"Do you think Alan is hoping for it?"
"Aren't you every one except Cousin Charles? Robert told me just now that Virginia is beginning to boil over. He believes the country will force the President's hand. Oh, I wonder if the world will ever be sane and safe again?"
He was watching her so closely that he appeared to be drinking in the sound of her voice and the sight of her loveliness; yet never for an instant did he lose the feeling that she was as ephemeral as a tinted cloud or a perfume.
"Angelica," he said abruptly, "Mary has just told me that she has broken her engagement to Alan."
Tiny sparks leaped to her eyes. "Well, I suppose they wouldn't have been happy together——"
"Do you know why she did it?"
"Do I know why?" She looked at him inquiringly. "How could I know? She has not told me."
"Has Alan said anything to you about it?"
"Why, yes, he told me that she had broken it."
"And did he tell you why?"
She was becoming irritated by the cross examination. "No, why should he tell me? It is their affair, isn't it? Now, if that is all, I must go. Alan has brought the first act of a new play, and he wants my opinion."
The finishing thrust was like her, for she could be bold enough when she was sure of her weapons. Even now, though he knew her selfishness, it was incredible to him that she should be capable of destroying Mary's happiness when she could gain nothing by doing it. Of course if there were some advantage——
"Alan can wait," he said bluntly. "Angelica, can't you see that this has gone too far, this nonsense of Alan's?"
"This nonsense?" She raised her eyebrows. "Do you call his plays nonsense?"
"I call his plays humbug. What must stop is his folly about you. When Mary goes, you must send him away."
Her smile was like the sharp edge of a knife. "So it is Alan now? It was poor Roane only yesterday."
"It is poor Roane to-day as much as it ever was. But Alan must stop coming here."
"And why, if I may ask?"
"You cannot have understood, or you would have stopped it."
"I should have stopped what?"
He met her squarely. "Alan's infatuation—for he is infatuated, isn't he?"
"Do you mean with me?" Her indignant surprise almost convinced him of her ignorance. "Who has told you that?"
She was holding a muff of silver fox, and she gazed down at it, stroking the fur gently, while she waited for him to answer. He noticed that her long slender fingers—she had the hand as well as the figure of one of Botticelli's Graces—were perfectly steady.
"That was the reason that Mary broke her engagement," he responded.
"Did she tell you that?"
"Yes, she told me. She said she knew that you had not meant it—that Alan had lost his head——"
Her voice broke in suddenly with a gasp of outraged amazement. "And you ask me to send Alan away because you are jealous? You ask me this—after—after——" Her attitude of indignant virtue was so impressive that, for a moment, he found himself wondering if he had wronged her—if he had actually misunderstood and neglected her?
"You must see for yourself, Angelica, that this cannot go on."
"You dare to turn on me like this!" She cried out so clearly that he started and looked at the door in apprehension. "You dare to accuse me of ruining Mary's happiness—after all I have suffered—after all I have stood from you——"
As her voice rose in its piercing sweetness, it occurred to him for the first time that she might wish to be overheard, that she might be making this scene less for his personal benefit than for its effect upon an invisibleaudience. It was the only time he had ever known her to sacrifice her inherent fastidiousness, and descend to vulgar methods of warfare, and he was keen enough to infer that the prize must be tremendous to compensate for so evident a humiliation.
"I accuse you of nothing," he said, lowering his tone in the effort to reduce hers to a conversational level. "For your own sake, I ask you to be careful."
But he had unchained the lightning, and it flashed out to destroy him. "You dare to say this to me—you who refused to send Miss Meade away though I begged you to——"
"To send Miss Meade away?" The attack was so unexpected that he wavered before it. "What has Miss Meade to do with it?"
"You refused to send her away. You positively refused when I asked you."
"Yes, I refused. But Miss Meade is Letty's nurse. What has she to do with Mary and Alan?"
"Oh, are you still trying to deceive me?" For an instant he thought she was going to burst into tears. "You knew you were spending too much time in the nursery—that you went when Cousin Matty was not there—Alan heard you admit it—you knew that I wanted to stop it, and you refused—you insisted——"
But his anger had overpowered him now, and he caught her arm roughly in a passionate desire to silence the hideous sound of her words, to thrust back the horror that she was spreading on the air—out into the world and the daylight.
"Stop, Angelica, or——"
Suddenly, without warning, she shrieked aloud, a shriek that seemed to his ears to pierce, not only theceiling, but the very roof of the house. As he stood there, still helplessly holding her arm, which had grown limp in his grasp, he became aware that the door opened quickly and Alan came into the room.
"I heard a cry—I thought——"
Angelica's eyes were closed, but at the sound of Alan's voice, she raised her lids and looked at him with a frightened and pleading gaze.
"I cried out. I am sorry," she said meekly. Without glancing at Blackburn, she straightened herself, and walked, with short, wavering steps, out of the room.
For a minute the two men faced each other in silence; then Alan made an impetuous gesture of indignation and followed Angelica.
"Looks as if we were going to war, Blackburn." It was the beginning of April, and Robert Colfax had stopped on the steps of his club.
"It has looked that way for the last thirty-two months."
"Well, beware the anger—or isn't it the fury?—of the patient man. It has to come at last. We've been growling too long not to spring—and my only regret is that, as long as we're going to war, we didn't go soon enough to get into the fight. I'd like to have had a chance at potting a German. Every man in town is feeling like that to-day."
"You think it will be over before we get an army to France?"
"I haven't a doubt of it. It will be nothing more than a paper war to a finish."
A good many Virginians were thinking that way. Blackburn was not sure that he hadn't thought that way himself for the last two or three months. Everywhere he heard regrets that it was too late to have a share in the actual whipping of Germany—that we were only going to fight a decorous and inglorious war on paper. Suddenly, in a night, as it were, the war spirit in Virginia had flared out. There was not the emotional blaze—the flaming heat—older men said—of the Confederacy; but there was an ever-burning, insistent determinationto destroy the roots of this evil black flower of Prussian autocracy. There was no hatred of Austria—little even of Turkey. The Prussian spirit was the foe of America and of the world; and it was against the Prussian spirit that the militant soul of Virginia was springing to arms. Men who had talked peace a few months before—who had commended the nation that was "too proud to fight," who had voted for the President because of the slogan "he kept us out of war"—had now swung round dramatically with thevolte-faceof the Government. The President had at last committed himself to a war policy, and all over the world Americans were awaiting the great word from Congress. In an hour personal interests had dissolved into an impersonal passion of service. In an hour opposing currents of thought had flowed into a single dominant purpose, and the President, who had once stood for a party, stood now for America.
For, in a broader vision, the spirit of Virginia was the spirit of all America. There were many, it is true, who had not, in the current phrase, begun to realize what war would mean to them; there were many who still doubted, or were indifferent, because the battle had not been fought at their doorstep; but as a whole the country stood determined, quiet, armed in righteousness, and waited for the great word from Congress.
And over the whole country, from North to South, from East to West, the one question never asked was, "What will America get out of it when it is over?"
"By Jove, if we do get into any actual fighting, I mean to go," said Robert, "I am not yet thirty."
Blackburn looked at him enviously. "It's rotten onus middle-aged fellows. Isn't there a hole of some sort a man of forty-three can stop up?"
"Of course they've come to more than that in England."
"We may come to it here if the war keeps up—but that isn't likely."
"No, that isn't likely unless Congress dies talking. Why, for God's sake, can't we strangle the pacifists for once? Nobody would grieve for them."
"Oh, if liberty isn't for fools, it isn't liberty. I suppose the supreme test of our civilization, is that we let people go on talking when we don't agree with them."
It was, in reality, only a few days that Congress was taking to define and emphasize the President's policy, but these days were interminable to a nation that waited. Talk was ruining the country, people said. Thirty-two months of talking were enough even for an American Congress. It was as much as a man's reputation was worth to vote against the war; it was more than it was worth to give his reasons for so voting. There was tension everywhere, yet there was a strange muffled quiet—the quiet before the storm.
"We are too late for the fun," said Robert. "Germany will back down as soon as she sees we are in earnest." This was what every one was saying, and Blackburn heard it again when he left Colfax and went into the club.
"The pity is we shan't have time to get a man over to France. It's all up to the navy."
"The British navy, you mean? Where'd we be now but for the British navy?"
"Well, thank God, the note writing is over!"
There was determination enough; but the older men were right—there was none of the flame and ardour of secession days. The war was realized vaguely as a principle rather than as a fact. It was the difference between fighting for abstract justice and knocking down a man in hot blood because he has affronted one's wife. The will to strike was all there, only one did not see red when one delivered the blow. Righteous indignation, not personal rage, was in the mind of America.
"We aren't mad yet," remarked an old Confederate soldier to Blackburn. "Just wait till they get us as mad as we were at Manassas, and we'll show the Germans!"
"You mean wait until they drop bombs on New York instead of London?"
"Good Lord, no. Just wait until our boys have seen, not read, about the things they are doing."
So there were a few who expected an American army to reach France before the end of the war.
"Never mind about taxes. We must whip the Huns, and we can afford to pay the bills!"
For here as elsewhere the one question never asked was, "What are we going to get out of it?"
Prosperity was after all a secondary interest. Underneath was the permanent idealism of the American mind.
When Blackburn reached Briarlay, he found Letty and Caroline walking under the budding trees in the lane, and stopping his car, he got out and strolled slowly back with them to the house. The shimmer and fragrance of spring was in the air, and on the ground crowds of golden crocuses were unfolding.
"Father, will you go to war if Uncle Roane does?" asked Letty, as she slipped her hand into Blackburn'sand looked up, with her thoughtful child's eyes, into his face. "Uncle Roane says he is going to whip the Germans for me."
"I'll go, if they'll take me, Letty. Your Uncle Roane is ten years younger than I am." At the moment the war appeared to him, as it had appeared to Mary, as the open door—the way of escape from an intolerable situation; but he put this idea resolutely out of his mind. There was a moral cowardice in using impersonal issues as an excuse for the evasion of personal responsibility.
"But you could fight better than he could, father."
"I am inclined to agree with you. Perhaps the Government will think that way soon."
"Alan is going, too. Mother begged him not to, but he said he just had to go. Mammy Riah says the feeling is in his bones, and he can't help it. When a feeling gets into your bones you have to do what it tells you."
"It looks as if Mammy Riah knew something about it."
"But if you go and Alan goes and Uncle Roane goes, what will become of mother?"
"You will have to take care of her, Letty, you and Miss Meade."
Caroline, who had been walking in silence on the other side of the road, turned her head at the words. She was wearing a blue serge suit and a close-fitting hat of blue straw, and her eyes were as fresh and spring-like as the April sky.
"There is no doubt about war, is there?" she asked.
"It may come at any hour. Whether it will mean an American army in France or not, no one can say; but we shall have to furnish munitions, if not men, as fast as we can turn them out."
"Mr. Peyton said this morning it would be impossible to send men because we hadn't the ships."
Blackburn laughed. "Then, if necessary, we will do the impossible." It was the voice of America. Everywhere at that hour men were saying, "We will do the impossible."
"I should like to go," said Caroline. "I should like above all things to go."
They had stopped in the road, and still holding Letty's hand, he looked over her head at Caroline's face. "Miss Meade, will you make me a promise?"
Clear and radiant and earnest, her eyes held his gaze. "Unconditionally?"
"No, the conditions I leave to you. Will you promise?"
"I will promise." She had not lowered her eyes, and he had not looked away from her. Her face was pale, and in the fading sunlight he could see the little blue veins on her temples and the look of stern sweetness that sorrow had chiselled about her mouth. More than ever it seemed to him the face of a strong and fervent spirit rather than the face of a woman. So elusive was her beauty that he could say of no single feature, except her eyes, "Her charm lies here—or here——" yet the impression she gave him was one of magical loveliness. There was, he thought, a touch of the divine in her smile, as if her look drew its radiance from an inexhaustible source.
"Will you promise me," he said, "that whatever happens, as long as it is possible, you will stay with Letty?"
She waited a moment before she answered him, and he knew from her face that his words had touched thedepths of her heart. "I promise you that for Letty's sake I will do the impossible," she answered.
She gave him her hand, and he clasped it over the head of the child. It was one of those rare moments of perfect understanding and sympathy—of a mental harmony beside which all emotional rapture appears trivial and commonplace. He was aware of no appeal to his senses—life had taught him the futility of all purely physical charm—and the hand that touched Caroline's was as gentle and as firm as it had been when it rested on Letty's head. Here was a woman who had met life and conquered it, who could be trusted, he felt, to fight to the death to keep her spirit inviolate.
"Only one thing will take me away from Letty," she said. "If we send an army and the country calls me."
"That one thing is the only thing?"
"The only thing unless," she laughed as if she were suggesting an incredible event, "unless you or Mrs. Blackburn should send me away!"
To her surprise the ridiculous jest confused him. "Take care of Letty," he responded quickly; and then, as they reached the porch, he dropped the child's hand, and went up the steps and into the house.
In the library, by one of the windows which looked out on the terrace and the sunset, Colonel Ashburton was reading the afternoon paper, and as Blackburn entered, he rose and came over to the fireplace.
"I was a little ahead of you, so I made myself at home, as you see," he observed, with his manner of antiquated formality. In the dim light his hair made a silvery halo above his blanched features, and it occurred to Blackburnthat he had never seen him look quite so distinguished and detached from his age.
"If I'd known you were coming, I should have arranged to get here earlier."
"I didn't know it myself until it was too late to telephone you at the works." There was an unnatural constraint in his voice, and from the moment of his entrance, Blackburn had surmised that the Colonel's visit was not a casual one. The war news might have brought him; but it was not likely that he would have found the war news either disconcerting or embarrassing.
"The news is good, isn't it?" inquired Blackburn, a little stiffly, because he could think of nothing else to say.
"First rate. There isn't a doubt but we'll whip the Germans before autumn. It wasn't about the war, however, that I came."
"There is something else then?"
Before he replied Colonel Ashburton looked up gravely at the portrait of Blackburn's mother which hung over the mantelpiece. "Very like her, very like her," he remarked. "She was a few years older than I—but I'm getting on now—I'm getting on. That's the worst of being born between great issues. I was too young for the last war—just managed to be in one big battle before Lee surrendered—and I'm too old for this one. A peace Colonel doesn't amount to much, does he?" Then he looked sharply at Blackburn. "David," he asked in a curiously inanimate voice, "have you heard the things people are saying about you?"
"I have heard nothing except what has been said to my face."
"Then I may assume that the worst is still to be told you?"
"You may safely assume that, I think."
Again the Colonel's eyes were lifted to the portrait of Blackburn's mother. "There must be an answer to a thing like this, David," he said slowly. "There must be something that you can say."
"Tell me what is said."
Shaking the silvery hair from his forehead, the older man still gazed upward, as if he were interrogating the portrait—as if he were seeking guidance from the imperishable youth of the painted figure. Serene and soft as black pansies, the eyes of the picture looked down on him from a face that reminded him of a white roseleaf.
"It is said"—he hesitated as if the words hurt him—"that your wife accuses you of cruelty. I don't know how the stories started, but I have waited until they reached a point where I felt that they must be stopped—or answered. For the sake of your future—of your work—you must say something, David."
While he listened Blackburn had walked slowly to the window, gazing out on the afterglow, where some soft clouds, like clusters of lilacs, hung low above the dark brown edge of the horizon. For a moment, after the voice ceased, he still stood there in silence. Then wheeling abruptly, he came back to the hearth where the Colonel was waiting.
"Is that all?" he asked.
The Colonel made a gesture of despair. "It is rumoured that your wife is about to leave you."
Blackburn looked at him intently. "If it is only a rumour——"
"But a man's reputation may be destroyed by a rumour."
"Is there anything else?"
As he spoke it was evident to the other that his thoughts were not on his words.
"I am your oldest friend. I was the friend of your mother—I believe in your vision—in your power of leadership. For the sake of the ideas we both try to serve, I have come to you—hating—dreading my task——"
He stopped, his voice quivering as if from an emotion that defied his control, and in the silence that followed, Blackburn said quietly, "I thank you."
"It is said—how this started no one knows, and I suppose it does not matter—that your wife called in the doctor to treat a bruise on her arm, and that she admitted to him that it came from a blow. Daisy Colfax was present, and it appears that she told the story, without malice, but indiscreetly, I gathered——"
As he paused there were beads of perspiration on his forehead, and his lip trembled slightly. It had been a difficult task, but, thank God, he told himself, he had been able to see it through. To his surprise, Blackburn's face had not changed. It still wore the look of immobility which seemed to the other to express nothing—and everything.
"You must let me make some answer to these charges, David. The time has come when you must speak."
For a moment longer Blackburn was silent. Then he said slowly, "What good will it do?"
"But the lie, unless it is given back, will destroy not only you, but your cause. It will be used by your enemies. It will injure irretrievably the work you are trying to do. In the end it will drive you out of public life in Virginia."
"If you only knew how differently I am coming to think of these things," said Blackburn presently, and he added after a pause, "If I cannot bear misunderstanding, how could I bear defeat?—for work like mine must lead to temporary defeat——"
"Not defeat like this—not defeat that leaves your name tarnished."
For the first time Blackburn's face showed emotion. "And you think that a public quarrel would clear it?" he asked bitterly.
"But surely, without that, there could be a denial——"
"There can be no other denial. There is but one way to meet a lie, and that way I cannot take."
"Then things must go on, as they are, to the—end?"
"I cannot stop them by talking. If it rests with me, they must go on."
"At the cost of your career? Of your power for usefulness? Of your obligations to your country?"
Turning his head, Blackburn looked away from him to the window, which had been left open. From the outside there floated suddenly the faint, provocative scent of spring—of nature which was renewing itself in the earth and the trees. "A career isn't as big a thing at forty-three as it is at twenty," he answered, with a touch of irony. "My power for usefulness must stand on its merits alone, and my chief obligation to my country, as I see it, is to preserve the integrity of my honour. We hear a great deal to-day about the personal not counting any longer; yet the fact remains that the one enduring corner-stone of the State is the personal rectitude of its citizens. You cannot build upon any other foundation, and build soundly. I may be wrong—I often am—but I must do what Ibelieve to be right, let the consequences be what they will."
Now that he had left the emotional issue behind him, the immobility had passed from his manner, and his thoughts were beginning to come with the abundance and richness that the Colonel associated with his public speeches. Already he had put the question of his marriage aside, as a fact which had been accepted and dismissed from his mind.
"In these last few years—or months rather—I have begun to see things differently," he resumed, with an animation and intensity that contrasted strangely with his former constraint and dumbness. "I can't explain how it is, but this war has knocked a big hole in reality. We can look deeper into things than any generation before us, and the deeper we look, the more we become aware of the outer darkness in which we have been groping. I am groping now, I confess it, but I am groping for light."
"It will leave a changed world when it is over," assented the Colonel, and he spoke the platitude with an accent of relief, as if he had just turned away from a sight that distressed him. "More changed, I believe, for us older ones than for the young who have done the actual fighting. I should like to write a book about that—the effect of the war on the minds of the non-combatants. The fighters have been too busy to think, and it is thought, after all, not action, that leaves the more permanent record. Life will spring again over the battle-fields, but the ideas born of the war will control the future destinies of mankind."
"I am beginning to see," pursued Blackburn, as if he had not heard him, "that there is something far biggerthan the beliefs we were working for. Because we had got beyond the sections to the country, you and I, we thought we were emancipated from the bondage of prejudice. The chief end of the citizen appeared to us to be the glory of the nation, but I see now—I am just beginning to see—that there is a greater spirit than the spirit of nationality. You can't live through a world war, even with an ocean between—and distance, by the way, may give us all the better perspective, and enable Americans to take a wider view than is possible to those who are directly in the path of the hurricane—you can't live through a world war, and continue to think in terms of geographical boundaries. To think about it at all, one must think in universal relations."
He hesitated an instant, and then went on more rapidly, "After all, we cannot beat Germany by armies alone, we must beat her by thought. For two generations she has thought wrong, and it is only by thinking right—by forcing her to think right—that we can conquer her. The victory belongs to the nation that engraves its ideas indelibly upon the civilization of the future."
Leaning back in the shadows, Colonel Ashburton gazed at him with a perplexed and questioning look. Was it possible that he had never understood him—that he did not understand him to-day? He had come to speak of an open scandal, of a name that might be irretrievably tarnished—and Blackburn had turned it aside by talking about universal relations!
CAROLINEwrote a few nights later:
Dearest mother:
So it has come at last, and we really and truly are at war. There is not so much excitement as you would have thought—I suppose because we have waited so long—but everybody has hung out flags—and Letty and I have just helped Peter put a big beautiful one over Briarlay. Mrs. Blackburn is working so hard over the Red Cross that we have barely seen her for days, and Mary has already gone to New York on her way to France. She is going to work there with one of the war charities, and I think it will be the best thing on earth for her, for any one can see that she has been very unhappy. Mr. Wythe wants to go into the army, but for some reason he has hesitated about volunteering. I think Mrs. Blackburn opposes it very strongly, and this is keeping him back. There is a new feeling in the air, though. The world is rushing on—somewhere—somewhere, and we are rushing with it.
For days I have wanted to write you about a curious thing, but I have waited hoping that I might have been mistaken about it. You remember how very sweet Mrs. Blackburn was to me when I first came here. Well, for the last month she has changed utterly in her manner. I cannot think of any way in which I could have offended her—though I have racked my brain over it—but she appears to avoid me whenever it is possible, and on the occasions when we are obliged to meet, she does not speak to me unless it is necessary. Of course there are things I am obliged to ask her about Letty; but this is usually done through the servants, and Mrs.Blackburn never comes into the nursery. Sometimes she sends for Letty to come to her, but Mammy Riah always takes her and brings her back again. I asked Mrs. Timberlake if she thought I could have done anything Mrs. Blackburn did not like, and if I had better go to her and demand an explanation. That seems to me the only sensible and straightforward way, but Mrs. Timberlake does not think it would do any good. She is as much mystified about it as I am, and so is Mammy Riah. Nobody understands, and the whole thing has worried me more than I can ever tell you. If it wasn't for Letty, and a promise I made to Mr. Blackburn not to leave her, I should be tempted to give up the place at the end of the week. It is cowardly to let one's self be vanquished by things like that, especially at a time when the whole world needs every particle of courage that human beings can create; but it is just like fighting an intangible enemy, and not knowing at what moment one may be saying or doing the wrong thing. Not a word has been spoken to me that was rude or unkind, yet the very air I breathe is full of something that keeps me apprehensive and anxious all the time. When I am with Mr. Blackburn or Mrs. Timberlake, I tell myself that it is all just my imagination, and that I am getting too nervous to be a good nurse; and then, when I pass Mrs. Blackburn in the hall and she pretends not to see me, the distrust and suspicion come back again. I hate to worry you about this—for a long time I wouldn't mention it in my letters—but I feel to-night that I cannot go on without telling you about it.
Last night after dinner—when Mrs. Blackburn is at home Mrs. Timberlake and I dine in the breakfast-room—I went to look for Letty, and found that she had slipped into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Blackburn and Mr. Wythe were engaged in their perpetual reading. The child is very fond of Mr. Wythe—he has a charming way with her—and when I went in, she was asking him if he were really going to war? Before answeringher he looked for a long time at Mrs. Blackburn, and then as Letty repeated her question, he said, "Don't you think I ought to go, Letty?"
"What is the war about, Alan?" asked the child, and he replied, "They call it a war for democracy." Then, of course, Letty inquired immediately, "What is democracy?" At this Alan burst out laughing, "You've got me there, Socrates," he retorted, "Go inquire of your father." "But father says it is a war to end war," Letty replied, and her next question was, "But if you want to fight, why do you want to end war?" She is the keenest thing for her years you can imagine. I had to explain it all to her when I got her upstairs.
Well, what I started to tell you was that all the time Mrs. Blackburn said nothing, but kept looking from Alan to the child, with that wistful and plaintive expression which makes her the very image of a grieving Madonna. She never spoke a word, but I could tell all the time that she was trying to gain something, that she was using every bit of her charm and her pathos for some purpose I could not discover. In a little while she took Letty from Alan and gave her over to me, and as we went out, I heard Alan say to her, "I would give anything on earth to keep you from being hurt any more." Of course I shouldn't repeat this to any one else, but he must have known that I couldn't help hearing it.
Mr. Blackburn has been very kind to me, and I know that he would do anything for Letty's happiness. He is so impersonal that I sometimes feel that he knows ideas, but not men and women. It is hard for him to break through the wall he has built round himself, but after you once discover what he really is, you are obliged to admit that he is fine and absolutely to be trusted. In a way he is different from any one I have ever known—more sincere and genuine. I can't make what I mean very clear, but you will understand.
For the last week I have scarcely seen him for a minute—I suppose he is absorbed in war matters—butbefore that he used to come in and have tea with Letty, and we had some long interesting talks. The child is devoted to him, and you know she loves above all things to set her little table in the nursery, and give tea and bread and butter to whoever happens to come in. Mrs. Colfax used to drop in very often, and so did Mary when she was here; but Mrs. Blackburn always promises to come, and then is too busy, or forgets all about it, and I have to make excuses for her to Letty. I feel sorry for Letty because she is lonely, and has no child companions, and I do everything I can to make her friendly with grown people, and to put a little wholesome pleasure into her life. A delicate child is really a very serious problem in many ways besides physical ones. Letty has not naturally a cheerful disposition, though she flies off at times into a perfect gale of high spirits. For the last week I can see that she has missed her father, and she is continually asking me where he is.
Now I must tell you something I have not mentioned to any one except Mrs. Timberlake, and I spoke of it to her only because she asked me a direct question. Something very unfortunate occurred here last winter, and Mrs. Timberlake told me yesterday that everybody in Richmond has been talking about it. As long as it is known so generally—and it appears that young Mrs. Colfax was the one to let it out—there can't be any harm in my writing frankly to you. I haven't the faintest idea how it all started, but one morning—it must have been two months ago—Mrs. Blackburn showed young Mrs. Colfax a bruise on her arm, and she either told her or let her think that it had come from a blow. Of course Mrs. Colfax inferred that Mr. Blackburn had struck his wife, and, without waiting a minute, she rushed straight out and repeated this to everybody she met. She is so amazingly indiscreet, without meaning the least harm in the world, that you might as well print a thing in the newspaper as tell it to her. No one knows how much she made up and how much Mrs. Blackburn actually told her; but the town has been fairly ringing,Mrs. Timberlake says, with the scandal. People even say that he has been so cruel to her that the servants heard her cry out in his study one afternoon, and that Alan Wythe, who was waiting in the drawing-room, ran in and interfered.
It is all a dreadful lie, of course—you know this without my telling you—but Mrs. Timberlake and I cannot understand what began it, or why Mrs. Blackburn deliberately allowed Daisy Colfax to repeat such a falsehood. Colonel Ashburton told Mrs. Timberlake that the stories had already done incalculable harm to Mr. Blackburn's reputation, and that his political enemies were beginning to use them. You will understand better than any one else how much this distresses me, not only because I have grown to like and admire Mr. Blackburn, but for Letty's sake also. As the child grows up this disagreement between her parents will make such a difference in her life.
I cannot tell you how I long to be back at The Cedars, now that spring is there and all the lilacs will so soon be in bloom. When I shut my eyes I can see you and the girls in the "chamber," and I can almost hear you talking about the war. I am not quite sure that I approve of Maud's becoming a nurse. It is a hard life, and all her beauty will be wasted in the drudgery. Diana's idea of going to France with the Y. M. C. A. sounds much better, but most of all I like Margaret's plan of canning vegetables next summer for the market. If she can manage to get an extra man to help Jonas with the garden—how would Nathan's son Abraham do?—I believe she will make a great success of it. I am so glad that you are planting large crops this year. The question of labour is serious, I know, but letting out so much of the land "on shares" has never seemed to turn out very well.
It must be almost eleven o'clock, and I have written on and on without thinking. Late as it is, I am obliged to run out to Peter's cottage by the stable and give his wife, Mandy, a hypodermic at eleven o'clock. She wastaken very ill this morning, and if she isn't better to-morrow the doctor will take her to the hospital. I promised him I would see her the last thing to-night, and telephone him if she is any worse. She is so weak that we are giving her all the stimulants that we can. I sometimes wish that I could stop being a trained nurse for a time, and just break loose and be natural. I'd like to run out bareheaded in a storm, or have hysterics, or swear like Uncle George.
Dearest love,CAROLINE.
When Caroline reached the cottage, she found Mandy in a paroxysm of pain, and after giving the medicine, she waited until the woman had fallen asleep. It was late when she went back to the house, and as she crossed the garden on her way to the terrace, where she had left one of the French windows open, she lingered for a minute to breathe in the delicious roving scents of the spring night. Something sweet and soft and wild in the April air awoke in her the restlessness which the spring always brought; and she found herself wishing again that she could cast aside the professional training of the last eight or nine years, and become the girl she had been at The Cedars before love had broken her heart. "I am just as young as I was then—only I am so much wiser," she thought, "and it is wisdom—it is knowing life that has caged me and made me a prisoner. I am not an actor, I am only a spectator now, and yet I believe that I could break away again if the desire came—if life really called me. Perhaps, it's the spring that makes me restless—I could never, even at The Cedars, smell budding things without wanting to wander—but to-night there is a kind of wildness in everything. I am tired of being caged. I want to befree to follow—follow—whatever is calling me. I wonder why the pipes of Pan always begin again in the spring?" Enchantingly fair and soft, beneath a silver mist that floated like a breath of dawn from the river, the garden melted into the fields and the fields into the quivering edge of the horizon. In the air there was a faint whispering of gauzy wings, and, now and then, as the breeze stirred the veil of the landscape, little pools of greenish light flickered like glow worms in the hollows.
"I hate to go in, but I suppose I must," thought Caroline, as she went up the steps. "Fortunately Roane is off after his commission, so they can't accuse me of coming out to meet him."
For the first time she noticed that the lights were out in the house, and when she tried the window she had left open, she found that someone—probably Patrick—had fastened it. "I ought to have told them I was going out," she thought. "I suppose the servants are all in bed, and if I go to the front and ring, I shall waken everybody." Then, as she passed along the terrace, she saw that the light still glimmered beneath the curtains of the library, where Blackburn was working late, and stopping before the window, she knocked twice on the panes.
At her second knock, she heard a chair pushed back inside and rapid steps cross the floor. An instant later the window was unbolted, and she saw Blackburn standing there against the lighted interior, with a look of surprise and inquiry, which she discerned even though his face was in shadow. He did not speak, and she said hurriedly as she entered,
"I hated to disturb you, but they had locked me out."
"You have been out?" It was the question he had put to her on her first night in the house.
"Peter's wife has been ill, and I promised the doctor to give her a hypodermic at eleven o'clock. It must be midnight now. They kept me some time at the cottage."
He glanced at the clock. "Yes, it is after twelve. We are working you overtime."
She had crossed the room quickly on her way to the door, when he called her name, and she stopped and turned to look at him.
"Miss Meade, I have wanted to ask you something about Letty when she was not with us."
"I know," she responded, with ready sympathy. "It isn't easy to talk before her without letting her catch on."
"You feel that she is better?"
"Much better. She has improved every day in the last month or two."
"You think now that she may get well in time? There seems to you a chance that she may grow up well and normal?"
"With care I think there is every hope that she will. The doctor is greatly encouraged about her. In this age no physical malady, especially in a child, is regarded as hopeless, and I believe, if we keep up the treatment she is having, she may outgrow the spinal weakness that has always seemed to us so serious."
For a moment he was silent. "Whatever improvement there may be is due to you," he said presently, in a voice that was vibrant with feeling. "I cannot put my gratitude into words, but you have made me your debtor for life."
"I have done my best," she replied gravely, "and it has made me happy to do it."
"I recognize that. The beauty of it has been that I recognized that from the beginning. You have given yourself utterly and ungrudgingly to save my child. Before you came she was misunderstood always, she was melancholy and brooding and self-centred, and you have put the only brightness in her life that has ever been there. All the time she becomes more like other children, more cheerful and natural."
"I felt from the first that she needed companionship and diversion. She won my heart immediately, for she is a very lovable child, and if I have done anything over and above my task, it has been because I loved Letty."
His look softened indescribably, but all he said was, "If I go away, I shall feel that I am leaving her in the best possible care."
"You expect to go away?"
"I have offered my services, and the Government may call on me. I hope there is some work that I can do."
"Everyone feels that way, I think. I feel that way myself, but as long as I can, I shall stay with Letty. It is so hard sometimes to recognize one's real duty. If the call comes, I suppose I shall have to go to France, but I shan't go just because I want to, as long as the child needs me as much as she does now. Mother says the duty that never stays at home is seldom to be trusted."
"I know you will do right," he answered gravely. "I cannot imagine that you could ever waver in that. For myself the obligation seems now imperative, yet I have asked myself again and again if my reasons for wishing to go are as——"
He broke off in amazement, and glanced, with a startled gesture, at the door, for it was opening very slowly, and, as the crack widened, there appeared the lovely disarranged head of Angelica. She was wearing a kimono of sky-blue silk, which she had thrown on hastily over her nightgown, and beneath the embroidered folds, Caroline caught a glimpse of bare feet in blue slippers. In the hall beyond there was the staring face of the maid, and at the foot of the stairs, the figure of Mammy Riah emerged, like a menacing spirit, out of the shadow.
"I heard Mammy Riah asking for Miss Meade. She was not in her room," began Angelica in her clear, colourless voice. "We were anxious about her—but I did not know—I did not dream——" She drew her breath sharply, and then added in a louder and firmer tone, "Miss Meade, I must ask you to leave the house in the morning."
In an instant a cold breath blowing over Caroline seemed to turn her living figure into a snow image. Her face was as white as the band of her cap, but her eyes blazed like blue flames, and her voice, when it issued from her frozen lips, was stronger and steadier than Angelica's.
"I cannot leave too soon for my comfort," she answered haughtily. "Mr. Blackburn, if you will order the car, I shall be ready in an hour——" Though she saw scarlet as she spoke, she would have swept by Angelica with the pride and the outraged dignity of an insulted empress.
"You shall not go," said Blackburn, and she saw him put out his arm, as if he would keep the two women apart.
"I would not stay," replied Caroline, looking not at him, but straight into Angelica's eyes. "I would not stay if she went on her knees to me. I will not stay even for Letty——"
"Do you know what you have done?" demanded Blackburn, in a quivering voice, of his wife. "Do you know that you are ruining your child's future—your child's chance——" Then, as if words were futile to convey his meaning, he stopped, and looked at her as a man looks at the thing that has destroyed him.
"For Letty's sake I shut my eyes as long as I could," said Angelica, and of the three, she appeared the only one who spoke in sorrow and regret, not in anger. "After to-night I can deceive myself no longer. I can deceive the servants no longer——"
Her kimono was embroidered in a lavish design of cranes and water-lilies; and while Caroline gazed at it, she felt that the vivid splashes of yellow and blue and purple were emblazoned indelibly on her memory. Years afterwards—to the very end of her life—the sight of a piece of Japanese embroidery was followed by an icy sickness of the heart, and a vision of Angelica's amber head against the background of the dimly lighted hall and the curious faces of the maid and Mammy Riah.
"You shall not——" said Blackburn, and his face was like the face of a man who has died in a moment of horror. "You shall not dare do this thing——"
He was still keeping Caroline back with his outstretched hand, and while she looked at him, she forgot her own anger in a rush of pity for the humiliation which showed in every quiver of his features, in every line ofhis figure. It was a torture, she knew, which would leave its mark on him for ever.
"You shall not dare——" he repeated, as if the words he sought would not come to him.
Beneath his gaze Angelica paled slowly. Her greatest victories had always been achieved through her dumbness; and the instinct which had guided her infallibly in the past did not fail her in this moment, which must have appeared to her as the decisive hour of her destiny. There was but one way in which she could triumph, and this way she chose, not deliberately, but in obedience to some deep design which had its source in the secret motive-power of her nature. The colour of her skin faded to ivory, her long, slender limbs trembled and wavered, and the pathos of her look was intensified into the image of tragedy.
"I tried so hard not to see——" she began, and the next instant she gave a little gasping sob and dropped, like a broken flower, at his feet.
For a second Caroline looked down on her in silence. Then, without stooping, without speaking, she drew her skirt aside, and went out of the room and up the stairs. Her scorn was the scorn of the strong who is defeated for the weak who is victorious.
WHENshe reached her room, Caroline took off her cap and uniform and laid them smoothly away in her trunk. Then she began packing with deliberate care, while her thoughts whirled as wildly as autumn leaves in a storm. Outwardly her training still controlled her; but beneath her quiet gestures, her calm and orderly movements, she felt that the veneer of civilization had been stripped from the primitive woman. It was as if she had lived years in the few minutes since she had left Angelica lying, lovely and unconscious, on the floor of the library.
She was taking her clothes out of the closet when there was a low knock at her door, and Mammy Riah peered inquiringly into the room.
"Marse David tole me ter come," she said. "Is you gwine away, honey?"
Before she replied, Caroline crossed the floor and closed the door of the nursery. "I am going home on the earliest train in the morning. Will you be sure to order the car?"
The old woman came in and took the clothes out of Caroline's hands. "You set right down, en wait twell I git thoo wid dis yer packin'. Marse David, he tole me ter look atter you de same ez I look atter Letty, en I'se gwine ter do whut he tells me."
She looked a thousand years old as she stood therebeside the shaded electric light on the bureau; but her dark and wrinkled face contained infinite understanding and compassion. At the moment, in the midst of Caroline's terrible loneliness, Mammy Riah appeared almost beautiful.
"I have to move about, mammy, I can't sit still. You were there. You saw it all."
"I seed hit comin' befo' den, honey, I seed hit comin'."
"But you knew I'd gone out to see Mandy? You knew she was suffering?"
"Yas'm, I knows all dat, but I knows a heap mo'n dat, too."
"You saw Mrs. Blackburn? You heard?——"
"I 'uz right dar all de time. I 'uz right dar at de foot er de steers."
"Do you know why? Can you imagine why she should have done it?"
Mammy Riah wrinkled her brow, which was the colour and texture of stained parchment. "I'se moughty ole, and I'se moughty sharp, chile, but I cyarn' see thoo a fog. I ain' sayin' nuttin' agin Miss Angy, caze she wuz oner de Fitzhugh chillun, ef'n a wi'te nuss did riz 'er. Naw'm, I ain' sayin' nuttin 't'all agin 'er—but my eyes dey is done got so po' dat I cyarn' mek out whar she's a-gwine en whut she's a-fishin' fur."
"I suppose she was trying to make me leave. But why couldn't she have come out and said so?"
"Go 'way f'om yer, chile! Ain't you knowed Miss Angy better'n dat? She is jes' erbleeged ter be meally-mouthed en two-faced, caze she wuz brung up dat ar way. All de chillun dat w'ite nuss riz wuz sorter puny en pigeon-breasted inside en out, en Miss Angyshe wuz jes' like de res' un um. She ain' never come right spang out en axed fur whut she gits, en she ain' never gwine ter do hit. Naw'm, dat she ain't. She is a-gwine ter look put upon, en meek ez Moses, en jes like butter wouldn't melt in 'er mouf, ef'n hit kills 'er. I'se done knowed 'er all 'er lifetime, en I ain' never seed 'er breck loose, nairy oncet. Ole Miss use'n ter say w'en she wuz live, dat Miss Angy's temper wuz so slow en poky, she'd git ter woner sometimes ef'n she reely hed a speck er one."
"That must be why everybody thinks her a martyr," said Caroline sternly. "Even to-night she didn't lose her temper. You saw her faint away at my feet?"
A shiver shook her figure, as the vision of the scene rushed before her; and bending down, with a dress still in her arms, the old woman patted and soothed her as if she had been a child.
"Dar now, dar now," she murmured softly. Then, raising her head, with sudden suspicion, she said in a sharp whisper, "Dat warn' no sho' nuff faintin'. She wuz jes' ez peart ez she could be w'en she flopped down dar on de flo'."
"I didn't touch her. I wouldn't have touched her if she had been dying!" declared Caroline passionately.
Mammy Riah chuckled. "You is git ter be a reel spit-fire, honey."
"I'm not a spit-fire, but I'm so angry that I see red."
"Cose you is, cose you is, but dat ain' no way ter git erlong in dis worl', perticular wid men folks. You ain' never seed Miss Angy git ez mad ez fire wid nobody, is you? Dar now! I low you ain' never seed hit. You ain' never seed 'er git all in a swivet 'bout nuttin? Ain't she al'ays jes' ez sof ez silk, no matter whut happen?Dat's de bes' way ter git erlong, honey, you lissen ter me. De mo' open en above boa'd you is, de mo' you is gwine ter see de thing you is atter begin ter shy away f'om you. Dar's Miss Matty Timberlake now! Ain't she de sort dat ain' got no sof' soap about 'er, en don't she look jes egzactly ez ef'n de buzzards hed picked 'er? Naw'm, you teck en watch Miss Angy, en she's gwine ter sho' you sump'n. She ain' never let on ter nobody, she ain't. Dar ain' nobody gwine ter know whut she's a-fishin' fur twell she's done cotched hit." There was an exasperated pride in her manner, as if she respected, even while she condemned, the success of Angelica's method.
"Yas, Lawd! I'se knowed all de Fitzhughs f'om way back, en I ain' knowed nairy one un um dat could beat Miss Angy w'en hit comes ter gettin' whut she wants—in perticular ef'n hit belongst ter somebody else. I'se seed 'er wid 'er pa, en I'se seed 'er wid Marse David, en dey warn' no mo' den chillun by de time she got thoo wid um. Is you ever seed a man, no matter how big he think hisself, dat warn' ready ter flop right down ez' weak ez water, ez soon as she set 'er een on 'im? I'se watched 'er wid Marse David way back yonder, befo' he begunst his cotin', en w'en I see 'er sidle up ter 'im, lookin ez sweet ez honey, en pertendin' dat she ain' made up 'er min' yit wedder she is mos' pleased wid 'im er feared un 'im, den I knows hit wuz all up wid 'im, ef'n he warn't ez sharp ez a needle. Do you reckon she 'ould ever hev cotched Marse David ef'n he'd a knowed whut 't'wuz she wuz atter? Naw'm, dat she 'ouldn't, caze men folks dey ain' made dat ar way. Deys erbleeged ter be doin' whut dey think you don't want 'um ter do, jes' like chillun, er dey cyarn' git ennyspice outer doin' hit. Dat's de reason de 'ooman dey mos' often breecks dere necks tryin' ter git is de v'ey las' one dat deys gwinter want ter keep atter deys got 'er. A she fox is a long sight better in de bushes den she is in de kennel; but men folks dey ain' never gwine ter fin' dat out twell she's done bitten um."
While she rambled on, she had been busily folding the clothes and packing them into the trunk, and pausing now in her work, she peered into Caroline's face. "You look jes' egzactly ez ef'n you'd seed a ha'nt, honey," she said. "Git in de baid, en try ter go right straight ter sleep, w'ile I git thoo dis yer packin' in a jiffy."
Aching in every nerve, Caroline undressed and threw herself into bed. The hardest day of nursing had never left her like this—had never exhausted her so utterly in body and mind. She felt as if she had been beaten with rocks; and beneath the sore, bruised feeling of her limbs there was the old half-forgotten quiver of humiliation, which brought back to her the vision of that autumn morning at The Cedars—of the deep blue of the sky, the shivering leaves of the aspens, and the long straight road drifting through light and shadow into other roads that led on somewhere—somewhere. Could she never forget? Was she for ever chained to an inescapable memory?
"Is you 'bleeged ter go?" inquired the old woman, stopping again in her packing.
"Yes, I'm obliged to go. I wouldn't stay now if they went down on their knees to me."
"You ain't mad wid Marse David, is you?"
"No, I'm not angry with Mr. Blackburn. He has been very kind to me, and I am sorry to leave Letty." For the first time the thought of the child occurred toher. Incredible as it seemed she had actually forgotten her charge.
"She sutney is gwine ter miss you."
"I think she will, poor little Letty. I wonder what they will make of her?"
Closing her eyes wearily, she turned her face to the wall, and lay thinking of the future. "I will not be beaten," she resolved passionately. "I will not let them hurt me." Some old words she had said long ago at The Cedars came back to her, and she repeated them over and over, "People cannot hurt you unless you let them. They cannot hurt you unless you submit—unless you deliver your soul into their hands—and I will never submit. Life is mine as much as theirs. The battle is mine, and I will fight it." She remembered her first night at Briarlay, when she had watched the light from the house streaming out into the darkness, and had felt that strange forewarning of the nerves, that exhilarating sense of approaching destiny, that spring-like revival of her thoughts and emotions. How wonderful Mrs. Blackburn had appeared then! How ardently she might have loved her! For an instant the veiled figure of her imagination floated before her, and she was tormented by the pang that follows not death, but disillusionment. "I never harmed her. I would have died for her in the beginning. Why should she have done it?"
Opening her eyes she stared up at the wall beside her bed, where Mammy Riah's shadow hovered like some grotesque bird of prey.
"Did you order the car, Mammy Riah?"
"Yas'm, I tole John jes' like you axed me. Now, I'se done got de las' one er dese things packed, en I'se gwineter let you git some sleep." She put out the light while she spoke, and then went out softly, leaving the room in darkness.
"Why should she have done it? Why should she have done it?" asked Caroline over and over, until the words became a refrain that beat slowly, with a rhythmic rise and fall, in her thoughts: "Why should she have done it?I thought her so good and beautiful. I would have worked my fingers to the bone for her if she had only been kind to me.Why should she have done it?I should always have taken her part against Mr. Blackburn, against Mrs. Timberlake, against Mammy Riah. It would have been so easy for her to have kept my love and admiration. It would have cost her nothing.Why should she have done it?There is nothing she can gain by this, and it isn't like her to do a cruel thing unless there is something she can gain. She likes people to admire her and believe in her. That is why she has taken so much trouble to appear right before the world, and to make Mr. Blackburn appear wrong. Admiration is the breath of life to her, and—and—oh, whyshould she have done it? I must go to sleep. I must put it out of my mind. If I don't put it out of my mind, I shall go mad before morning. I ought to be glad to leave Briarlay. I ought to want to go, but I do not. I do not want to go. I feel as if I were tearing my heart to pieces. I cannot bear the thought of never seeing the place again—of never seeing Letty again.Why should she have done it?——"
In the morning, when she was putting on her hat, Mrs. Timberlake came in with a breakfast tray in her hands.
"Sit down, and try to eat something, Caroline. Ithought you would rather have a cup of coffee up here."
Caroline shook her head. "I couldn't touch a morsel in this house. I feel as if it would choke me."
"But you will be sick before you get home. Just drink a swallow or two."
Taking the cup from her, Caroline began drinking it so hurriedly that the hot coffee burned her lips. "Yes, you are right," she said presently. "I cannot fight unless I keep up my strength, and I will fight to the bitter end. I will not let her hurt me. I am poor and unknown, and I work for my living, but the world is mine as much as hers, and I will not give in. I will not let life conquer me."
"You aren't blaming David, are you, dear?"
"Oh, no, I am not blaming Mr. Blackburn. He couldn't have helped it." Her heart gave a single throb while she spoke; and it seemed to her that, in the midst of the anguish and humiliation, something within her soul, which had been frozen for years, thawed suddenly and grew warm again. It was just as if a statue had come to life, as if what had been marble yesterday had been blown upon by a breath of the divine, and changed into flesh. For eight years she had been dead, and now, in an instant, she was born anew, and had entered afresh into her lost heritage of joy and pain.
Mrs. Timberlake, gazing at her through dulled eyes, was struck by the intensity of feeling that glowed in her pale face and in the burning blue of her eyes. "I didn't know she could look like that," thought the housekeeper. "I didn't know she had so much heart." Aloud she said quietly, "David and I are going to the train with you. That is why I put on my bonnet."
"Is Mr. Blackburn obliged to go with us?" Caroline's voice was almost toneless, but there was a look of wonder and awe in her face, as of one who is standing on the edge of some undiscovered country, of some virgin wilderness. The light that fell on her was the light of that celestial hemisphere where Mrs. Timberlake had never walked.
"He wishes to go," answered the older woman, and she added with an after-thought, "It will look better."
"As if it mattered how things look? I'd rather not see him again, but, after all, it makes no difference."
"It wasn't his fault, Caroline."
"No, it wasn't his fault. He has always been good to me."
"If anything, it has been harder on him than on you. It is only a few hours of your life, but it is the whole of his. She has spoiled his life from the first, and now she has ruined his career forever. Even before this, Colonel Ashburton told me that all that talk last winter had destroyed David's future. He said he might have achieved almost anything if he had had half a chance, but that he regarded him now merely as a brilliant failure. Angelica went to work deliberately to ruin him."
"But why?" demanded Caroline passionately. "What was there she could gain by it?"
Mrs. Timberlake blinked at the sunlight. "For the first time in my life," she confessed, "I don't know what she is up to. I can't, to save my life, see what she has got in her mind."
"She can't be doing it just to pose as an ill-treated wife? The world is on her side already. There isn'ta person outside of this house who doesn't look upon her as a saint and martyr."
"I know there isn't. That is what puzzles me. I declare, if it didn't sound so far-fetched, I'd be almost tempted to believe that she was trying to get that young fool for good."
"Mr. Wythe? But what would she do with him? She is married already, and you know perfectly well that she wouldn't do anything that the world calls really wrong."
"She'd be burned at the stake first. Well, I give it up. I've raked my brain trying to find some reason at the bottom of it, but it isn't any use, and I've had to give it up in the end. Then, last night after David told me about that scene downstairs—he waked me up to tell me—it suddenly crossed my mind just like that—" she snapped her fingers—"that perhaps she's sharper than we've ever given her credit for being. I don't say it's the truth, because I don't know any more than a babe unborn whether it is or not; but the idea did cross my mind that maybe she felt if she could prove David really cruel and faithless to her—if she could make up a case so strong that people's sympathy would support her no matter what she did—then she might manage to get what she wanted without having to give up anything in return. You know Angelica could never bear to give up anything. She has got closets and closets filled with old clothes, which she'd never think of wearing, but just couldn't bear to give away——"
"You mean——?" The blackness of the abyss struck Caroline speechless.
"I don't wonder that you can't take it in. I couldn't at first. It seems so unlike anything that could ever happen in Virginia."
"It would be so—" Caroline hesitated for a word—"so incredibly common."
"Of course you feel that way about it, and so would Angelica's mother. I reckon she would turn in her grave at the bare thought of her daughter's even thinking of a divorce."
"You mean she would sacrifice me like this? She would not only ruin her husband, she would try to destroy me, though I've never harmed her?"
"That hasn't got anything in the world to do with it. She isn't thinking of you, and she isn't thinking of Alan. She is thinking about what she wants. It is surprising how badly you can want a thing even when you have neither feeling nor imagination. Angelica isn't any more in love with that young ass than I am; but she wants him just as much as if she were over head and ears in love. There is one thing, however, you may count on—she is going to get him if she can, and she is going to persuade herself and everybody else, except you and David and me, that she is doing her duty when she goes after her inclinations. I don't reckon there was ever anybody stronger on the idea of duty than Angelica," she concluded in a tone of acrid admiration.
"Of course, she will always stand right before the world," assented Caroline, "I know that."
"Well, it takes some sense to manage it, you must admit?"
"I wish I'd never come here. I wish I'd never seen Briarlay," cried Caroline, in an outburst of anger. "There is the car at the door. We'd better go."
"Won't you tell Letty good-bye?"
For the first time tears rushed to Caroline's eyes."No, I'd rather not. Give her my love after I'm gone."
In the hall Blackburn was waiting for them, and Caroline's first thought, as she glanced at him, was that he had aged ten years since the evening before. A rush of pity for him, not for herself, choked her to silence while she put her hand into his, which felt as cold as ice when she touched it. In that moment she forgot the wrong that she had suffered, she forgot her wounded pride, her anguish and humiliation, and remembered only that he had been hurt far more deeply.
"I hope you slept," he said awkwardly, and she answered, "Very little. Is the car waiting?"
Then, as he turned to go down the steps, she brushed quickly past him, and entered the car after Mrs. Timberlake. She felt that her heart was breaking, and she could think of no words to utter. There were trivial things, she knew, that might be said, casual sounds that might relieve the strain of the silence; but she could not remember what they were, and where her thoughts had whirled so wildly all night long, there was now only a terrible vacancy, round which sinister fears moved but into which nothing entered. A strange oppressive dumbness, a paralysis of the will, seized her. If her life had depended on it, she felt that she should have been powerless to put two words together with an intelligible meaning.
Blackburn got into the car, and a moment later they started round the circular drive, and turned into the lane.
"Did John put in the bag?" inquired Mrs. Timberlake nervously.
"Yes, it is in front." As he replied, Blackburn turned slightly, and the sunshine falling aslant the boughs of the maples, illumined his face for an instantbefore the car sped on into the shadows. In that minute it seemed to Caroline that she could never forget the misery in his eyes, or the look of grimness and determination the night had graven about his mouth. Every line in his forehead, every thread of grey in his dark hair, would remain in her memory for ever. "He looked so much younger when I came here," she thought. "These last months have cost him his youth and his happiness."
"I am so glad you have a good day for your trip," said Mrs. Timberlake, and almost to her surprise Caroline heard her own voice replying distinctly, "Yes, it is a beautiful day."
"Will you telegraph your mother from the station?"
"She wouldn't get it. There is no telephone, and we send only once a day for the mail."
"Then she won't be expecting you?"
"No, she won't be expecting me."
At this Blackburn turned. "What can we do, Miss Meade, to help you?"
Again she seemed to herself to answer with her lips before she had selected the words, "Nothing, thank you. There is absolutely nothing that you can do." The soft wind had loosened a lock of hair under her veil, and putting up her hand, she pushed it back into place.
Rain had fallen in the night, and the morning was fresh and fine, with a sky of cloudless turquoise blue. The young green leaves by the roadside shone with a sparkling lustre, while every object in the landscape appeared to quiver and glisten in the spring sunlight.
"I shall never see it again—I shall never see it again." Suddenly, without warning, Caroline's thoughts came flocking back as riotously as they had done through thelong, sleepless night. The external world at which she looked became a part of the intense inner world of her mind; and the mental vacancy was crowded in an instant with a vivid multitude of figures. Every thought, every sensation, every image of the imagination and of memory, seemed to glitter with a wonderful light and freshness, as the objects in the landscape glittered when the April sunshine streamed over them.
"Yes, I am leaving it forever. I shall never see it again, but why should I care so much? Why does it make me so unhappy, as if it were tearing the heart out of my breast? Life is always that—leaving things forever, and giving up what you would rather keep. I have left places I cared for before, and yet I have never felt like this, not even when I came away for the first time from The Cedars. Every minute I am going farther and farther away. We are in the city now; flags are shining, too, in the sun. I have never seen so many flags—as if flags alone meant war! War! Why, I had almost forgotten the war! And yet it is the most tremendous thing that has ever been on the earth, and nothing else really matters—neither Briarlay, nor Mrs. Blackburn, nor my life, nor Mr. Blackburn's, nor anything that happened last night. It was all so little—as little as the thing Mrs. Blackburn is trying to get, the thing she calls happiness. It is as little as the thing I have lost—as little as my aching heart——"
"Do you know," said Mrs. Timberlake, "I had not realized that we were at war—but look at the flags!" Her lustreless eyes were lifted, with a kind of ecstasy, in the sunlight, and then as no one answered, she added softly, "It makes one stop and think."
"I must try to remember the war," Caroline was tellingherself. "If I remember the war, perhaps I shall forget the ache in my heart. The larger pain will obliterate the smaller. If I can only forget myself——" But, in spite of the effort of will, she could not feel the war as keenly as she felt the parting from something which seemed more vital to her than her life. "We are at war," she thought, and immediately, "I shall never see it again—I shall never see it again."