CHAPTER XVI.

CONVALESCENT.

Mrs. Ransom kept her room for several days. The shock she had received from Reynolds' confession carried with it something more than the predicament might at first view imply. She had loved her husband with all that romantic fervor characteristic of girlhood in a warm climate. He was a handsome youth, bright, impulsive, brave, passionate, reckless, holding her to him by that strange fascination, which we all know but can not account for, exerted by the bad over the good. When he had appeared to desert her she was not surprised, and the news of his death by murder saddened without shocking her beyond endurance. With the lapse of time the effect of her trouble had softened and faded; but she had never ceased to remember with a warmth of devotion, more of the imagination than of the heart, perhaps, the lover and the husband of her romantic girlhood. To be sure it had grown to seem no more than a tender dream, that period of love and happiness ending in gloom, but its memory haunted her.

Reynolds had in some way thrilled her life with something more potent than that girlish adoration with which she had honored her boyish husband. His influence over her was so strange and so new to her experience, so sweet and yet so masterful, so overwhelming. His love had shown her how little she had ever known of love before, love in its highest and perfectest development.

But this dreadful discovery--this dark, strange confession, fell upon her just at the time when it could have the effect of darkening as with the shadow of both crime and death the whole of her life. It seemed a stroke of fate so malignant, so merciless, so far-reaching, so unutterably terrible.

Reynolds suffered, but not as she did. He was gloomy, impatient, restless, but his wound continued to heal rapidly and his bodily strength hourly increased. His physical constitution was so elastic and vigorous that nothing, it seemed, could long disturb its equilibrium. Mentally, however, he was a man of extremes, surging to the furthest stretch of the tether in whatever direction impelled. Now he was in the deepest pit of despondency. The whole light of life had gone out.

As if to render his state more dreary by contrast, the weather waxed with sudden fervor into all the golden splendor of a semi-tropical spring. A sprinkling of pale green tassels and tender leaflets appeared on certain deciduous trees, and the grasses peculiar to the region began to shoot up bright spikes in the warmer spots of the brown fallow fields. A dainty woody odor pervaded the air and the mocking birds and brown thrushes sang gayly in the old trees about the mansion. The sky assumed a hue of such rich, tender azure as is observed nowhere save in the low country in especially favorable weather. And the river (what stream is more beautiful than the Alabama?) seemed to go by with some rhythmic impulse but half repressed in its broad, almost silent current.

Left much alone during these days, Reynolds naturally enough indulged in retrospection; but his thoughts rarely went further back than to that tragedy in the far West which had let fall upon his life the almost insufferable shadow--a shadow rendered doubly dense by its effect upon his present prospects. Often his gloomy reflections stopped at the mountain cabin and lingered with its inmates. The face and form of Milly White, once so meaningless to him, were rapidly assuming a significance that would not be ignored. Even his deep passion for Agnes Ransom and the brooding dread of its hopelessness now, could not shut away the accusing, vaguely insistent eyes of the little mountain girl. The isolation of that lonely plantation house gave him no sense of separation from the sources of his trouble.

One day, it was quite early in the morning, Uncle Mono, the old negro musician, came along in the plat below the window of the room in which Reynolds sat, and chancing to glance up, doffed his dilapidated hat and said:

"Mo'nin', boss, how's ye comin' on dis mo'nin', sah?"

"Oh, very well, Uncle Mono, thank you," responded Reynolds, smiling mechanically down on the black, wrinkled face so queerly ornamented with its shocks of almost snow-white wool. "How is Uncle Mono?"

"Po'ly, boss, po'ly. Got some 'flictions in de spine ob de back, an' los' my ap'tite some. Ole dahkey no 'count no mo' no how. Done see all my bes' days long 'go, boss."

Mono had a long-handled hoe on his shoulder. He was a sturdy, well-fed looking old fellow, with any thing but unhappiness in his shrewd, deep-set eyes.

"What are you up to this morning, Mono?" Reynolds idly inquired, leaning at ease on the window-sill.

"Gwine ter plant some watermillions, boss; got some pow'ful good seed yah, got 'em outer a watermillion what wus a million fo' sho'. I allus hab a fine patch, boss, kase I neber plants no po' seed. Yo 'member de book say: 'Yo' reaps what yo' sow, an' ef yo' sows de win' yo' reaps de whirlwin' sho'.'"

"That is a true saying, Mono," said Reynolds. "It holds good in the matter of all kinds of crops."

"Now yo's a gittin' ter de marrer ob de subjec', boss. 'Tain't many young men see it dat way, do'. Dey mos'ly sow a little ob de win' jes' fo' ter see how it wo'k; but de way dey cotches hell fo' it at de end ob de row am cunnin' ter see. I knows all 'bout it, boss; I's ben dah, _I_ has. 'Spec' you's ben poo'ty rapid, too, boss, yo' got de gallopin' cut o' de eye. I knows a rus'ler w'en I see 'im. Yo' no slow-goin' creeter, boss, yah! yah! yah! yah-h-h!" The old wretch chuckled and guffawed, as if his sayings had stirred his feelings boisterously. The active wrinkles in his face made it ludicrously expressive. Reynolds made no response.

"I kin tell w'en I see a young feller, whedder he like de spo't er sowin' a leetle win' an' kinder hanker fo' de 'citement ob de whirlwin'. Yo' no spring chicken, boss, yo's----"

"Be off, you old vagabond!" stormed General DeKay's military voice from somewhere among the shrubbery.

"Vag'bon', vag'bon', I's no vag'bon, no mo' 'n some white folks I knows ob," Uncle Mono muttered, very careful that the general should not hear him, and then shuffled away to plant his melon seeds.

The sort of flattery intended to be conveyed by the old negro's expressions fell with a peculiarly disagreeable effect upon the mind of Reynolds. It seemed quite devoid of the humor which Mono by his nods and winks and grimaces had meant to enforce. It had come like a direct, malignant, personal accusation, all the more disagreeable on account of its source. He gazed out across the little plat and through the tree-tops beyond toward the patches of blue sky, without noting any of the softness and beauty of the view. It chafed him immeasurably that he could see no escape from his tormenting situation. What was the use of struggling against the pressure? He felt all the verve and force of life slipping out. He was not weaker than most men whose passions are deep and turbulent and whose imagination is fervid and flexible. He passed easily from one extreme to another. He could not dally on the middle ground. Looking back now, he saw no good in all his past life, and looking forward he felt no expectation of good in the future. With his arm resting along the window-sill and his head drooping across it, he did not hear the light foot-fall on the floor. A hand was passed over his hair. When he turned Mrs. Ransom stood near him, with her sweet blue eyes bent with a measureless meaning of love upon him. He almost shrank from her at first, then he would have clasped her, but she eluded him and sat down in a chair beyond his reach.

"You are appearing so much better," she said, with a little constraint in her voice, but not disclosing any excitement. Her beautiful face was a trifle pale and there were faint, dusky lines under her eyes.

"Yes, I am nearly well, I hope," he replied, abetting her in the effort to make the occasion have a common-place appearance.

"It is such sweet weather. Do you hear my mocking birds?" she inquired, trying to smile. "They have been having a stormy concert."

"Yes, they have had a real war of song all the morning," he answered.

A long space of silence ensued, during which they heard Uncle Mono chanting an African ditty to a lagging, melancholy tune, while he worked in his patch some distance away. Presently Reynolds almost abruptly said:

"You have been ill, your aunt says. I am so glad you are with me again. I have been lonely and--and sad. I was afraid you were worse than your aunt would acknowledge."

"It is all over now," she replied with a short, repressed sigh. "Do you feel strong enough to walk out? The morning is very inviting."

"It is a happy thought," he almost cheerily responded, rising and taking up his hat; "let us go out at once. I am tired of being indoors, despite the good nursing I have had."

They passed into the broad hall, where she took from a table her hat, on which the twisted sprig of mistletoe still remained, just as he had fixed it on the day of the shoot, and thence they went forth among the magnolia trees on the front lawn.

"One can never quite lose sight of the river here," said Reynolds; "see how it shines under the boughs yonder. Isn't it fine?"

"Have you noticed that the gentle roar it had some weeks ago is almost silenced?" she asked.

"I had not, but I do now," he answered; "what is the cause?"

"It has fallen so low that its current is too sluggish, I suppose; but Uncle Mono and the rest of the negroes have a pretty saying that the river sings till the mocking birds begin, and then it becomes silent in order to listen to their voices."

"That is a poetical idea."

"They have a more grotesque one about the moon crossing the river."

"What is that?"

"They claim that if one takes a skiff and goes to the middle of the river, exactly at midnight when the moon is full, one may see the moon in the water making all sorts of wry faces at the moon in the sky."

"I have observed that myself," said Reynolds, very gravely.

"The moon making faces?" she exclaimed with a little smile, looking inquiringly up into his face.

"Yes, the skiff or the wind breaks the surface of the water into ripples which cause the reflection of the moon to appear to do all manner of fantastic things."

"Oh, I understand it now. I had never thought of that."

"But," she added, after a moment of silence, "it would be cruel to explain away Uncle Mono's fanciful legend or myth of the Alabama and the moon. Don't you think so?"

"The old scamp is not so ignorant," said Reynolds. "It would not be so easy as you might imagine to destroy his stories. He would have plenty of expedients for evading the demonstrations of natural philosophy."

"I should hope he would," she said, "for there is something fascinating in all his grotesqueries. They seem to have a smack of genuine African wildness of poetry in them."

They sat down on a low wooden bench, mossy with age and exposure to the weather, under a grand magnolia tree. Here they were in the full tide of the breeze with all the freshness and fragrance of the morning around them. The dingy old house, so large and plain and yet so picturesquely Southern, was just sufficiently removed to be nearly lost in its vines and trees. Reynolds felt some sort of dread lest their conversation should fall away from the lightness with which it had begun--a dread almost betrayed when he said:

"Can't you think of another negro conceit? I am sorry I spoiled the one about the moon."

"They have a story of the owl and the magnolia bloom," she answered, after a pause. "They say that the big laughing owl comes, in his wisdom, every spring, when the buds of the magnolias are just on the point of opening, and says to the tree: 'Hold fast, hold fast; if you speak now you'll lose your influence for a whole year,' but the tree does not heed the wise counsel. It opens its lips (the petals of its flowers) and spills its perfume. Then the owl laughs dismally and the tree has no more perfume for a year."

"That doesn't sound much like a thought of savage origin. It has a weak touch of civilization in it somewhere."

"Oh, the negroes have gathered liberally from us, no doubt," she said, reflectively stirring some dry leaves with the toe of her tiny boot.

It vexed him that this action reminded him of Milly White. He rubbed his forehead to try to dissipate the thought. Perhaps there was, scarcely known to himself, a deeper reason for his irritation in the consciousness that they both were beating against the wind to reach some common ground from which they might banish forever any allusion to what they felt must always remain a dreary memory. After a long silence, Mrs. Ransom, with the outright courage of her womanly sense of what was for the best, did not hesitate to approach the point.

"This thing, that you told me of the other day, must be our secret. The world has no right to it. I have considered it from every point of view possible to me, and I can see no other safe or proper course. Am I right?"

Reynolds was startled by the steadiness and firmness of her voice and manner, but he clutched eagerly at the comfort of her suggestion, so like an echo of his own thought.

"I am glad to hear you say that," he replied. "I was on the point of saying it myself. Let us bury the subject forever. It is one of the inscrutable turns of fate over which we never had control. It is in the past. Let it stay there."

"I thought at first that I could not bear it, but it came to me, after the first shock, that you are the one most burdened and that I ought to help you," she responded, with an infinite tenderness in her voice. "I know you were not to blame."

"God knows how true that is, and how I love you," said he, in a husky accent, his cheeks pale with intense feeling, his eyes burning strangely.

Her face was turned somewhat from him, and as he looked at its fine profile and gentle grace of expression, he upbraided fate with unutterable rebuke because he had not been allowed to see and know her before any ill had befallen her. How little he understood the value that trouble and sorrow had added to her charms. He thought of nothing but the pathetic aspect of her experiences and the effect of her past and his upon the present and the future. He chafed under the conviction that this secret which they now held between them would never fall back among those cast aside things that form the rubbish of the past, but would stay close to them ready to come into view at any unguarded moment. In fact, would they not have to keep always this common burden well in view in order not to allow the cover to fall from it?

"Does your shoulder pain you?" she asked; but she knew that it was an older and more dangerous hurt that caused the pallor in his cheeks.

"No, it is coming along finely," he answered, with an effort at cheerfulness. "I shall be going away in a few days."

"Not so very few; you are not strong yet."

"Oh, yes, I am beginning to feel quite like myself, and my wound is almost healed."

"I shall miss you when you are gone," she said, with a little smile. "You have been my patient so long."

"Do you imagine that I can stay away? Don't you know that I will be back surprisingly soon? How can I live where you are not, Agnes?"

Just a hint of color suffused her cheeks. She dropped her eyes in a charming way, with that girlish air disclosing itself in her outlines, and yet some indefinable expression of great trouble remained.

"You will find the mountains delightful at this time of the year," she said. "The spring is very forward. The wild-flowers will be out and the mountain-slopes will be growing green."

"But there is nothing left for me up there. Moreton is gone, the Nobles are gone: it will be very lonely."

"Then why go at all? Stay with us as long as you can," she said, with all the old naïveté in her voice. "The bass-fishing is beginning, uncle says, and you and he can enjoy it together. The spring fishing is very fine here."

"That will insure my return," he said, with the first laugh. "But I shall have to go up to Birmingham and look after some affairs. They are running a coal-switch into some of my lands, and I must see to leasing some of the best veins."

"Such lands must be quite valuable. Have you a large amount?" she asked, but she could not have told why.

"I have a great many acres, but the extent of the coal deposits remains to be ascertained. I have been offered a large sum for the estate, however."

"I can't visit Birmingham any more, now that Cordelia is gone. I wish she could have staid. She is a charming friend," she said, with that inconsequence which is so apparent in written conversation, but which runs unnoticed through the oral intercourse of even the best talkers.

"A few days--a week, at furthest--will set all my things to rights," he continued. "And then, if I may, I will come back to--to try the bass with General DeKay."

It is by such bridges of straw that many a gulf is spanned; but who can successfully laugh at the structure, no matter how fragile, if it is able to serve the purpose for which it is built? Happy is he who can at will bind together or hold apart the incidents of life with the almost imperceptible gossamer threads of tact.

At the end of an hour they had managed to forget themselves somewhat, and it was with a feeling closely akin to annoyance that Mrs. Ransom read on a card brought to her by a servant--"MALLORY BERESFORD."

"Mr. Beresford has come," she said, a decided flush coming into her cheeks, "and wishes to see me. I shall have to go, I suppose. Will you return to the house now?"

"No, I will get some more air. You will come back, won't you, when he is gone?"

"Yes; that is, if he doesn't stay too long," answered she with a bright smile.

Reynolds let his eyes follow her lithe and supple form as she walked briskly toward the house. She was carrying her hat in her hand and there was a bit of bright ribbon fluttering back over one shoulder and down her back, under her dark coil of hair. Touches of the Southern, the warm, the dusky, the dreamy, filled in the spaces of the picture beyond and around and over her. The light brush of her feet, in the crisp, fallen leaves and tufts of grass, came back to him, and along with it a thrill sweeter and more mournful than any chord of the Æolian harp. He shook himself, drew his hand across his face, arose and strolled idly about under the trees.

"It is worth a great effort," he was thinking, "and I shall succeed. Life gives up its measure of happiness at last to the brave and earnest. The past shall not mold my future and hers. I will take her and go abroad. She shall forget, among the beauties and interesting changes of travel, all this foolish panorama that our imaginations have made out of the coincidents and calamities for which neither of us is to blame. Oh, we shall be happy yet!" He held his head high and his eyes flashed with mingled hope and defiance.

When he thought of Milly White he added: "I shall not forget to repay her for all her faithfulness and childish affection."

Faithfulness and childish affection! Faithfulness and childish affection! the echo went ringing away into the remotest nooks of his consciousness. For a time he struggled hard and finally he hurled memory aside to give himself wholly up to forming plans for the future. But no one is vigilant enough to keep unwelcome guests long out of the chamber of his brain. They flit in so swiftly at any chance opening. How giant strong and yet how furtive and silent they are!