"They would only be her own condemnation, in any case; everybody would perfectly understand that it was some lack in her," answered Aunt Katrina, with decision. "But I think you had better speak to her, and immediately; it is so much more desirable, on her own account, that she should remain with me. I don't fancy she cares much for you, or she would never have tried to engage you to that odious Garda Thorne; still, you are a relative – after a fashion, and she ought to listen to you; you might tell her," she added, her voice falling into a pathetic key, "that probably I shall not be left to her long."
"My dear aunt, you will outlive us all," said Winthrop, rising. "I will see her, and do what I can," he added, as he left the room.
At first he could not find Margaret, she was not in any of the usual places; he began to fear that she was in her own room, and that he should not find her at all. At last he met Celestine. "Do you know where Mrs. Harold is?" he said.
"Well, Mr. Evert, she's in the garden," Celestine answered, with some reluctance. "I've fixed her up nicely in an easy-chair on a rug, and I've told everybody to keep away, so that she can just rest – that's what she needs. I've let her have one book – an easy-looking story that didn't seem exciting. And I'm going out after her in about an hour, to bring her in."
"I won't be any more exciting than the easy-looking story, Minerva; I promise you that."
Celestine watched him go, she was not pleased, but she could not help herself. She shook her head forebodingly, with her lips pursed up; then she went about her business – as she would herself have said.
Margaret was sitting under the rose-tree, in the easy-chair Celestine had mentioned, a rug spread under her feet. She had a parasol beside her, but the tree gave a sufficient shade; over her head Celestine had folded a Spanish veil.
"I thought perhaps we should see you to-day," she said.
"Yes, it hasn't been possible to come before. But of course you have had my letters – I mean about Mr. Moore? I have written twice a day. Is that the book Minerva said was an easy-looking one, not exciting – 'Adam Bede?' What do you suppose she calls exciting?"
"The 'Wide, Wide World,' I presume."
He sat down on the bench near her. Carlos stalked out of the bushes, surveyed them, and then, with great dignity, secluded himself again.
"He misses Garda," Margaret said.
"I suppose Garda is still pursuing her triumphant career over there?"
"I don't know what you mean by triumphant. She is very happy."
"That's what I mean; it's extremely triumphant to be so happy, isn't it?"
"I am sure I don't know."
"You mean you have never been either? – Margaret, I have come to speak about your going away. Are you still thinking of going?"
"Yes; as soon as I am a little stronger."
"Aunt Katrina has sent me to plead with you; of course that's the last thing she calls it, but it's pleading all the same. I don't make any plea for her, because I don't think, as far as you are concerned, she deserves the least fragment of one; but I will say that I have told her the whole truth about Lanse at last, and that it has been a great blow to her, I have never seen her so much overcome. She has rallied however, she has taken her line; her line is the tenderest pity for you, because you must feel it all to be so entirely your own fault! – you see how much that allows her? But she is so exceedingly anxious – abjectly anxious, to keep you with her, that I think you need fear no unpleasant manifestations of it."
"Aunt Katrina does not really need me. And for myself a change is indispensable."
"But it is so safe for you here – so quiet and protected. It is a species of home, after all. I like to see you, as you are at this moment, sitting in this old garden; it seems to me so much pleasanter for you – with this restful air to breathe – than that bustling, driving New York."
"It may be so. But I need change."
"You cling to that." He paused. "I believe you simply mean freedom."
"Yes, I do mean it. But we are going over the same ground we have already been over; that is useless."
"Everything is changed to me since then," said Winthrop, abruptly. "I have seen you brought back from the very threshold of death, I cannot pretend to be the same."
"I am the same."
"Yes; you didn't see yourself– "
"Don't talk about it, please. It is true that, personally, I do not realize it. But when I think of Mr. Moore, I do; and it makes me ill and faint."
"Why shouldn't you begin your freedom – yes; but begin it here?" he went on, returning to his argument. "Aunt Katrina has taken a new line about you. Why shouldn't you take one about her? And about everything? The people here are tiresome, of course; but people are tiresome everywhere, sooner or later, unless one leads a life of just dipping in, never staying long enough in any one place to get much below the surface. You could set up your own horses, your own servants; you could rearrange half the house to please yourself; you could carry it all out, as regards Aunt Katrina, with a high hand; she wouldn't make a murmur, I'm confident! And you could easily take some pleasant trips too from here – to New Orleans and Cuba; there's really a great deal to see. And if you are tired (as I should think you might well be) of always saying where you are going, and where you have been, how long you have stayed or intend to stay, and why, you could lay down a rule that no one should ask you a question. If they should continue to do it, you might throw something at them." His plan seemed to him so good as he unfolded it that it made him jocular.
She returned no answer.
"You don't care at all for what I think, or wish."
"No, I don't."
He looked at her as she sat there with face averted, his expression was that of angry helplessness. "All I want," he went on, trying to curb his irritation, "is to feel that you are safe."
"I shall be safe wherever I am."
"No, you won't, a woman like you cannot be, alone. Of course you will do all that is best and proper, but you are far too beautiful to be knocking about the world by yourself."
"Aren't you confusing me a little with Garda?"
"Your sarcasms have no effect; if I were as innocent in other matters as I am with regard to that effulgent young person, I should be quite perfect. But we won't speak of her; we'll speak of you."
"I am tired of the subject." She looked towards the gate as if in search of Celestine.
"She won't be here for some time yet. Bear with me a little, Margaret, don't be so impatient of the few minutes I have secured with you; what we're deciding now is important – your whole future."
"It is already decided."
He dashed his hand down upon his knee. "There's no use trying to argue with women! A woman never comprehends argument, no matter how strong it may be."
She was silent. Her face had a weary look, but there were in it no indications of yielding.
"You appear to be determined to go," he began again; "if you do go, Aunt Katrina will have the mental exercise of learning to get on without either of us."
She looked up quickly; his eyes were turned away now, straying over the tangled foliage of the crape-myrtles.
"I am sick of everything here," he went on – "East Angels, Gracias, the whole of it. If you are tired of seeing the same few people always day after day, what must I be? There are two spinster cousins of Aunt Katrina's who might come down here for a while, and I dare say they would come if I should ask them; with these ladies to manage the house, with Dr. Reginald and Betty, Celestine and Looth, Aunt Katrina ought to be tolerably comfortable."
Margaret had listened with keen attention. But she did not answer immediately; when she did reply, she spoke quietly. "Yes, I should think you would be glad to go north again, you have been tied down here so long. I am sure we can assume now that there is at least no present danger in Aunt Katrina's case; both of us certainly are not needed for her, and therefore, as you did not speak of going, I thought I could. But now that you have spoken, now that I see you do wish to go, I feel differently, I give you the chance. The change I wished for I will create here, I will create it by buying this house from you – that will be a change; I can amuse myself restoring it, if one can say that, when it's not a church."
"You would do that?" said Winthrop, eagerly. Then he colored. "I see; it means that you will stay if I go!"
"I shall do very well here if I have the place to think about," she went on, "I shall have the land cultivated; perhaps I shall start a new orange grove. Of course I shall lose money; but I can employ the negroes about here, and I should like that; as to the household arrangements, Aunt Katrina would be staying with me, not I with her; that would make everything different."
"Yes; I could not come here as I do now, bag and baggage."
"I should not ask you," she answered, smiling. "I believe in your heart you like no woman to lead a really independent life."
"You're right, I do not. They're not fitted for it."
"Oh – "
"And they're not happy in it."
"It's so good of you to think of our happiness."
"All this is of no consequence, Margaret, it's quite beside the mark. The real issue is this: if I stay, you go; if I go, you will stay."
"I thought you didn't like repetitions; you're always so severe on poor Aunt Betty when she indulges in them."
"You've got the upperhand, and you know it, and are glorying," he said, sullenly.
"Glorying!" said Margaret, with a sudden drop in her voice. "Well, we will say no more about it," she added.
"Excuse me, we will say plenty more. I would do a great deal to keep you here, there's no doubt of that. If I must, I must, I suppose! You may have the place – though I'm fond of it still."
"It must be quite fair?" she said, looking at him hesitatingly.
"You mean that I am not to come back and hang about in the neighborhood? Oh, rest content; I've had enough of the Seminole for a lifetime."
"I presume you will be in a hurry," he went on. "You will expect to have the deeds made out to-morrow."
"Yes, I should rather have it done soon."
"Of course. – How you hate me!" He rose.
She did not speak.
"But I'm not surprised – stubborn fool, ineffable prig as I must have seemed to you all these years! Take the place. And I'll go."
The gate clicked, Celestine was coming towards them.
"But though I acknowledge my own faults, don't imagine I admire such perfection as you always exhibit," he went on. "It's too much, you're too faultless; some small trace of womanly humility would be a relief, sometimes." He left the garden. Celestine, coming up, found her patient looking anything but rested. The next moment she put her hand over her eyes, physical weakness had conquered her.
"Just what I expected, men haven't a spark of gumption," said Celestine, indignantly. "He might have seen you weren't fit for talking; anybody could have seen. There, Miss Margaret, there; don't feel so bad, you'll soon be stronger now." And Celestine put one arm round her charge tenderly.
The touch made Margaret's tears flow faster; leaning her head against her faithful New England friend, she cried and cried as if her heart would break.
"You're clean tuckered out, I declare," said Celestine, half crying herself. "Everybody plagues you – I never see the beat! And they all seem to think they've got a right to. Just get real mad, now, Miss Margaret, for once; and stay so. My! wouldn't they be surprised?"
This was three months before. Margaret was now the owner of East Angels.
On the evening when she had returned from the landing with her ferns, and had found Dr. Kirby talking with Aunt Katrina, she went to her own room; here she threw off the long, closely fitting over-garment of dark silk, and gave it and the Gainsborough hat to her maid; she had a maid now.
"If you please, Mrs. Harold, there are five letters for you; they are on the dressing-table."
"Very well; you need not wait, Hester, I shall not need you at present."
The woman went out with noiseless step. Margaret turned over the letters, glancing at the superscriptions rather languidly. She did not care much for what the mails brought her at present, excepting Garda's short, rapturous notes with various foreign headings.
The last envelope of the pile – it is always the last letter that strikes the blow – was inscribed in a handwriting that made her heart stop beating. "Mrs. Lansing Harold" was scrawled there, in rather large, rough letters; and within, at the end of the second page – there were only two filled – the same name was signed without the "Mrs."
Lanse had come back to America. He was coming back to Florida. He was on his way at that moment to Fernandina, having selected that place because he had learned that she had "burned down the house on the point," which, he thought she would allow him to say, was inconsiderate. He had made up his mind not to take her by surprise, he would go to Fernandina, and wait there. He was a cripple indeed, this time. And forever. No hope of a cure, as there had been before. It wasn't paralysis, it was something with a long name, which apparently meant that he was to spend the rest of his days in bed, with the occasional variation of an arm-chair. This last journey of his abroad had been a huge mistake from beginning to end (the only one he had ever made – he must say that). But he didn't suppose she would care to hear the particulars; and he should much prefer that she should not hear them, it wasn't a subject for her. He had come home this time for good and all, it would never be possible for him to run away again, she might depend upon that. In such afflictions a man, of course, counted upon his wife; but he wished to be perfectly reasonable, and therefore he would live wherever she pleased – with his nurses, his water-pillows, and his back rest – yes, he had come to that! At present it wasn't clear to him what he was going to do to amuse himself. He could use his hands, and he had thought of learning to make fish-nets. But perhaps she could think of something better? And then, with a forcible allusion to the difficulties of his present progress southward, and a characteristic summing up of the merits of the hotel where he, with his two attendants, was resting for a day, the short two pages ended abruptly with his name.
His wife had sunk into a chair, she sat staring at it.
CHAPTER XXXII
A week later, Margaret was out to walk on the barren.
She had walked far, though her step had been slow; it seemed to her that her step would always be slow now, her effort must be to keep it steady. She had reached a point where there rose on the green level a little mound-like island of a different growth, its top covered with palmetto-trees. She made her way to the summit; though the height of the little hill was low, the view one obtained there was extensive, like that from a small light-house in a salt-marsh. Where she stood there was a cleared space – the ground had been burned over not long before; on this brown surface the crosiers of new ferns were unrolling themselves, and when tired of the broad barren, her eyes rested on their little fresh stalks, green and woolly, though she no longer stooped to gather them. She did not come home now laden with flowers and vines to plant in the old East Angels garden; the life she had been trying to build up there was suddenly stopped, a completely different one was demanding her. She had been very free, but now she was called back – called back to the slavery, and the dread.
Oh, blessed, twice blessed, are the women who have no very deep feelings of any kind! they are so much happier, and so much better! This was what she was saying to herself over and over again, as, with one arm round a slender tree, so that she could lean her head against it, she stood there alone on the little island, looking over the plain. Not to care very deeply, too deeply, for anything, any one; and with that to be kind and gentle – this was by far the happiest nature for women to have, and of such the good were made. Mothers should pray for this disposition for their daughters. Anything else led to bitter pain.
She thought of her own mother, of whom she had no recollection. "If you had lived, mother, perhaps I should have been saved from this; perhaps I should not be so wretched – " this was her silent cry.
She heard a sound, some one was coming through the high bushes below; a moment more, and the person appeared. It was Evert Winthrop.
"You?" she said, breathlessly. "When did you come? How could you know I was here?"
"For once I've been fortunate, I have never been so before where you were concerned. I reached East Angels half an hour ago, Celestine said you were out on the barren somewhere, and Telano happened to know the road you had taken; then I met some negro children who had seen you pass, and, farther on, a boy who knew you had come this way; he brought me here. But I saw you a mile off myself, you are very conspicuous in that light dress on the top of this mound."
"We had no idea you were coming – "
"I couldn't let you know beforehand, because I came myself as quickly as a letter could have come; as soon as I knew you would need help, I started."
"Help?"
"Yes, about Lanse."
"Lanse is not here."
"Oh, I know where he is, he is in Fernandina; established there in the best rooms the hotel affords, with three attendants, and everything comfortable. But this time he did not tell me his plans; he arrived in New York, and then came southward, without letting me know a word of it. I heard of him, though, almost immediately, and I started at once."
Margaret did not reply.
"You will need help," he went on.
"No, I think not."
"Then he has not written to you? – has made no demands? I shall think better of him than I had expected to think, if that is the case; I supposed, from his coming south, that he had intentions of molesting you."
"It would not be molesting."
"Has he written to you?"
"Yes."
"What demands, then, does he make – is it money?"
"He wishes me to come back to him, as I did before. But he will live wherever I prefer to live. He is quite willing to leave the choice of the place to me." She spoke slowly, as though she were repeating something she had learned.
"Very good. I suppose you told him that wherever you might prefer to live, there would at least be no place there for Lansing Harold?"
"I haven't told him anything yet. He was willing to wait – he wrote that he would give me a month."
"A month for what?"
"For my answer," she said, drearily.
"It won't take a month. That is what I have come down for – to answer in your place."
She began to look about for the best way to descend.
"I sent the boy who brought me here to East Angels for the phaeton; it will come before long, you won't have to walk back. Now, Margaret, let us have no more useless words; of course you do not dream of doing as Lanse wishes?"
"Yes, I think I shall do it."
"Do you mean to tell me that you wish to go back to that man – after all he has done?"
"I do not wish to. But I must."
"You shall not!" he burst out. His face, usually so calm, was surprisingly altered; it was reddened and darkened.
"Nothing you can say will make any difference," she answered, in the same monotonous tone. Even his rage could not alter the helpless melancholy of her voice.
"Do you think he deserves it – deserves anything? You actually put a premium on loose conduct. You reward him for it, while – while other men, who are trying, at least, to lead decent lives, are thrust aside."
"He is my husband."
"So good a one!"
"That has nothing to do with it."
"Nothing?"
"No; not with my duty."
"I believe you have lost your wits, you are demented," he said, violently.
"Oh, I wish I were demented! Then my troubles would be over."
The despair of these words softened him. She had turned away, he followed her. "Margaret, listen to reason. In some cases it is right that a wife should go back to her husband, almost no matter what he has done. But yours is not one of them, it would kill you."
"No more than it did before."
"But it's worse for you now."
"It's exactly the same."
"He left you a second time."
"I have only to thank him for that, haven't I? It gave me a respite. Over there on the river, when I learned – when I knew – that he had really gone, I could scarcely hide my joy – I had to hide myself to do it! It was the relief, the delight, of being free."
"The law, you know, would free you forever."
"I shall never take advantage of it."
"Do you think you know better than the law?"
"Yes; the law only touches part of the truth. Its plea would not do for me."
"This is pure excitement. Womanlike, you have wrought yourself up to this new view; but it is without a grain of foundation in either justice or common-sense."
"It isn't a new view, I have always known what I should do. That was the reason I wished to keep the house on the river – so that it could be ready in case he should come back. For I felt that he might come at any time, I was never deceived as to any permanent improvement in his health. I have thought it all over again and again; there isn't a loop-hole of escape for me. Let us say no more."
"I shall say a great deal more."
She put out both hands towards him, with a desperate repelling gesture. "Oh, leave me!" she cried.
"I shall not leave you until you have given me an explanation that is reasonable; so far, you have not done it. Time and time again you have put me off, to-day you shall not."
Her own cry had seemed to restore to her her self-control.
"Very well," she said. She folded her arms in her mantle. "What explanations do you wish?" she asked, coldly.
"Why are you going back to Lansing Harold, when you are not in the least forced to go?"
"I am forced; my marriage forces me."
"Not after the ill treatment you have received from him."
"He has never illtreated me personally; in many ways he has never been unkind, many men called good husbands are much more so. He does not drink. If he drank, that would be an excuse for me – an excuse to leave him; but he does not, I have never had a fear of that sort, he has never struck me or threatened me in his life. And I have no children to think of – whether his influence over them would be bad. That too would have been an excuse, a valid one; but it is not mine. He leaves me my personal liberty as he left it to me before. In addition, he is now hopelessly crippled – he has sent me his physician's letter to prove it; his case is there pronounced a life-long one, he will never walk, or be any better than he is now. Are these explanations sufficient? or do you require more?"
"No explanations can ever be sufficient," Winthrop answered. He stood looking at her. "Oh, Margaret, it is such a fearful sacrifice!" He had abandoned for the moment both his anger and his efforts at argument.
"Yes; but that is what life is, isn't it?" she said, her voice trembling a little in spite of herself.
"No, it's not. And it shouldn't be. Why should an utterly selfish man of that kind, who has forfeited every claim upon you a hundred times over – why should he be allowed to dictate to you, to wither your whole existence? Yes, I am beginning again, I know it; but I cannot help it! It is true that I have always talked against separations – preached against them. But that was before my own feelings were brought in, and it makes a wonderful difference? When a woman you care for is made utterly wretched, you take a different view, and you want to seize your old preaching-self, and knock him against the wall! It is not right that you should go back to Lanse, it is wicked, as murder is wicked. He does not strike you – that may be; but the life will kill you just as surely as though he should give you every day, with his own hand, a dose of slow poison. You have an excessively sensitive disposition – you pretend you have not, but you have; you would not be able to throw it off – the yoke he would put upon you, you would not be able to rise above it, become indifferent to it; you would never grow callous, he would always have the power of making you unhappy. This would wear upon you; at last it would wear you out; you would die, and he would live on! And, besides, remember this – it isn't as though he really depended upon you for personal care; he doesn't need you, as far as that goes, he says so. Give him your money, if you like; give him houses and nurses and servants, every luxury, all you have; but do not, do not give him yourself."
She remained silent. She had steeled herself, so it seemed, against anything he could say.
"You are counting the minutes before the phaeton comes," he went on; "that is your only thought – to get away! Very well, then, you shall have the whole, which otherwise I would have kept from you; I love you, Margaret, I have loved you for a long time. If it is horrible to you that I should say it, and force you, too, to hear, bear this in mind: though I say it, I ask for nothing, I do not put myself forward. I tell you because I want you to understand how near your best interests are to me – how I consider them. I deserve some mercy, I have tried hard to hold myself in check – did I say a word all that night in the swamp? You may imagine whether I am happy, loving you hopelessly as I do! It began long ago; when I thought I disliked you so bitterly, that was the beginning; it was a dislike, or rather a pain, which came from your being (as I then supposed you were) so different from the sweet woman it seemed to me you ought to be – ought to be with that face and voice. I watched you; I was very severe in all I said; but all the time I loved you, it was stronger than I. I feel no shame in telling it; it has made me a better man – not so cold, not so sure of my own perfection. And now, if you will only tell me that you won't go back to Lanse, I will go. And I will stay away, I will not try to see you, I will not even write. And this shall last as long as you say, Margaret – for years; even always, if it must be so. What can I do or say more?"
She had stood still, looking at the ground, while he poured forth these urgent words; she might have been a statue.
"There's an icy stubbornness about you – " he began again. "What is it I ask? One promise, and for your own good too, and then I go out into the world again, bearing my pain as best I can, leaving you behind, and free. I don't believe you know what that pain is, because I don't believe you know, or can understand even, how much I love you. I am almost ashamed to put it into words – I am no longer a boy. I had no idea I could love in that way – an unreasoning, headlong feeling. There's no extravagant thing, Margaret – such as I have always laughed at – that I would not do at this moment; and to feel your cheek against mine – I would die to-morrow."
He had not moved towards her, but she shrank back even from his present distance; white-faced, with frightened eyes, she turned; she looked as if she were going to rush away.
"Don't go, – I will not say another word; I only wished you to know how it was with me, it is better that you should know."
He wished to help her, but she would not allow it, she pushed the close bushes aside with trembling hands, and made her way down alone. They reached the barren; the phaeton was approaching.
"I cannot bear to see you so frightened," he said.
" – I believe you are sorry for me," he went on – his voice was gentle now. "And that is why you are afraid to speak – lest you should show it."
She gave him one quick glance; her eyes were full of tears.
"That is it, you are sorry. I thank you for that; and I shall think from it that you have forgiven me those years when I made your life so much harder even than it was, than it need have been."
The phaeton was drawing near.
"I am going to trust you, Margaret, I believe that I can. You will not speak, you think I ought not to have spoken. But if I go away at once, and do not return, perhaps you will be influenced by what I have said, and by what is really the best course for you; – perhaps you will not go back to Lanse. At any rate I shall be showing you that I am in earnest, – that I can, and will keep my promise."
The phaeton drew up before them.
"You must not come with me," she murmured.
"You are to drive, Telano," said Winthrop, as he helped her take her place. He stood there until the light carriage had disappeared.
Then he walked northward to Gracias.