Part 16

At the agony in the poor creature's eyes Rosamund forgot all her own. "No," she cried, almost aloud. Their lowered voices in the silence of the house seemed to add to the horror of it. "No, I do not know, and neither do you! Don't say it, Grace. Don't think it. Grace! Oh, my poor, dear Grace!"

But Grace shook her head impatiently, as if it were not the time for sympathy. She clasped Rosamund's two hands, looked at her intently, and said, "Miss Rose, I tell you I don't have to think; I know!"

Rosamund gasped, but Grace went on. "I saw him from my window, an' Rob Tobet and Nels' Dunn were with him. They were skulkin' in the shadow, but I made 'em out. It was the first time I'd seen Joe, since--the first time, and to see him that a way!"

"Grace!" Rosamund cried. Grace might have held her hand in a flame, and seemed to suffer less. Rosamund thought it was more than she could bear to witness. But Grace went on ruthlessly,

"They were watchin' and watchin' the house; an' after a while I saw Joe wavin' his arms at the other two, an' then they went off. It wasn't very long after that--maybe half an hour or so--that I smelled smoke. An', Miss Rose, when we got down an' out, I saw what nobody else seemed to take any notice of--I saw three corners of the house all blazin' up at the same time."

Rosamund had drawn her down to the side of the bed; now Grace paused, grasped Rosamund's hand, bent towards her, and whispered, hoarsely,

"Miss Rose, houses don't catch on fire that a way less'n somebody sets 'em!"

They looked at each other mutely for what seemed an eternity, sharing and accepting the horrid significance of it. At last Rosamund, shaking off the spell with a sharp indrawing of the breath, drew Grace to her, held her, everything else forgotten save that here was an agony greater than her own.

For a long hour they sat there talking, planning. Grace was torn between her sense of righteousness and her love for Joe, fanned anew as it was by his present need of her protection.

"I thought I had stopped carin' for him," she whispered. "But this--this ain't like the--other thing--you know what I mean. That didn't hurt anybody but himself, and it wasn't anybody else's business, not the Gov'ment's nor anybody's. But this is different. They--they hang for this, I reckon!"

Rosamund shuddered. "Grace, no one must know of it! No one must know!"

"I heard Pap Cary say they was to be an inquiry."

"It is my house. I can stop anything of that sort. I have no insurance on it, and there will be no one to press the inquiry if I don't. No one must know, Grace."

For a moment Grace looked at her. Then she said, "But what if--_he_ dies?"

Rosamund had forgotten her own anxiety in Grace's. Now, with a little moan of pain, she hid her face in her hands.

"That's the way," Grace whispered, hopelessly. "You're bound to see it different, when it's your own man."

They sat in silence for a while, each so occupied with thoughts of her own love as to forget all else. Presently Grace stood up, as if to admit that there was nothing further to be said. "Well," she sighed hopelessly.

But Rosamund stood up, too, and laid her hands on Grace's shoulders.

"No matter what happens, Grace, nobody must know that Joe was so much as seen near there."

"But supposin' Doctor Ogilvie----?"

"Not even then," Rosamund said, with white, trembling lips. "He has given all his thought to saving life. Do you think he would want--? No!"

But Grace shook her head. "I think Mis' Reeves suspicions," she said.

"She does," Rosamund said, "and she has already been warning me against the investigation. I know she wants to shield Joe."

But Grace's conscience was made all the keener by her reawakened love. "Well, I'm goin' to tell Ma Cary," she said. "She knows more'n all of us put together."

They stopped at Eleanor's door, and the three found Mother Cary alone in the room that was kitchen and dining-room and confessional, as need arose. Pap had gone back to the doctor's house, too anxious to remain away.

Mother Cary heard all Grace had to tell, asked a few questions of her and Eleanor, then sat with her worn old hands clasped in her lap, thinking it over. Grace's attitude was one of hopeless waiting. Rosamund watched her, pitying; grief brings no outward beauty to the lowly, she thought, yet much--how much--of that beauty of soul which perishes not!

At last Mother Cary spoke. "Miss Rose is right," she said, looking at Grace. "Nobody must know what we know 'ceptin' jest our own selves. I wouldn't even say a word of it to Pap; 'cause the better men folks be, the more they hold on to the letter o' the law. An' fur as I can make out, this here is one o' the times when the letter o' the law is better forgotten. Tellin' on Joe ain't goin' to help Doctor Ogilvie any, that I can see, nor anybody else; an' there's jest a chanct that keepin' silence may help Joe."

"But Joe did it," Grace said. "I reckon he's man enough to take his punishment."

"I reckon he is," Mother Cary agreed. "He's a-takin' it right this minute, too, knowing what his act has done to the doctor. I sure do believe that's all the punishmint Joe needs. The other kind would be different, 'cause what he's done is done. I ain't never had time to puzzle out the whys an' whyfors o' lots o' things, punishmint among 'em; but one thing I know, an' have known ever sence the dear Lord entrusted me with little child'en o' my own. When punishmint is jest hittin' back, it don't do anybody a mite o' good. Less'n it helps 'em not to do it again, it ain't any use whatsoever. Better jest leave it in the hands o' the dear Lord, Who sees further'n we can, ef you ain't sure it's goin' to help, not hender. An' tellin' on Joe ain't goin' to help the doctor nor Joe neither, 'cause Joe ain't the kind that punishmint helps."

Again there was a silence, until Grace moved a little, unclasped and clasped her hands, and spoke. "I must go back to my own house," she said.

Rosamund, startled, was about to protest, but Mother Cary nodded. "Of course," she said, "he'll be needin' you awful bad now, honey."

And in spite of Rosamund's pleading, Grace refused Eleanor's offer to go with her, and took her way, alone, through the night, down the mountain, to her dark, lonely little house. Afterward, Rosamund often marveled at Mother Cary's allowing it, even urging it, for usually she was the gentlest of souls, protecting everyone, careful of everyone's comfort; and surely Grace was now in no condition to go.

But no more than Grace herself did Mother Cary hesitate. She hobbled about the kitchen, packing a little basket of food; she had Eleanor bring in one of Pap's lanterns, and lighted it; she bade Rosamund make Grace some tea, and forced the trembling creature to drink it; and at last she opened the door for her.

Grace started out, but came back into the room to kiss them, and they saw that she was smiling; it had been long since poor Grace had smiled!

"I'll go up to my chamber and wave the lantern when I get there, ef all's well," she told them. "An' I can always see your light, Ma Cary!"

They watched, standing shivering in the doorway, until her lantern disappeared at the bend of the road. Tim, aroused by their voices, cried out, and Eleanor went to him.

Mother Cary and Rosamund began to straighten the room, putting away the boxes and pails that had been opened for Grace's basket. Rosamund was so intent on her thoughts that she would not have noticed that her own cheeks were wet, if she had not seen Mother Cary's eyes brimming with tears. After a while she cried,

"Oh, I don't see how she can walk that far, and at night, too! Why wouldn't you let her wait for Pa Cary?"

The old woman shook her head. "Honey," she said, "ef all is as I make it out to be, Grace won't go all that way alone and un'tended. The woods around here have years an' eyes, an' ef her foot stumbles, there'll be someone there to hold her up, you mark my words."

"Oh, she is not strong enough!" the girl still protested.

Then Mother Cary leaned towards her, took the white hand in both her own, and asked, "Honey, ef 'twas _your_ man, wouldn't _you_ go?"

Rosamund threw back her head with a sob, and Mother Cary opened her arms.

XXII

Fortunately for Rosamund the succeeding days were so busy that she had but little time to be alone with her thoughts of Ogilvie. The morning after Grace's departure, Father Cary had come home with disquieting news. Pneumonia had set in; but Doctor Blake would stay at the Summit until the crisis was passed, and he had sent for another nurse--the one who was at the head of his own private hospital, Pap proudly told Rosamund in a pitying attempt at reassuring her.

She had, first of all, to make some arrangement for Yetta. Cecilia rose to the occasion and found the suitable governess, who proved to be an elderly woman to whom Yetta took an immediate liking. Miss Gates had been something of a singer in her day, and she had a family of nieces and nephews that she was helping to bring up, all of whom were musical. She took Yetta with her to stay at their house until other plans could be made. Cecilia had, indeed, shown energy and good judgment, and something more; she sailed for the Mediterranean to join the Whartons at Algiers only after she saw Yetta installed in the Gates home--having been so good-natured as to let the yacht go without her in order to do so.

Matt and Aunt Sue were sent back to Georgia. Secretly they were quite reconciled to going, for they were to stop in Baltimore and replace their burned wardrobes with entire new ones, with which they looked forward to dazzling their friends in Augusta; but Sue felt obliged to use the prerogative of the negro servant to make a grumbling protest.

"I suttinly wouldn't 'a' journeyed 'way up to dis yer Gord-fo'saken corner ob de yearth," she declared to Rosamund, "whar dey ain't nothin' but a passel o' Yankee white trash, ef I had 'a' known I was a goin' to see my best Paisley shawl what Miss Lucy done give me when she was ma'ied bu'nt up wid flames befo' my ve'y eyes. Et don' do nobody no good traipsin' aroun' dis yer way, nohow. You better come along back home wid yer Aunt Susan, whar you b'longs at, chile."

After they left, the routine of life was simple enough; yet the days were laden with what anxiety, what care, what fears, and trembling hopes! Yet living as she was on news from the doctor's house, Rosamund was not altogether oblivious of what was passing in the hearts of her friends. She went every morning to the Tobet cottage, sometimes with Eleanor, sometimes alone. For several days Grace watched and waited for one who did not come. But at last Rosamund made a suggestion, which in a day or two brought its return.

"You know the little boy who brought that note to us at the brown house, last fall," she said to Grace. "Why not give him a note to Joe?"

"What to say?" Grace asked.

"That whatever happens, no one shall suspect him. Tell him you have my word, and Mother Cary's, for that."

"I'd be afraid to write words like those," Grace said. "They might go to the wrong one--and then no need to tell!"

"Then say them over to the boy, and make him remember them," said Rosamund; and that was the advice which Grace, in the desperate necessity of her heart, followed. A few mornings afterward, when Rosamund came in sight of the cottage, Joe was leaning against the door. He went inside when he saw her, and Rosamund turned back. She told herself that in Grace's place she would want no visitors for a while.

But she had not gone far before Grace came hastening after her. She threw her arms about Rosamund's neck.

"I got my man back," she whispered. "I'm prayin' every minute to the good Lord, Miss Rose, that you'll get yours back, too, all safe an' sound."

But the secret of Eleanor's heart was not so readily disclosed, although Rosamund suspected, from the number of telegrams and letters that were coming, and from Eleanor's frequent look of abstraction, that she was beginning to have a good deal to think about. But how far matters had progressed, she did not suspect; for Eleanor's heart was troubled as it had never been, and she would not add to Rosamund's burden of care by confiding her own.

That she was suffering could not escape the keen eyes of Mother Cary, however.

"Ain't you troubled about somethin', dearie?" the old woman asked, one day when Rosamund and Tim were out of doors, and dinner was cooking, and they two were alone.

Eleanor looked at her dumbly; a quiver passed over her face, seeming to leave it whiter than ever.

"Land!" said Mother Cary. "Don't look that a way, honey! No wonder little Timmy used to call you 'White Lady'!"

She seated herself in the little chair with the legs that Father Cary had sawed off to suit her, and drew another up beside it.

"Now you come set down here by your Ma Cary, lamb, an' tell me what's the matter."

Eleanor seated herself, and put her hand on the old woman's lap.

"I am in trouble, Mother Cary," she said. "But it cannot do any good to talk about it."

"Well, it cert'n'y don't do one mite o' good to let it eat in, dearie. It don't make you die any sooner, much as you'd like to sometimes, when trouble is real bad; it don't make you forget; nor it don't show you any way out. It jest makes the way seem longer."

"That is true," Eleanor said. Then she pondered for a while. Presently she asked, "Do you remember Mr. Flood, Mother Cary?"

"The rich gentleman that run over Timmy? Yes, lamb, I always remember them I like."

Eleanor smiled. "He did run over Timmy, didn't he? Or run into him! So indirectly I owe him my precious baby!"

"And now he wants you to pay him?" the old woman asked.

"Put it that way!" Eleanor replied. "But I cannot pay him, Mother Cary--not as he wants me to! I--I may become blind, some day."

Mother Cary's hand tightened over hers. "Ain't your poor eyes any better?" she asked.

"Yes. Oh, yes, they are better. But I am afraid. Think of burdening a man with a blind wife! And--and he is such a splendid man, Mother Cary! He deserves the very best."

"I ain't doubtin' it. He's John Ogilvie's friend, and that's enough to satisfy me that he's worth a good deal."

They sat in silence for a while; then Mother Cary said, "Darlin', I'm a-goin' to tell you a little story. I ain't takin' it on me to advise you; but I jest want to tell you how, though you wouldn't guess it, maybe, I was once in the same kind of a shadder you be in now."

"Do tell me," Eleanor said.

"Well, when I was a little girl, lamb, I fell an' hurt my back, an' when I got better, two or three years afterward, I couldn't do nothin' but scrabble aroun', not even as good as I can now. An' I growed all crooked. It didn't make much difference for a while, I was that glad to be movin' at all. But as I growed up an' the other girls began to go places, an' I couldn't an' wasn't asked to, it did seem to me I jest couldn't live at all. There wasn't anythin' to look for'ard to. Then my father died, an' I went into the tin shop.

"It wasn't nice work, an' the big machines like to scared me to death at first, 'n I got cut, 'n once one o' the girls near me got some of her fingers cut off. In winter I had to go before light in the mornin' an' stay workin' till long after dark. Then I had sech a cough, an' one spring I had to quit work. The doctor, he asked me if I hadn't any kin in the country, an' I not knowin' what he was aimin' at told him I didn't know o' none 'xcept Ma's own aunt 't I'd never seen nor wrote to.

"Unbeknownst to me the doctor he wrote up here an' found out 't Aunt Marthy was a-keepin' house for her husband's nephew, an' she wrote back 't I was to come up an' spend the summer in the mountains. I cried at first, for I hadn't ever seen the country an' I didn't know Aunt Marthy, an' I was jest afeared to come. But the doctor he put me on the train, an' when I got to the station over there it was most dark--'bout as dark as it is now, I guess. There was a man on the platform, 'n I thought he was the biggest man I'd ever seen. When he come up to me he said, 'Why, you _are_ a little mite! Guess they haven't been feedin' you much where you come from.' He had a big quilt in the wagon, an' he jest wrapped me all up in it an' lifted me in like I was a baby. I was that tired an' scared, an' I hadn't ever been taken keer of before, an' I jest up an' cried. He didn't ask me what was the matter, but he jest laughed at me an' made fun o' me, an' said if I acted like a baby he'd treat me like one, 'n he patted my hand, 'n tucked me all up, 'n talked to me all the way home. When Aunt Marthy met us at the door an' he carried me in the house in his arms, he said to her, 'Well, now, Aunt Marthy,' he said, 'we've jest got a baby to keer for, an' I'm a-goin' to help you do it.' An', honey, there hasn't been a day sence then that he hasn't taken keer o' me.

"There never was a summer like that one; seems like I never had been alive before. I never knew before how spring come, but I found out that year, Jim showin' me the first bluebirds an' bringin' in flowers. I jest thought he was next to God A'mighty, honey, an' I never once give a thought to me bein' a woman an' he bein' a man. I hadn't never had none o' the good times girls have, an' I guess I had come to forget I was a girl. By the time end o' summer come, Jim had gotten in the way o' carryin' me out with him everywheres, out to the barn, out to the wood-lot, out to the fields where he was a-workin'. I had grown strong enough to get aroun' like I do now, but Jim jest carried me 'roun' like he'd done that first night, an' Aunt Marthy 'n he wouldn't let me do a mite o' work.

"Then, when I'd got real well, I said somethin' one night about goin' back to the factory. We was at supper, an' Jim he jest put down his knife an' looked at me a minute. Aunt Marthy reached over an' put her hand over his, an' then he got up an' went out. I was that scared, not knowin' what I'd done, an' Aunt Marthy told me I'd better go out an' find him.

"So I up an' followed him, an' he was a-standin' outside, lookin' so big against that yaller sky, an' straight an' tall with his arms folded on his chest, a-frownin', with his lips drawn in like he does when somethin's upset him right smart.

"I touched him on the arm an' said, 'Jim!' an' with that he turned him right aroun' quick.

"An' then, after a bit, he set me down an' held on to my hands, an' told me how he wasn't goin' to let me go back to the city any more, 'n how it was goin' to be. I told him I wasn't fit for him, bein' crooked, an' he jest laughed at me an' fixed it all his way, 'n called Aunt Marthy out 'n told her. She laughed at him an' told him he was more of a baby 'n I ever was. He always was that bright an' willful, an' he didn't give me a chance to say anything. But the more he talked, the more I found I loved him, an' the more I loved him the harder I made up my mind 't he shouldn't tie himself to a cripple.

"So that night when they was asleep, I got up an' took the money I had for my ticket home, an' I started to walk to the station. You know how far that is. By time mornin' come I wasn't halfway. I went into an old barn an' hid all day. I heard 'em callin' me, an' I saw Jim go by on horseback, an' other men, too, huntin' for me.

"Lat the nex' night I started for the station again, an' I got there jest about daybreak, thinkin' I'd be in time for the early mornin' train. When I got up on the platform, there was Jim a-waitin'! Course I jest set right down an' cried, but Jim he made me understand what he'd been through while I was hid, an' talked to me so right then and there that I never once after that doubted in my mind but what it would be right for me to marry him. An' honey, I haven't ever had reason to doubt it since. I scarcely ever remember bein' a cripple, 'xcept when I do get good an' mad sometimes at not bein' able to get aroun' as spry as other folks. Sometimes I think it's been a real comfort to Jim, an' better 't I was so.

"There's some folks as can't be happy 'nless they're doin' for somebody else; an' when it happens to be a man, an' he can do for what's his own, he's boun' to be a good deal better off than ef he had to go a-huntin' for somethin' to take up his mind. It grows on 'em, too. I don't ever regret bein' a cripple; my bein' helpless has been sech an occupation for Jim!"

The door had opened while she was saying the last words, and Timmy burst in, joyous and cold, to climb into Eleanor's lap and begin to pour forth an account of the mild adventures of his walk. But Eleanor, taking off his coat and leggings, hushed him. Mother Cary looked up at Rosamund and smiled.

"So you and Timmy had a fine walk, did ye? Well, I'm real glad. It'll do you good to get out, honey-bud. I was jest tellin' Mis' Reeves how-come Pap and me got married!"

"I'm goin' to get married to my muvver when I grows up," said Tim.

Rosamund smiled back at Mother Cary; but her smiles had lost their old merriment. The old woman went on:

"I was jest a-sayin' how Pap built this house for me jest like I wanted it, an' we come into it when we were married. Aunt Marthy lived here with us tell she died. Pap's made my flower beds every spring, an' I've planted the seeds. Seems like it's been that a way in everything. Pap does most o' the work, but I never get a chance to forget how glad he is 't I'm here. Whensoever he comes in all worned out, he always knows where to find me, me not bein' able to get far away; 'n I've never seen the time 't he didn't feel fresh an' strong again after he'd set an' talked a spell, an' had a bite o' somethin' I'd fixed for him. I ain't never been afeared to show him how much I loved him. When the children was little 'an toddlin' aroun', they'd run to meet him an' hang aroun' him, but he always looked over their heads to me first. When John was married an' went away, an' I felt so bad, Pap jest used to laugh at me; an' when Lizzie got married, too, an' went off with her husband, Pap jest said he'd have me all to himself again. The time when the child'en were little was best to me, but I know the best time to Pap is whenever he can find somethin' to be a-doin' for me."

The sweetness of her words seemed to fall on them all like a blessing; for a while no one spoke; but to Rosamund, watching Eleanor, it seemed as if the lovely face were slowly melting from its usual sadness to a rosy glow. As she looked, Eleanor put the child down from her lap and knelt before Rosamund.

"Rose, my sweet," she said, her voice a song of love and tenderness, "would you think me deserting you, if I went to New York to-morrow?"

Rosamund half divined something of her meaning; she took Eleanor's face between her palms, looking into the eyes that were glowing as she had never seen them.

"Eleanor!" she cried.

Mother Cary gave a low laugh of delight. "Here, Timmy," she said, "you come with Ma Cary an' see what I got in the pantry!"

XXIII