Chapter 10

After that she tried to make the best of her position, to keep her mind fixed upon the advantages of her defeat. But the persistent image of Larry, the memory of his thousand ways of being dear and The Only, with the thought of never seeing him again or knowing anything further about him, made her struggle for an ordinary exterior at moments more than difficult. She came to learn the measure of the cheated feminine tenderness which, denied any natural channel, had fastened so hungrily upon that child of strangers, when it was thrown back useless upon her heart. She selected finally, to dwell upon, the best of all the possibilities: that among the people who had claimed him back--of fine race, if he resembled them--he would find all for the absence of which he had been pitied: the tender love of parents, the opportunities of a privileged life. She agreed that his case would be better than if he had been left to her. But after she had by arguments persuaded herself, when by her own logic she had reason for rejoicing, there closed down upon her a melancholy such as she had at intervals in her life suffered from before. The experience was like going into a tunnel, of which nothing could avail to lighten the darkness until by the grace of God one came out at the other side of the hill. There was no fighting it off by reason, no discovering an adequate cause for it, no foreseeing the moment of its end. One endured it like a prolonged bad dream, wherein the magnified affections shake one in one's helplessness at their will. At such times all that had ever been pain, disappointment, defeat, however long recovered from, came again to perfect life in memory, while all that had been happy, diminished to insignificant proportions, retreated out of sight. "Why do I feel like this?" Celia could still ask herself by daylight, and repeat, "Everything is all right." But in the night time the power of the thing was complete.

She had at last, after some three days of such nerve-sickness, taken something to assist sleep. But the small hours found her, in spite of all, awake and staring into the dark, with her troubled mind harping upon the same chords. She sat up in bed, old sorrows bleeding afresh with the new; she took her confused head between her hands, and was voicing the unreconcilement of millions before her and to follow: "Why is everything I love made into an instrument to punish me? What have I done? Why all this senseless pain and calamity to me? Why to me one after the other two losses such as, coming singly in a life, would be enough to darken the sun? Are you, stupid blind Fate, weaving a pattern in which the same design must repeat itself? For is it justice that twice I should have the thing my heart had grown around taken from me, and not in the terrible legitimate way of death, but just placed out of reach and sight, while I torture myself with wondering what may be happening to make the beloved suffer?... Oh, Larry, why ... why this dismay inseparable from the thought of you?" The torture of the visions of Larry which, spite of her shuddering repudiation, would obtrude themselves, was such now that even in her morbid mood she recognized something disproportionate in it, and had clear-sightedness to attribute it to a reaction from the narcotic. She tried to get herself more normally awake. She strained her eyes to see the figures upon her watch, and a sort of patience fell upon her, ascertaining that in an hour or so it would begin to be day, by the light of which the worst never appears quite so unendurable. She felt cold now, and drawing up her quilt went through the forlorn mockery of composing herself to sleep.

Perhaps for a moment without knowing it she dozed, for when the barking of Beech, who slept in the laundry, roused her with a start, it was certainly lighter, she could distinguish the vine-branches against her window. The muffled bark of lugubrious timbre came again and again, deadened by distance and doors. The shock of the first outburst--her heart had seemed to roll over--had plunged Celia into what we call, when children suffer it, a fit of the horrors. Twitching, she sat up again, and receiving from Beech's voice, as his angry barks multiplied, a message of warning, she kept her eyes instinctively fixed upon the square of light.

She slept on the ground-floor, and a garden-walk passed under her window. A figure now darkened it. It could hardly be said that she was frightened, she seemed to have turned to stone. Some one tapped, then stood peering in and making signs. As she did not stir, the tapping was repeated, urgent and more urgent. She arose and with less astonishment than seemed explicable, recognized Judith Bray, who whispered gaspingly, "Let me in, let me in--you must!" At this point was entered by Celia a quite different phase of sensation. Now that there seemed to be something to do, a call upon her for she as yet did not know what, her nerve got back its tensest steadiness, her mind its calm,--she was the effective daughter of a long line of effective people.

She had signed the auroral intruder to a side-entrance, the furthest from the sleepers in the house, and when they had tiptoed back to her own chamber and noiselessly closed its door, she re-entered her bed, being conscious in an undercurrent fashion of cold. As her eyes consulted Judith, the livid atmosphere in which her bad dreams had been enacting themselves through the night was shot with sanguine. Judith's face prepared the mind for revelations which should smother. That touch of excess which, however expressed, had always been an element in the repugnance with which she inspired Celia, showed itself now in a haggardness beyond all one could conceive a person achieving in the brief space since the girl had been seen at the gate of her garden jesting with the passers. She was bareheaded; the wide hood of a travelling-cape, which had perhaps replaced her hat, lay back, and her blown hair made a great wreath to her bloodless face. Her breathing spoke of a merciless excitement driving her heart.

Celia sat up and clasped her knees with cramped fingers, pale with the gray pallor of the dawn, in which her long coppery hair was just beginning to glimmer a little--with the gilt picture-frames, and the griffins of the candlesticks, and the like. "Well?" she said.

"Oh, I don't know how to tell you!" broke forth Judith, and the manner of this first utterance exposed shockingly the fact that here stood that sickening anomaly, a Judith clean emptied of spirit, pride, or courage: "How shall I tell you?"

"Hush!... Speak lower!"

"Oh, who cares?... I have brought him back to you----"

"You have brought back whom?" Celia inquired in blank wonder, "You have brought back--No, no, you don't mean--What? You never can mean _Larry_?"

"I do.... For pity's sake _wait_ till I've told you...."

"Then it was _you_ who took him away?..."

"Yes, it was.... And now I've got him dead on my hands!"

Celia's understanding could not at once fully grasp this which was offered, and she remained open-mouthed and mute.

"Of course it was I took him. Do you mean you didn't even suspect me?... When I found you meant to have him, I couldn't let you, that's all. You had been so mortally mean.... But that wasn't the whole. I could see all you saw in him, too. I was just as crazy about him as you. And when I heard you were going to adopt him, the thought came in a flash, 'Why shouldn't I?' as long as I meant never to marry. And it seemed a great lark, a good one on you, just lifting him away like that. I paid a good price, I can tell you. But what does all that matter now?... We were going to drive him to Jess's home in the country--Jess said she knew all about babies--and then, after a time, he was to reappear here as an orphan I'd adopted. You would recognize him, of course, but what could you do?... When I think of the light-hearted way I went into this thing, I could kill myself.... But it's going to kill me, anyhow. Oh, you shouldn't have treated me so.... I have a heart, too! But what do you care?... I did care about him, though. I did. I did. You can't hate me as much as if I hadn't truly cared. That little fellow had got a sort of hold on me nothing has ever had. You should have seen him when we left, all in laces and embroideries, like a little fairy prince. And he seemed all right. We stopped the first night at a country hotel, and Jess and I gave him his bath and fed him, just as nice.... We drove all the next day. He seemed interested in the things we passed. The night after that we were at a hotel again. I thought something wasn't quite usual with him, but Jess said it was all right, and wouldn't hear of my calling in a doctor. And suddenly, in the middle of the night, when we were both asleep, I was wakened by a sound, and I don't know what was wrong--he was struggling, he seemed to be choking, and after just the shortest time he was still, and anyone could see how it was. We were so frightened we didn't know what to do. We didn't dare call anybody, and Jess got so scared thinking all sorts of things which might happen, how we might be called to account before the law, that, will you believe it, she wouldn't stay with me a second longer. She put on her things and the instant it was light off she started for her home. Then--I can never tell you how I did it. I dressed him and wrapped him up and wound my veil around his head, and I asked for my carriage, and I haven't stopped since, except to feed and water the horse----"

"Do you mean ..." gasped Celia.

"Yes.... Outside...."

Celia pressed her drained face to her knees and beat the bedclothes with her hands.

"That's the way I feel, too," said Judith, with a dizzy movement of her hand across her forehead, "I want to scream aloud till I go mad."

Celia was moaning into the covers.

"Stop, stop, you poor thing!" Judith's breath caught in her throat, and her hand travelled tremblingly toward Celia's shoulder, "Oh, I know--I know how you feel! Don't.... Don't!... you poor thing. I've been and done it, haven't I.... There was no one--no one like him, nor ever will be again. A human flower, wasn't he?... And why I should come here to the one I've hurt most and who must hate me worst, I don't know.... I suppose it's the way criminals give themselves up. Unless it's because, as I've hated you so, and had good reason to, and you've known it, I felt you would understand better than the others. Then, you've got brains, you can tell me what to do. After driving those millions of miles with that poor angel like lead upon my arm, I haven't an idea in my head beside ... I'm afraid to go to my father--" She shivered. "He's been sick of my pranks for some time. You will stand by me, Celia Compton, just for the first?... I could have been devoted to you, if you had let me.... You know I was never anything but a soft-hearted fool--and now to have upon my soul the responsibility of this ghastliness...."

Celia had got up, and with the dainty carefulness forming part in her of that second nature which stands us in stead when the directing faculties are dazed, was fastening up her hair.

"First," she said, "we shall have to call my brother. Then go to your father."

At these words, which could be interpreted as a promise of assistance, Judith laid down her head, and let tears at last have their way with her. In floods, more and more uncontrolled they came. Celia stood over her, but even a racking compassion could not make her touch the heaving figure. "The fault was more mine than yours," she said, with dry lips and inexpressive voice, like that of an oracle, or a sleeper speaking. "In the bottom of my heart I must have always known that the blame of our silly feud was with me. With a word I could have set everything right. What are you?... A leaf in your own passions. But I know what I am about, and do what I do deliberately.

"And with a heart just a little larger ... but now, as you say, between us, we've done it. But you need not blame yourself as much as me.... Come. You must go outside and remain with ... with him, while I explain to my brother. In a moment it will be sunrise."

As Judith's strength and command over her will seemed now to have forsaken her, Celia helped her to her feet and guided her out of the house. It was a shock, turning the corner, to find the carriage directly at hand, high upon the lawn. The pearl-grey carriage-rug lay massed upon the seat.

The sweet daylight brightening over all the familiar things had its moment of trying to convince that the strange and terrible must be unreal. Only, there upon the carriage-seat lay the proof that the past belief was true. Celia stood, her eyes held by it, a chill from it stealing congealingly upon her. And as at the sight, with the horror, the sorrowfulness of it all smote her directly upon the heart,--and the sense, at last fully brought home, of the ruin of the most adorable thing the earth had given her to know wrung from her a scalding quintessence of tears,--her eyes closed against the image that would form of what the grey folds concealed, and her figure swayed. Judith, beside her, had been struggling to screw her nerve to the point where it might be subjected once more to the strain that had broken it down; but at the sight in accusing daylight of the burden which must be taken up again, her whole being recoiled with such violence that her head jerked convulsively back and her hand reached out for something steadying--and the two women, in a common anguish before their work, clung to each other for support.

HIS NEED OF MIS' SIMONS

BY LUCY PRATT

ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERIC DORR STEELE

"Jes look, Miss No'th! Looker w'at's comin' down de road!"

Miss North turned her head inquiringly, and Ezekiel continued to comment enthusiastically.

"It's ole Arch'bal' Smiff," he declared, with lively appreciation, though in the near distance Archibald failed to look as aged as Ezekiel might have led one to expect. "Yas'm, 'tis; dat's ole Arch'bal' Smiff. Now, w'at dey-all doin' 'im dat-a-way fer? Look, Miss No'th! Dey's jes a-_chasin'_ 'im down de road!"

Miss North stopped a moment and glanced back at the rapidly approaching Archibald.

"They are probably just chasing him for fun, aren't they?" she began reassuringly.

"'Tain' no fun ter git w'ite men chasin' after yer dat-a-way," objected Ezekiel.

There were excited shouts from the passing, jostling runners, and Archibald turned and cast a momentary exalted, half-dramatic smile on Miss North.

"They are just in fun, you see. Come, Ezekiel, I want you to go on with me, and bring back some books that I order; will you?"

"Yas'm--yas'm, I'll go on wid yer, Miss No'th; but look like ole w'ite men's gwine ketch 'im, too, doan't it?"

"Catch him? No. Why should they want to catch him?"

"Cert'nly make me think 'bout de time dey-all come a-chasin' af' Jonah w'en I'se ter Mis' Simons'. An' I reckon, ef 'tain' been fer Mis' Simons, dey'd 'a' ketch 'im, too. But Mis' Simons she jes 'ntirely dis'range dey plans."

"How did she do that?" questioned Miss North, suddenly interested.

"W'y, she jes _done_ it," explained Ezekiel, explicitly.

"I see; but--how? Did Jonah get into some--some trouble?"

"Ya'as, ma'am! An' he jes did!" assured Ezekiel dramatically; "but Mis' Simons she jes completely dis'range de whul plan. W'y, yer see, it wuz dat ve'y day de Cap'n went off ter de ho'se fair, an' lef' 'er all 'lone wid jes me an' Sarah an' Marg'ret an'--an'--well, he _would_ 'a' lef' 'er wid Jonah, too, but, yer see, Mis' Simons she foun' she's 'blige sen' Jonah on a r'al 'mportant erran'. 'Twuz 'long 'bout free o'clock in de evenin', an' I wuz in de gyarden a-waterin' de yaller lily-baid, an' Jonah he wuz a-hoein' on de li'l' paff where cut 'roun' siden de baid, w'en Mis' Simons step up an' say, 'Jonah,' she say, 'I want yer ter stop a-hoein' an' do a erran' fer me,' she say.

"'Yas'm,' Jonah answer 'er. Yer see, Jonah think a awful heap o' Mis' Simons, an' allays seem ter wanter do jes like she ax 'im ter. Co'se, ef he ain't wanter, w'y, I s'pose he'd 'a' did it jes same anyway, but he jes natchelly is wanter. So, 'Yas'm,' he say, an' Mis' Simons 'mence tellin' 'im all 'bout it. She look up in de sky ez she's talkin', too, at de sun, where's shinin' righ' down stret inter de yaller lilies, an' she say: 'Co'se yer'll be back 'fo' dark, Jonah; doan' be no longer'n yer's _'blige_ ter, 'cuz we _wants_ yer back 'fo' dark.'

"An' Jonah smile at 'er an' say he'll go 'long right smart, an' Mis' Simons smile back at 'im an' say, well, not ter kill 'isself 'bout it; an' den Jonah he lef' us dere siden de lily-baid, an' de sun a-shinin' down jes same.

"''Zekiel,' Mis' Simons 'mence after w'ile, an' 'er voice soun' kine o' slow an' dreamin' like. ''Zekiel, does yer s'pose yer'll ever git ter be 's good a man 's Jonah?'

"'Wha'm?' I say, kine o' s'prise w'en she ax me right out ez plain's dat. 'Yas'm, I s'pose I is, Mis' Simons,' I say.

"She look at me r'al quick an' laf, same way I seen 'er do ser many times befo'.

"'I doubt it,' she say, still a-smilin'; 'I doubt it, 'Zekiel.'

"Well, co'se I ain' know jes 'zackly w'at she mean talkin' dat-a-way, but look 'mos' like she think I _ain't_ ser good's Jonah is, an', anyway, I ain't r'ally like way she spoke, so, 'Yas'm,' I say, 'I reckon I _kin_ be jes ez good's Jonah!' I say, an'--an' I didn' 'mence ter cry, nudder, but--but I 'mence hoein' on de li'l' paff, an' waterin' de yaller lilies, twell Mis' Simons pat me light 'n' sof' on de haid--kine o' laffin', too.

"'W'y, yes, co'se, 'Zekiel,' she say, '_co'se_ yer's gwine be ez good's Jonah! An' I jes reckon yer'll be 'blige tek 'is place now twell he gits back, too! W'y--w'y, I couldn' git 'long 'thout yer noways, could I, 'Zekiel?' She ben' down while she's talkin' an' pick a yaller lily f'um de baid. 'Jes see it ketch de sun!' she say. 'Doan't it look like gole a-shinin'! Doan't yer reckon I better tek a whul bunch ter Mis' Myers, 'Zekiel?' she say. 'She's sick, yer know--po' Mis' Myers!'

"'Yas'm,' I answer 'er, an' 'mence pickin' de bunch fer 'er.

"'An' you'll tek cyare o' de place w'ile I'se gone, won't yer, 'Zekiel? I kin trus' yer jes same's I kin Jonah, cyan't I? Ya'as, co'se. I ain' gwine be gone ve'y long, nudder,' she say; 'jes long 'nough ter give Mis' Myers de flowers, an' talk a li'l', or p'r'aps read a li'l'--' an' same time she's tellin' me 'bout it she 'mence walkin' off down de paff.

"Praesen'ly she turn 'roun' ag'in, an' I kin see 'er tekkin' one o' de lilies f'um de bunch an' puttin' it in 'er dress. Den she put 'er hand up to 'er haid quick, like she's thought o' sump'n' she oughter 'membered 'fo'.

"''Zekiel!' she say. An' I run up to 'er fas' 's I could.

"''Zekiel, tell Jonah I--I forgot!' she whisper to me, an' she look r'al w'ite an' strange. 'Tell 'im--no--' an' she seem ter change 'er mine, 'no, I ain' gwine, after all. I'll wait yere twell he comes.'

"Co'se I ain' know w'at 'tis Mis' Simons 'membered 'bout ser quick, an' I ain't r'ally wanter ax 'er, nudder; so I jes stood dere a-lookin' after 'er w'ile she walk off ter de li'l' arbor in de gyarden an' se' down on de seat. She look kine o' lonesome, too, a-settin' dere all 'lone, an' I start gwine after 'er ter ax 'er w'at's de matter. But time I gotten dere I didn' r'ally like ter trouble 'er, so I jes stood dere quiet by de do', a-lookin' in.

"'Well, 'Zekiel,' she 'mence praesen'ly, 'did yer want sump'n'?'

"'No'm,' I say, kine o' wishin' I ain't come, 'no'm, but I'se studyin' a li'l' 'bout yer, Mis' Simons--an' wonderin' did sump'n'--frighten yer?'

"She smile den, an' hel' out 'er han'.

"'No, no, my chile,' she say, lookin' mo' like she useter 'gin, ''tain' nuthin' frighten me; I'se jes thinkin' 'bout sump'n'--I oughter 'membered 'fo'. 'Twuz ve'y thoughtless o' me--ter fergit!' she say low like to 'erself. Den, ''Zekiel,' she 'mence ag'in, ''ow long does yer reckon it's gwine tek Jonah ter git back?'

"'I dunno'm, Mis' Simons,' I say, 'but I reckon he'll be back right soon now, too.'

"'_Couldn'_ tek 'im mo'n a hour, could it?' she ask, jes ez ef I knowed all 'bout it.

"'No'm,' I say, 'couldn' tek 'im mo'n a hour.'

"She look up r'al bright at me den, an' praesen'ly look down at de flowers in 'er han'.

"'I reckon _you'll_ be 'blige tek 'em ter Mis' Myers, won't yer, 'Zekiel?' she 'mence. But she stop quick 'gin, lookin' same way she did 'fo', w'en she put 'er han' up to 'er haid.

"'No!' she say, 'doan't yer go outen de yard ter-day, 'Zekiel! Yer won't go 'way ter-day, will yer, 'Zekiel?'

"'W'y, no'm,' I say, wonderin' w'at she mean; 'no'm, I ain' gwine 'way 'n' leave yer, Mis' Simons.'

"She smile ag'in, an' lay down de flowers, an' den she tuk up a book where's layin' on de seat.

"'Dat's a good li'l' boy,' she say; 'now go 'n' hoe de weeds outen de gyarden paff, same way Jonah's doin' 'fo' he went.'

"So I went back ter de paff by de lilies, an' start in ter wuk right smart. But, co'se, eve'y li'l' w'ile I 'range ter git jes enough time ter look at Mis' Simons, too, a-settin' in de arbor wid 'er book; an' praesen'ly 'mence ter look like she's 'mos' forgotten where she's at, she's a-readin' ser hard. Mus' 'a' been mo'n a hour sence Jonah went 'way, too, but she keep on a-readin', an' I keep on a-wukkin' on de paff, jes wukkin' 'long same's befo', twell bime-by I'se jes 'blige se' down an' res' a li'l' myself. But Mis' Simons she ain't look up 'tall. An' after I 'mence ter feel kine o' rested an' mo' like wuk, w'y, co'se I got up an' start in hoein' ag'in, an' dere's Mis' Simons still a-settin' dere readin' jes same's befo'! De sun's gittin' kine o' low, too, an' look like she gwine git cotch in de dark ef she ain' cyarful, so I drap my hoe in de grass an' step 'long up ter de li'l arbor an' se' down on de step. Mis' Simons kine o' start-like w'en she seen me, an' put down 'er book an' raise 'er han's up slow 'n' sleepy-like to 'er eyes.

"'Wat time is it, 'Zekiel?' she say.

"De clock wuz strikin' six, time I drap my hoe down in de grass, so I tole 'er 'bout it.

"'Six!' she say, a-jumpin' off 'er seat. 'Six er-clock! An' ain' Jonah come? Ain't he come _yit_, 'Zekiel?'

"'No'm, he ain't,' I say, 'cuz he _ain't_, so w'at else _is_ it I kin say? 'No'm, he _ain't_,' I say.

"'An' he's been gone long 'nough to've gone free times at leas'!' she whisper un'er 'er bref. 'Oh, w'at is I done! Jonah, _Jonah_, w'y _doan't_ yer come back!'

"'I reckon he'll be back right soon now,' I say, 'cuz cert'nly make me feel bad ter see Mis' Simons look dat-a-way. 'Doan't yer reckon he will?' I say.

"But she jes shuk 'er haid awful sad 'n' slow-like.

"'I'se 'fraid--I'se 'fraid sump'n's 'appen to 'im, 'Zekiel,' she answer. 'I--I sent 'im de ve'y place--where it's awful trouble--gwine on ter-day! I sent 'im, 'Zekiel, 'thout--'thout 'memberin' w'at I knowed!'

"Well, I ain't r'ally know 'ow ter answer 'er dat time, so I jes didn' make no 'sponse 'tall.

"'Come,' she say, 'we mus' go in de house, 'Zekiel; it's gittin' dark.'

"It seem awful long after we's in de house, an' praesen'ly, it's sech a warm evenin', Mis' Simons went out on de po'ch. But she mus' 'a' feel kine o' strange 'n' lonesome, too, 'cuz praesen'ly she ax Sarah 'n' Marg'ret won't dey come out 'n' set dere fer a li'l' w'ile.

"'It's time fer you ter go ter baid, ain't it, 'Zekiel?' she say; an' I jes start ter tell 'er, 'No'm, I doan' reckon 'tis,' w'en it come de stranges' noise out dere in de yard. Look like somebody's runnin' ser fas' he cyan't sca'cely breve, an' all time comin' right 'long fru de grass todes de steps.