Part 7

Her veins throbbed ever hotter and fiercer. Her time was come. Revenge was in her hands. What fever could be more virulent, more deadly, than the fever that dark-haired girl had set raging in her veins? What was the verse that she had read only last night to Aunt Tishy out of what the old negress called “de Holy Wud?” An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Joe Scott was not the only person she had ever heard speak of such a thing. It had simply served to recall it to her mind. Ha! ha! She had never liked Joe Scott before, and she had been very rude about those johnny-jump-ups. Poor Joe! She would thank him the very best she knew how when next she saw him. Poor Joe! good Joe! dear Joe! Yes, there it was, the pretty bassinet cradle, with its faded blue and pink ribbons. That little English baby had died full four years ago. She walked towards it, shielding the candle with one scooped hand from the playful assaults of the night wind. The cradle stood just in front of an old hair-covered chest. As she neared it, a consciousness of eyes regarding her came upon her. Ah! there they were. A rat, paralyzed for the moment by the sudden light, had paused on the edge of the old chest, and fixed her with his little, protruding, evil-looking eyes. She made a spasmodic, terrified movement with her hand, and he leaped down, his sleek, tight-skinned body striking the floor with a repulsive sound as of unsavorily nurtured corpulence. The girl turned with a strong, uncontrollable fit of shivering towards the cradle. It was rocking slowly back and forth in the uncertain light, its pink and blue ribbons fluttering with a ghostly and ill-timed gayety. A cry almost broke from between her gripped lips, but she remembered suddenly that the rat must have set it in motion when he leaped from the top of the chest. Setting the candle on the floor beside her, she stooped over and began lifting out the little sheets and blankets and bundles of linen and silk. One of those sudden noises which disturb sleep at night in an old house jarred through the room. She stuffed the things hastily back and looked behind her. Nothing there. But as her glance went round the room she saw before her, black, assertive, monstrous, the likeness of a huge cradle, cast by the candle against the whitewashed wall of the garret. Her heart beat with laboring, heavy thuds. If it were not quite so black, she thought, or if it had only been more the size of the real cradle; but its vast presence in the low-roofed room seemed like the presence of some presiding fate. She tore away her look from it by sheer force of will, found what she wanted, caught up the candle, and rushed headlong from the room.

Miss Erroll received her with the same sweet smile. “You were pretty long,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve given you a lot of trouble.”

“No, none,” said Virginia. She cleared her throat and repeated the words. They were indistinct at first, because of the dryness of her tongue and the roof of her mouth. She watched with hot, moveless eyes the slim fingers of Miss Erroll as she first crimped the curling bit of velvet between her fingers, with a deft, almost imperceptible movement, and forced the teeth of her little buckle through it.

“How damp it smells!” she said, as she lifted it to her throat to put it on; “just as if it had been stuffed away in some old attic.”

Virginia’s knees smote together. She put out her hand to steady herself, and sank heavily into a chair.

“’Taint nuthin’--’tain’t nuthin’,” she said, roughly, as Mary ran to her side. “I’m better jess so. Don’ tech me, please. An’ please ter scuse me. I kyarn’ bear no one to tech me when--when I’m like this.”

Alas! alas! Virginia, when were you ever “like this” before, in the whole course of your seventeen years of strength and health and placid, if bovine, contentment?

* * * * *

The dinner, thanks to Virginia, was a success. Roden’s wines were excellent. They were going to ask Virginia to sing for them. Roden said he thought it would please her so much. After dinner Mrs. Erroll sat down to the piano, and the sweethearts wandered off into the “greenhouse,” leaving open the door between the rooms. A rhomboid of pale yellow light from the candles on the dinner-table fell into the narrow, flower-crowded corridor, touching the great geranium-leaves into a soft distinctness, and showing here and there the flame-colored and snow-white glomes of blossom.

Roden, out of sight of Mrs. Erroll, had straightway put an arm about the supple waist of his betrothed, and one of her hands had found its way to his short curls with a movement as of long habit. As the slanting light from the room beyond caught the sheen of her delicate throat above its velvet ribbon, he bent his head and pressed down his lips upon it and upon the bit of velvet.

Virginia, by some strange coincidence or freak of fate, was at this moment crossing the lawn to put the mastiff pup into his kennel. Attracted by the unusual light in the greenhouse, she looked up. Looking up, she saw Roden as he stooped and kissed his sweetheart’s throat. She gave a fierce broken cry, like an angered beast, and turning, ran with all her might into the house.

Poor Mrs. Erroll, summoning up musical ghosts from her maidenhood’s _répertoire_ on the old piano, thought that one of Roden’s horses had gone mad and galloped through the room.

In the mean time Virginia, panting, wordless, seized Mary with one strong hand, and with the other tore off the velvet from about her neck. “I--I--I’ve read as how it was pizen; I jess remembered. Here’s yo’ buckle.”

She rushed madly out again, and flinging herself upon the bare floor of her little bedroom, beat the hard boards with her hand and dragged at her loosened hair.

VII.

There is One who hath said that to Him belongeth vengeance. When His creatures take into their incapable grasp the javelins of His wrath it is generally with as impotent and baleful a result as when young Phaëton, seeking to guide the chariot of the sun, brought to himself despair, and scorched to cinders the unoffending earth. Thus was it with Virginia. With the nearness of her unbridled love and anger she had forever seamed as if with fire the fair world of her content. It seemed to her that space itself would be too narrow to hold her apart from such women as were good and true.

Just God! could it be that her sin was to be visited upon the being whom of all the world she loved best, because of whom that sin had been committed? Was Roden going to suffer, perhaps to die, in the stead of the woman she had sought to slay? He was not often at Caryston now; most of his days were spent with his betrothed. He did not notice the change which was stealing over Herrick’s daughter. He had no time to wonder that she did not sing now at her spinning as once she had sung. He would not have paused to listen to her had she done so.

He was called away again to the North on the last of May, and on the day after his departure Aunt Tishy burst into Virginia’s room with flour-covered hands. “Gord! Gord! honey,” she said, tossing her blue-checked apron up and down with wild, savage gestures of dismay and grief, “what yuh think?--Marse Jack’s sweetheart’s dun got de rade fever, an’ dey don’ think as how she’ll live.”

Virginia stood and stared at her with eyes which saw nothing. Her face took on a ghastly greenish pallor. About her brow and mouth there stole a cold moisture. She opened her lips, and seemed to speak. Her lips framed the same words stupidly over and over again.

“Gord! honey,” cried the old negress, seizing her, as she swayed backward as if about to fall, “is yuh gwine be sick yuhsef?”

Virginia pushed her away, walked steadily over to an old oak cupboard, took out a jug of whiskey, and drank from its green glass throat as she had seen men do. The stinging liquid filled her veins with a hot, false strength. She spoke quickly now, in a harsh tone, seizing the old nurse by the shoulders, and thrusting her white face, with its lambent, distended eyes, close to that of the terrified Aunt Tishy.

“When was she took? Who tol’ yuh? Are yuh lyin’? Ef yuh’re lyin’ I’ll curse yuh with such curses yuh won’ be able to be still when yuh’re dead. But yuh wouldn’ lie tuh me, would yuh, mammy? You wouldn’ lie to me to send me tuh hell in th’ spirit ’fo’ I was called there fur good. Yuh hear me? Why didn’ yuh tell me befo’? Who’s with her? Who’s nursin’ her? Put up my clo’es. I’m goin’--I’m goin’ right now. God! Air yuh a-tryin’ to hold me? Ha! ha! That’s good--that cert’n’y is good. I’ll make father larf at that when--when I come back. Why, you pore old thing, I could throw you outer that winder ef I tried. Well, don’t cry. What a’ you cryin’ fur? God! God! God! have mercy on me!”

She fell upon her knees, wringing her hands and throwing backward her agonized face, as though with her uplooking, straining eyes she would pierce the very floor of heaven and behold that mercy for which she pleaded. Then she leaped again to her feet. All at once a calmness fell upon her. She resumed the old dull listlessness of some days past as though it had been a garment.

“I’m goin’ to Mis’ Erroll’s,” she said, quietly. “I wan’ some clo’es. Send ’em; I ain’t er-goin’ tuh wait. Tell father.”

Virginia, arrived at Windemere, went down the basement steps into the kitchen. The cook, a young mulatto woman named Lorinda, came forward to meet her on cautious, brown-yarn toes.

“Miss Mary’s a-dyin’,” she announced, in a sepulchral whisper. “De doctor seh ez how she kyarn’ live nohow. She’s jess ez rade ez a tomarker fum hade tuh foots. An’ she’s jess pintly ’stracted. Yuh never heah sich screechin’ an’ tuh-doin’ in all yuh life.”

“Kin I see Mis’ Erroll?” Virginia said, shortly. She sat down on an upturned half-barrel near the door, and leaned with her forehead in her locked palms. Lorinda, rebuffed but obliging, went to see. Virginia was not surprised when she returned shortly, followed by Mrs. Erroll herself. Her heart would never quicken its beat again for anything this side of torment, she thought. Poor, erring, repentant, suffering little savage, what are you enduring now if it be not torment?

Mrs. Erroll, nervous and hysterical, took the girl’s hands in hers, and scarcely knowing what she did, bent forward and kissed her cheek. Virginia started back with a harsh cry, which was born and died in her throat.

“Poor child!” Mrs. Erroll said, humbly. “I beg your pardon. But if you feared contagion you ought not to have come here.”

“’Tain’t that--’tain’t that,” said Virginia. “Don’ min’ me; I’m queer like sometimes. I didn’ mean nuthin’. Ev’ybordy in this neighborhood ’ll tell yo’ I’m a good nurse. I’ve come to he’p yo’. I’ve come to take kyar of her. I’ve come to _make_ her live!”

She lifted one arm with a gesture of command almost threatening. The next moment it dropped heavily to her side. The old dull look crept like a shadow over the momentary animation of her face. “They’ll tell yo’ I’m a good nurse,” she said, in her slow monotone.

Mrs. Erroll was only too thankful for the proffered services. She had no assistance from the whites in the neighborhood; indeed, all of the neighboring families had left for the Virginia Springs.

Virginia, after removing her shoes, went at once to the sick-room. As her eyes fell upon the flushed face on the pillow it was as if every drop of blood in her body turned first to fire and then to ice.

She stood with her hands against her breast and looked down at her own work. The beautiful dark tresses, formerly so smoothly braided about the small head, now ever turning from side to side as though in search of rest which it found not, were tangled and matted until no trace of their former lustre remained; the red lips, ever moving, gave forth wild, incoherent cries and mutterings.

About the slender throat coiled the wraith of a dark-blue velvet ribbon.

“Take it off, take it off,” whispered Virginia. “She kyarn’ git well while that’s there--she kyarn’.” Reason came back to her with a sudden rush, and she knew that only her mind’s eye saw the velvet ribbon.

She then took her place by the bedside, from which she did not move to eat or sleep for twelve days and nights. They brought her bouillon and made her drink it under penalty of being turned from the room. For twelve times four-and-twenty hours she listened to those senseless ravings. She was mistaken in turn by the sick girl for her mother, for some of her school-room friends, for Roden. Mary would sometimes put up both narrow, fever-wasted hands to her little throat, and cry out that she was choking--that Virginia had brought her a band of fire and locked it about her throat. By what strange coincidence such a fancy should have possessed her who shall say?

Thus they went together, those two, through the Valley of the Shadow--the all but murdered, the almost murderess--and she who had sought to slay brought back to life.

Roden, detained by some business complication in New York, heard nothing of his sweetheart’s illness until telegraphed for on the day of the crisis. It was just the balance of a mote in sunshine between life and death. Life brought the mote that won. They told him he must thank Virginia. They had all thanked her, and blessed her, with thanks and blessings which burned her guilty soul with twice the fire of red-hot maledictions. That they should bless her whom God had cursed! Ah, God, she prayed not! She would but know if God himself wept not because of the sad mockery.

A wild thought came to her with healing in its wings, as when a blade of grass forces its way between the stones in a prisoner’s cell. She had read of atonement: might she not atone?

Perhaps God would let her buy forgiveness with her life. Why had she not taken the fever; or was this fever now which rioted through her veins? She was walking homeward with her shoes slung across her shoulders. The grass felt cool and damp against her bare feet. Would it not wither where she trod? She looked backward over her shoulder with a laugh. It seemed to her that her footprints would be set as with fire across that lush June field.

Then came a curse upon her eyes. For her the earth lost all its summer green; the heavens above her bent not bluely down to meet the blue horizon. The birds ceased singing, and echoed her mirthless laugh; all nature took it up--a monstrous harmony of jovial sounds. At what were they making merry, these creatures large and small--the crickets, the wild birds, the many voices of field and forest, of air and water?

Was it at her they laughed? Did they jeer at her because she had lost her soul? Ah, for the cool green to look upon! Ah, that its blue would return to the lurid heavens! The curse of blood was upon her. Because of it she looked on all things as through a scarlet veil. Red was the vault above her; red the far-reaching line of well-loved hills; red, red, the whirling earth.

Virginia did not die. A week after her recovery she sent and asked if Roden would come to her father’s room; she wished to speak with him.

He went most willingly, having never felt as though he had sufficiently thanked her for what she had done for one who was to him as the life in his veins.

As he entered the room, in spite of all his self-control he could not restrain a slight start. Was this Virginia Herrick?--this snow maiden with eyes of fire, and tangled hair that seemed to flame about her white face as though it would consume it?--this fragile, wasted, piteous memory of a woman? She was as poor a likeness of her former self as a sketch in white chalk would be of one of Fortuny’s sunlit glares of canvas.

He came and stood beside her, wordless, and then put one of his strong brown hands kindly on her hair.

“Wait,” she said, drawing herself away from him--“wait.”

“Ah, Miss Virginia,” he said, in his breezy, gentle voice, “we will soon have you out of this. You won’t know yourself in two weeks.”

“Wait,” she said, her great eyes burning into his.

“My poor little girl,” he said, almost with tenderness, “I am afraid you have over-estimated your strength. You had better let me go now. I will come to-morrow whenever you send for me.”

“Wait,” she said a fourth time, in that strange, still voice.

He had a horrified doubt in regard to her reason as he took the chair to which she pointed and sat down facing her.

“Well,” he said, with an assumption of gayety which he was far from feeling, “what is it? Am I to be scolded for anything?”

“Do you believe in torment?” said the girl. She kept her hollow, stirless eyes on his. There was an absence of movement about her almost oppressive. She seemed not even to breathe.

“My dear child,” said Roden, nervously, “do choose a more cheerful subject. Really, you know, it isn’t good for you to be morbid now. Let’s talk of something jolly and pleasant. Don’t you want to hear how the mokes are coming along? And Bonnibel, poor old girl! I’m afraid her feelings will be awfully hurt when I tell her you didn’t ask after her.”

“I s’pose ev’ybordy bleeves in torment that has felt it,” said the girl. She had not moved in anywise. Her deep, still eyes yet rested on his face. She seemed drinking his looks with hers. “I’ve sorter come ter think as hell’s in th’ hearts o’ people,” she went on. “There ain’t no flames ez kin burn like them in people’s hearts.”

Roden jumped to his feet, and went over beside her. “Virginia,” he said, kindly but firmly, “I’m not going to let you talk like this. Good Heaven! those country quacks know as little about medicine as I do; not as much, by Jove! for I’d not have let you leave your bed for a month yet. Come, dear, let me persuade you. Go back to bed. I’ll come and see you to-morrow in your room, if your father’ll let me. You must, Virginia!”

“It ain’t no worse, do you reckon,” she went on, dully, “tuh be in hell than tuh have hell in you? I’ve thought er heap ’bout it. I’ve most answered it, but I’d rather--”

“Hush! hush!” said Roden, imperatively. He thought her delirious, and started to the door to call her nurse.

“Wait!” rang out her voice, with all its old, clear strength. She had risen to her feet. She was there before him. The light from the window behind her struck through her hair, so that she seemed standing between rows of living flame. “I want tuh tell you,” she said. “I didn’t use tuh think I was a coward, but I am--I am!” She beat the palms of her hands together, and tossed back her head as though seeking to be rid of the superflux of agony which tore her. “I kyarn’ bear to say it tuh yo’; I kyarn’ bear to hear yo’ curse me, ez I have so often hearn yo’ in my dreams. I kyarn’ bear--O God!--I kyarn’ bear fur yo’ tuh know me ez I am. O God! O God! this’ll wipe it out, won’t it? This’ll buy me peace?”

“Virginia! Virginia!” said Roden, beside himself. He tried to force her again into her chair.

“Ah! don’t touch me!” she cried out--“don’t yuh touch me, tuh hate me worse than ever when yuh know--Listen--listen hard, ’cause yuh ain’t a-goin’ to bleeve me when first yuh hear. Yuh come here tuh thank me fur savin’ her life. Listen: ’twas me ez tried to kill her--’twas me! me! me!” The last word broke from her with a wild sob, almost vindictive in its urgent violence. She seemed like one who scourges mercilessly his own flesh for its sins against his soul. “I done it--I done it. I tried ter kill her. Listen! You’ve hearn o’ fever bein’ cyar’d in bits o’ ribbon--in leetle bits o’ velvet ribbon--one, two, ten, twenty years? There was a leetle baby died here onc’t. It died o’ th’ fever _she_ liked tuh ’a’ died of. I give her that piece o’ velvet to w’ar roun’ her pretty throat. I went up intuh th’ attic, an’ hunted an’ hunted till I found it in th’ baby’s cradle. I give it to her. I tried to kill her. O my God! Do yo’ want tuh touch me--now?”

He stood and stared on her like one dazed by a sudden blow, though not quite stunned.

“You are crazy,” he said, thickly. “Poor Virginia, you are crazy.”

“O God!” she wailed. “I wisht I wuz--I wisht I wuz! Oh, ef I wuz only like them dumb beasts in th’ stables out thar! Ef I wuz only Bonnibel, then--then--then yuh wouldn’ hate me; an’ ef yuh did, I wouldn’ know.”

“You are raving,” he said again.

“Ask her--ask her, if yo’ don’ bleeve me. Ask her ’f Faginia Herrick didn’ bring her a leetle bit o’ blue velvet to w’ar round her throat the night she got wet in th’ rain. She said then it smelt damp like it had been in a attic. Ask her--ask her.”

“God in heaven!” said Roden, between his teeth, “can you be telling me the truth?”

“_He_ knows I am!--_He_ knows I am!” she said, wildly.

Roden turned from her, resting his hand on the back of the chair in which he had sat when he first entered the room. His head drooped. The double horror seemed like a palpable thing at his side.

“D’ yo’ bleeve me?” she said, with panting eagerness.

“Yes,” he said. She would not have recognized his voice had he spoken in the dark.

She waited a few moments, motionless, frozen, as it were, with suspense and dread. Then she leaned forward, and holding fast her bosom with her crossed arms in the gesture usual with her, fixed her dilating eyes upon him. Was it possible, could it be true, that after all he could not curse her? Nay, dear God! was he even going to forgive her?

“Say something,” she said, in a bated voice--“say somethin’. Jess so you don’ curse me, say somethin’.”

Still he spoke not. She fell upon her knees and laid her head upon his feet. “O my God! my God!” she sobbed, “air yuh goin’ tuh furgive me?”

Then he spoke to her. “Forgive you?” he repeated--“forgive you?” He laughed a short, rough laugh. “By G--!” he said, turning away from her, so that her forehead rested on the bare floor instead of on his feet, “it’s all I can do not to curse you!”

When she rose again to her knees she was alone in the darkening room.

VIII.

Roden did not return to Caryston that night, nor the next day, nor the day after that. A boy was sent from Windemere to bring over some of his boxes. On Monday of the next week he went with the Errolls to Old Point Comfort, where Mary had been ordered to stop during her convalescence.

As much as he despised Virginia for her confession, that pathetic, joyous cry of hers as she thought him about to forgive her would sometimes ring in his ears; her deep, still, pleading look, as of some dumb beast, for mercy haunted him at times. He could feel her forehead on his feet, and the eager grasp of her hands upon them. It was not pleasant, all this; for while it annoyed and even pained him, he could not say honestly to himself that he felt any disposition to forgive her. Forgiveness is no doubt divine. Roden was quite sure that it was an attribute which, like happiness, belonged solely to the gods. As for himself, he was distinctly, vehemently, entirely human. He did not forgive--almost he did not wish to feel forgiveness. What! forgive a creature who had sought to murder his manhood’s one love? Verily he would be no better than herself did he so much as dream of pardon. Between her and her God must rest that question. He would none of it. And yet why did that earnest, wistful voice, so thrilling with a timid exultation, come ever to his mental ears: “O my God! my God! air you goin’ ter furgive me?” Pshaw! what balderdash! He had not cursed her. Let her comfort herself with that. He did not know many other men who would have been as forbearing. And yet again--those hands about his feet, that huddled form prone before him in humblest entreaty! It made him irritable at times. He was conscious of having acted with perfect justness, and yet he felt that his justness had not been tempered with overmuch mercy.