibly one of your difficulties is that I am here," said Winthrop to Margaret. "You cannot expect me to leave you entirely, as long as you are still in this house, I am, after all, your nearest relative; but of course I could stay at the hotel." He spoke with extreme coldness.
Margaret, however, did not try to dissipate it by asking him to remain.
He showed that he felt this, for he said, "Perhaps I had better go up at once and see to getting quarters there."
She did not answer. He walked about aimlessly for a moment or two, and then left the room.
"Will you go over the house with me now, Mr. Moore – I mean this afternoon?"
"Certainly. It would be better, I think, to make a list," Mr. Moore answered, in an interested voice. Mr. Moore enjoyed lists; to him an index was an exciting object; in devising catalogues, or new alphabetical arrangements, he had sometimes felt a sense of pleasure that was almost dissipation.
"You will have three enemies to encounter," he began with much seriousness. "They are, first, the Mildew. Second, the Moth. Third, the Damp; the Mouse, so destructive in other climates, will trouble you little in this. We shall need red pepper."