Chapter 9

A long time passed, however, without sign of the enemy in her remoter walks; and she had come to feel secure once more and let her dog range along unleashed, when one day, nothing being further from her thoughts, Beech's voice came to her ear, tangled in quarrel with another, and her heart told her that the event so dreaded was upon them. She ran, with shaking knees, and saw at a glance the worst she had feared. Celia was not a coward, but a certain permanent sense of the physical means at her command compelled her to stand helpless, crying out and beating the air with her hands. Judith, appearing upon the scene a moment later, white with fright, too, plunged at the fighters, and having by force of rage and fury of muscle got mastery over her dog, was with one hand belaboring his big head, while with the other twisted in his collar she shook and choked him. She stopped, suddenly without strength, and looked over at Celia, who, trembling from head to foot, was clinging to Beech. As their glances met, concentrated indignation shot from Celia's eyes. "I hope you are satisfied!" she said.

Judith, after a moment's pause, which appeared owing to amazement, flourished in the air, for Celia to see, a bitten and bleeding hand, and said in her harsh, impudent laugh, "I hope _you_ are!" while yet Celia could not fail to remark that pain or some other emotion was forcing tears into her eyes. Too angry to be in the least moved by them, she turned away.

It was only in recollection that she did grudging justice to Judith's conduct; but the initial wrong and the whole blame of the occurrence being so signally hers, she felt under no obligation of acknowledgement. What became of Punch she never inquired. He was not seen again in those latitudes. The injury received, however, was of a kind which the tender mistress of Beech was not likely to remit, and the remembrance of it went to intensify the effect of scorn with which upon another occasion she met an impulsive tender of Judith's, prompted by penitence.... And after that there was no more question between the women of anything but hate to the extent of their respective capacities.

The reinforcement of ill-will in this case arose from a question of so innocent and fragile a thing as wild orchids. Celia alone in all the country-side knew where any were to be found. Her grandmother had taken her as a child to the solitary place in the woods, and it had been her fancy to preserve the secret, but for one exception or two. The donor of Beech had visited the fairy recess with her, and the odor of it now had power to evoke past words and scenes almost more than anything left of that poor romance. The thoughts she had there thought first seemed year after year to be still lying in wait for her there. It was her habit to gather the flowers with discretion and reverence, distributing them as if they had been so much gold. Any wild orchid seen in a village sitting-room was sure to be noticed with the remark, "I see you've had a call from Miss Compton," and it seemed agreed that one should expect them only from her hand. Celia, seeking the hushed green haunt one summer morning, her head as always on those pilgrimages lost in its old dream, upon reaching the dell where her eyes looked for sparks of pink against the lace of ferns, was startled by the sight of Judith, solid and ample. One hand grasped a bunch of orchids, the other was still busily harvesting. What she saw in Celia's face as Celia recognized her, Judith alone could tell. But instead of anything their immediately preceding intercourse could have led Celia to look for, Judith went to her quickly, and, holding out the flowers for her to take, blurted forth, "It's a burning shame!... Of course they belong to you, and I'd no business...." But Celia looked at her with eyes of judgment, and, with a gesture of utter rejection, turned. Judith scattered her nosegay angrily upon the earth, and the two women, as fast as ever they could, widened the distance between them.

After that, each according to her nature entertained her aversion. In Celia the act consisted in as perfect an exclusion from her thoughts of the other, now altogether outside the pale of consideration, as her will could compass. She refused to be concerned with such ugliness, or have her life vulgarized by the sentiments which befitted it. In Judith it formed an undercurrent of excitement, never quite below consciousness, and at the root of many an action of hers which from the surface would have seemed to have no relation with it. Other factors in Judith's life there were combining with her sense of Celia's disesteem and her revolt against it and requital of hatred, to give her character a touch of lawlessness in its audacity; her wealth, her power over her father, her ascendency over the imaginations of the plain villagers. It was finally felt that she believed everything permitted to her, and an occasional exaggeration in hard, hare-brained boldness made a beginning of division in opinion about her among those whom her generosity and good-humor had first made all alike her adherents. From time to time inevitably the rivals crossed each other's path, when Celia's superiority was confirmed to her by the cold freedom of mind she could maintain under the test, while Judith's tortures were manifest in the loud fool she made of herself, with the cheap drama of her flashing eye and imperial attitudes.

Thus, while weeks grew to months and months to years, under the genial light of day and the beauty of the nights, amid innocent occupations and simple pleasures and natural relations satisfying to the heart, the two carried about, with as little fear as if it had been some such thing as Judith's diminutive pet alligator brought home from the South, or the diamond snake with which Celia fastened her lace, the sentiment destined to find its termination in such tragic horror.

II

Celia, after a round of visits, had come late this year to their country-house. Miss Greene, called in to make shorter a walking-skirt for country rambles, as she stitched, told the news, according to her wont. She had discovered that she was more acceptable to Celia when she left the Brays out of her conversation, just as she was more acceptable to Judith when she turned it upon the Comptons. As this diminished her immediate store of topics while at the Comptons--village doings were so inwoven with the Brays' affairs--Miss Greene felt obliged to extend the radius which her reports took in.

"You ever drive over Quarryville way these days?" After an interval of silence, long for her, she thus started a new subject.

"I haven't driven there for a long time. Do you think it a pretty road? I have never cared for it."

"No, no more do I. It ain't tree-sy, nor yet there ain't nothin' much to see of any sort. But Miss Goodrich she drove over there this summer early, she's got a relative livin' over there, and--Did you ever notice between this and there a little tumble-down farm-house jest a little mite off the road? I don't believe there's more'n half a dozen houses between here and Quarryville, so you must have seen it, though perhaps you never took no particular notice. Tell you what you might remember it by. It's got an oleander-tree in a box near the door in the front yard. The man and woman who live there come from some furrin place and are most as black as colored people. They've been there a long time, five or six years, I guess, and have got a vegetable-garden and a corn-patch. I guess you never took no notice. Well, Miss Goodrich, drivin' past on her way home from visitin' her relative, stopped there jest by chance--I forgit now whether a rain-storm come up or she wanted a drink o' water--but there in that 'most black woman's house she see the fairest boy-baby she says she ever set eyes on. Then she began askin' questions, and the woman owned 'twarn't hers, and it come out, not all at once, but gradually, for Miss Goodrich she was interested, that when that baby was nothin' but a few weeks old, a well-dressed lady, she might have been fifty or so, brought him to her in the carry-all from the depot, and said would she keep him and bring him up as her own, and here was a sum o' money and there to be the end o' the whole thing. You can't rightly tell how much she give her, the woman don't let on, and as she don't talk much English, it's sort o' hard gettin' things out o' her. But I shouldn't wonder if it had been somethin' like a thousand dollars. I guess it was as much as that, for she was a fashionable-lookin' lady. And from that day to this not a word nor a sign further, and the woman ain't no more idea than you or me who the lady was or whose child she's got. But she ain't any children of her own, nor ever has had, and he's a purty little fellow, and she don't seem to mind the care of him any more 'n if he was her own. The lady never left any name to call him by,--she jest wanted to wash her hands of him, that's clear enough,--and the woman calls him Larry, 'cause she thinks that's one of our names. But it's queer, ain't it, the whole thing? If it wasn't so far I'd drive over myself, jest out o' curiosity. I sh'ld think you'd like to, Miss Ceely. Things like that, that sounds as if they come out of a story-book, is in your line, I sh'ld jedge."

Celia remembered afterwards, marvelling, how small hand she had had in the incidents which brought her to the place where a treacherous fate lay in wait for her. It seemed to her that her will had been at every step counter to the direction she finally must take.

It was a friend on a visit to her, who, when in the afternoon they hesitated in the choice of a drive, proposed Quarryville. Celia, though in the least degree repelled, could find no reason for setting aside the suggestion. But she regretted--yet again without good reason, as she argued with herself--having permitted just the sort of person this gifted and charming Mary Havens could not help being, to be present at her trying-on with Miss Greene. They had no difficulty in recognizing the house. The oleander stood beside the door-step in the rough front yard, where common flowers and flourishing weeds made about an even mixture. Among them toddled a child in a faded pink slip. As Celia reined in the horse that they might pass slowly, Mary Havens, before Celia knew what she intended, jumped out, and Celia saw her in a moment more, down in the tall grass, scrutinizing the child's face, and heard her foolish, eager chatter at him. Celia waited, with a misleading effect of patience, looking off at the meadows on the other side, in an unaccountable distaste, till she became aware of Mary trying to find footing for the child in front of her knees.

"Look at him!" Mary said to her in an impressed tone, "Isn't he _different_?"

Celia, in the supposition that any baby lifted off his feet by a stranger would scream, had braced her nerves for the shock. But as she looked at the child, she ceased to think of that, her displeasure with Mary dispersed.

He was a being after her own heart, that was all,--exactly after her own heart. She had not the general love of children common in women, which seemed proof that this one who so captured her fancy must have about him something extraordinary. He was so fair that the sun to which he was indiscriminately exposed could not prevail against his firm, uniform, healthy whiteness. He was large for his small age,--for though he could walk, it was plain he could not yet talk, or else he did not regard language as necessary, for not by one sound did he depart from his self-possessed dumbness. The soilure of the earth upon it could not make his splendid little face funny. A straight-limbed, strong, calm, fearless, and somewhat solemn baby, noble in size, noble in the whole effect of him, with just a touch of something which melted the heart in his wide, sweet, steady, unsmiling eyes and the drooping arch of his lip. We have described him as he appeared to Celia.

"He looks like a king," she breathed, "or like a prophet!"

"That's just it--I couldn't define it. Think--think of rejecting a creature like that! Why--if he had been mine----"

Celia was not listening. She had taken in hers one of his little strong, firm, white hands, beautiful in shape, in texture surpassing, and, quite absorbed in him, pressing it as earnestly as if she entered into a compact with him, was saying over to him just "Larry ... Larry ..." in her voice itself a communication and a caress.

After a little he wearied of these women, and turned his back upon them to look at their horse. They became aware of a woman not far from the carriage-step, clothed in the nondescript dark cotton dress of a poor farmer's wife, a once bright kerchief around her neck. She was swart in color, with straight, good features, severer in expression than were her brown eyes, which suggested possibilities of kindness when need should arise. She smiled deferentially and said nothing. It might easily be supposed that English was not her tongue. Miss Havens fell upon her with questions, which Celia cut short by hurrying their departure.

But the thought of Larry would not leave her, and it brought disturbance almost, making her feel, as she had never felt, a loneliness in her life, an emptiness. The appeal he had made to her was beyond anything she had imagined of her nature; the sense of him haunted her, his image passed before her ten times an hour, a heroic yet divinely innocent little figure, possessing indescribable affinities with her deepest soul, or, if this were infatuated imagination, fulfilling at the very least her every taste.

When Miss Havens had left, not before, she returned to see him, alone. And after that, at intervals growing more frequent, she went, sinking deeper, as she found, in attachment to this child, instead of recovering from her unaccountable fancy, as it had seemed not quite impossible one might.

A drop of bitter it was to her, as when in blowing bubbles one gets a taste of soapwater, to realize after a time that her interest in Larry had become a subject of discussion in the village. Even some perversion of her remark that he looked like a small predestined Knight of the Grail came back to her ears, with the effect of a humorous sally. It was almost enough to make one resolve not to see him any more. Such a thought, however, could be but momentary: her new love had too strong a hold on her, and she was grown philosophical, she believed, where village gossip was concerned.

Dimly there formed in the background of her mind the thought that sometime, if certain matters could be arranged, she might make herself responsible for Larry's future. She had no idea of forsaking him, ever; but he was happy, for the present, and well cared for where he was. The woman was kind to him, and she was a person of natural good sense. Celia could see him as often as she pleased; in a manner already she directed his small affairs. The subsidized Cape Verde Islander bathed and kept him clean and observed hygienic practices, to her full of mystery. Closely as her heart was involved, a perfect prudence restrained Celia: there certainly was no occasion for haste in coming to any determination, and the thought lurked within vague undergrowths of her mind that perhaps time would bring forth some effect of taint in this fruit of strange parentage, which the present superbly triumphed over.

It was after an absence from him of perhaps a week, that, coming upon Larry as he played among the weeds, she spied upon the ground near him a toy of the richest and gaudiest. The sight of it gave her heart a sharp pang before her brain had framed the smallest theory of it. She had taken Larry upon her arm--his weight did but charm her; holding him, she went about the house calling for Julia, the foster-mother. She was not to be found, though the doors were open. Celia sat down with Larry upon the door-step and took up the dazzling puppet, a male doll with a squeak. She turned it about, sniffing it with faint, jealous dislike, as if by some emanation from it to divine whence it came, what it meant. Unenlightened, she at last, though without hope, asked the baby, "Who gave it to you, Larry?" He only put out his hand for it masterfully, fumbled its satins, waved it up and down in the air, and cast it far.

Celia derived from the woman, returning by and by from the field, that the doll was the gift of Judith Bray. The woman did not know the young lady's name, but her broken and laborious description was perfectly illuminating to Celia. According to the woman's story, Judith had been there three times within the week, bringing extravagant gifts for Larry, over whom she screamed with admiration and whom she fondled as if she would eat him. Celia felt ice hardening about her heart. That day she spoke decisively to Julia of her intention to take Larry off her hands. When she had understood, Julia unexpectedly gave evidence of satisfaction; explaining that this would be for them a desired thing: her husband had been wishing for some time to move away from there and go to a factory-town, where the child would be a hindrance. Celia remembered the money the couple were supposed to have received, for the care of Larry; the man had no doubt some plan of outlay for his little capital; her scheme and theirs fell into accord. Celia impressed it upon Julia before leaving that Larry was from that moment forth to be regarded as hers, her property. She proposed to fetch him as soon as suitable preparations could be made, after which Julia and her husband, delivered for good and all from the burden and expense of him, would be free to go where they were more likely to make their fortunes than here.

With grave, peculiar tenderness, Celia, before leaving, took up the baby and searched his little face, looked deep into his eyes, which told her of his mysterious little soul no more than before. She knew it was like trying to force open a shut flower. "Whatever happens now, dear," she said to him, though without audible words, "we two go together. All that happens to you, happens to me. If you are in the future to be bad or afflicted, I am to be unhappy. But I will never repent, remembering the glory of you now." She wondered, seriously, at so beautiful a thing being permitted to live. She kissed him many more times than she usually did, upon his eyes, his cheeks, his forehead,--he was royally passive under kissing--and having left him, almost as if something had warned her, she went back and pressed him to her a last time. As she started the horse, she held up a finger to Julia at the gate, in reminder of their agreement; Julia smiled back her good trustworthy smile.

Celia had expected to meet with objections at home; they were more obstinate than she had looked for. But Celia was sure of her way where only her relatives' prejudices were opposed as a barrier. She had the whip-hand of an exceptional devotion from them, fairly earned, no doubt. In this case she was able to allay some anxieties, some difficulties she over-rode; all were surprised at the willingness she displayed to make a genuine sacrifice of interests. There was conducted a quiet, polite domestic campaign, at the closing of which she was granted unconditionally, with whatever grim forewarnings, an open field in which to make her life's mistake.

A little out of conceit with the whole matter, from the weariness of this contending--impressed, too, in spite of herself, with the pertinence of some of the objections which had been made, but staunch in her main purpose, she at last set forth to fetch Larry. As she passed the Brays' house, a sickly surge of resentment rose from her momentary general disaccord with the world, and beat against the windows that were Judith's, for it had been she who indirectly precipitated this adoption: without her and the indefinable pollution of her caresses, all being allowed to come to its ripeness naturally, there would not have been this effect of strain and muffled discord in bringing home the son-elect. Judith's windows were shuttered; her gay, long-fringed hammocks taken in. Celia had heard that she was gone unexpectedly early this year.

But why--why were the windows of the grey farm-house closed and shuttered too? What could be the meaning of that? Celia could hardly believe her eyes. Never once had she seen them closed. And the door was closed, and the garden empty, and the clothes-line gone, the oleander gone. She remained for a time without getting out of the carriage, staring in puzzlement over at the house. It was like something in a dream. When she got out, she found that her knees were unsteady, and wondered at it, because she as yet felt little but a futile effort of the brain to find some common explanation of these circumstances, which only superficially, of course, seemed so unnatural. Why should not Julia for once in her life have gone on a visit, or a jaunt, or an errand? It was a long knowledge of all the conditions which made this surmise insufficient. Celia fumbled with a shutter and got it open. She made blinders with her hands and peered in. Then her heart sank away, as if one should suddenly find by the touch that a person one supposed alive was dead. It was a house from which the inmates plainly had moved away. She made the circuit of the house, examining things. All told the same story, no possibility of deceiving oneself. They had gone. Celia went to the gate and seated herself upon a stone facing the house, and stared at it. She felt no pain. Indeed, something said within her, in the tone she took discussing things sometimes, when she was drawing from a worldly philosophy: "Well, it simplifies matters." The solution first to present itself satisfied her. The same who had placed Larry there had come for him. Perhaps they had got wind of the proposed adoption,--Julia was deeper than had been suspected,--and in order that the darkness they evidently sought should be ensured past all doubt, they had prevailed upon the foster-parent to leave, like the Arabs. No house was so near that she might to any purpose have made inquiry, if she had cared to do that. But, as has been said, she was satisfied. What had happened seemed to her obvious and what, had she been a little wiser, she would have been prepared for. As she rose, she laughed, or did something more or less like it, and said aloud for the crows to hear: "What a fool I was to suppose that anything I cared so much about could go right!" She got into her phaeton and drove back. She said to them at home, and the hard sadness setting her features was in its effect vindictive, "You see, you are to have your wish, after all." To make investigation did not even later enter her mind. She would not grant to her persecuting fate the joy of beholding her tortured with suspenses or uncertainties. She was persuaded of the worst. Her heart told her it was finished with that dream.