Jupiter Lights

“And Porley?”

“You will find Porley at the big pine.”

“What is she doing there?”

“I didn’t want her about, so I tied her to the trunk,” Cicely answered. “Probably she is frightened,” she added, calmly.

“Go and find her,” said Eve to Paul. “I will stay here.”

“Have nothing to do with Paul Tennant, Eve,” Cicely remarked. “He is almost a murderer. He didn’t go to his brother; he let him die alone.”

“I shall not leave you,” said Paul, looking at Eve’s white cheeks.

“Have you fallen in love with each other?” asked Cicely. “It needed only that.”

“I beg you to go,” Eve entreated.

Paul hesitated. “Will you promise not to leave this lodge until I come back?”

“Yes.”

Paul went out. As he did so, he saw the judge approaching, leaning heavily on Hollis’s arm.

“It’s nothing,” Hollis explained. “The judge, he’s only tuckered out; a night’s rest is all he needs.”

“Take me to Cicely,” the judge commanded.

“Cicely ought to be quiet now,” Paul answered in a decided voice. “Eve is with her, and they’re all right; women do better alone together, you know, when one of them has hysteria.”

“Hysteria! Is that what you called it?” said the judge.

“Of course. And it’s natural,” Paul went on: – “poor little girl, coming to herself suddenly here in the woods, only to realize that her husband is dead. We shall have to be doubly tender with her, now that she is beginning to be herself again.”

“You didn’t mind it, then?” pursued the judge. He was relieved, of course – glad. Still it began to seem almost an impertinence that Paul should have paid so little attention to what had been to the rest of them so terrible.

“Mind? Do you mean what she was saying? I didn’t half hear it, I was thinking how I could get up that bank. And that reminds me there’s something wrong with Porley; she’s at the big pine. I am going out there to see. Cicely told me that she had tied her in some way.”

“If she did, the wench richly deserved it,” said the judge, going towards his lodge, his step stiff and slow.

“He came mighty near a stroke,” said Hollis to Paul in an undertone.

“Hadn’t you better go with him, then?”

“Oh yes; I’ll go.” He went towards the judge’s lodge. “You go right into that lodge, fool Hollis, and stay there, – stay with that unreasonable, vituperative, cantankerous old Bourbon of a judge, and – judge of Bourbon! You smooth him down, and you hearten him up, you agree with him every time; you tuck him in, you hang his old clothes over a chair, you take his shoes out, and black ’em; and you conduct yourself generally like one of his own nigs in the glorious old days of slavery – Maryland, my Maryland!” He lifted the latch of the door, and went in.

Paul, meanwhile, had gone to the big pine; when he reached it, the twilight had darkened into night. A crouching figure stood close to the trunk – Porley; she was tied by a small rope to the tree, the firm ligatures encircling her in three places – at the throat, the waist, and the ankles; in addition, her hands were tied behind her.

“Well, Porley, a good joke, isn’t it?” Paul said, as he cut the knots of the rope with his knife.

“Ah-hoo!” sobbed the girl, her fright breaking into audible expression now that aid was near.

“Mrs. Morrison thought she would see how brave you were.”

“Ah-hoo! Ah-hoo-hoo-hoo!” roared Porley, in a paroxysm of frantic weeping.

“If you are so frightened as that, what did you let her do it for? You are five times as strong as she is.”

“I coulden tech her, marse – I coulden! Says she, ‘A-follerin’ an’ spyin’, Porley? Take dat rope an’ come wid me. ’ So I come. She’s cunjud me, marse; I is done fer.”

“Nonsense! Where’s the nurse?”

“I doan know – I doan know. Says she, ‘We’ll take a walk, Miss Mile.’ An’ off dey went, ’way ober dat way. Reckon Miss Mile’s dead!”

“No more dead than you are. Go back to the camp and un-cunjer yourself; there’s a dollar to help it along.”

He went off in the direction she had indicated. After a while he began to call at intervals; there was a distant answer, and he called again. And then gradually, nearer and nearer, came the self-respecting voice of Mary Ann Mile. Each time he shouted, “Hello there!” her answer was, “Yes, sir; present-lée,” in a very well-educated tone.

“What is this, Mrs. Mile?”

“You may well ask, sir. Such an incident has never happened to me before. Mrs. Morrison remarked that she should enjoy a walk, and I therefore went with her; after we had proceeded some distance, suddenly she darted off. I followed her, and kept her in sight for a while, or rather she kept me in sight; then she disappeared, and I perceived not only that I had lost her, but that I myself was lost. It is a curious thing, sir, – the cleverness of people whose minds are disordered!”

“Her mind is no longer disordered, Mrs. Mile; she has got back her senses.”

“Do you consider this an instance of it?” asked the nurse, doubtfully.

When Paul left Cicely’s lodge, Eve closed the door. “Cicely, I have something to tell you. Listen.”

“It is a pity you like that man – that Paul Tennant,” Cicely answered.

“If I do like him, I can never be anything to him. This is what I wanted to tell you: that I shot his brother.”

“Well, if his brother was like him– ”

“Oh, Cicely, it was Ferdie – your Ferdie.”

“What do you know about Ferdie?” demanded Cicely, coldly. “He never liked you in the least.”

“Don’t you know, Cicely, that Ferdie is dead?”

“Oh, yes, I know it. Paul would not let me go to him, and he died all alone.”

“And do you know what was the cause of his death?”

“Yes; he was shot; there were some negroes, they got away in a boat.”

“No, there were no negroes; I shot him. I took a pistol on purpose.”

“It seems to be very hard work for you to tell me this, you are crying dreadfully,” remarked Cicely, looking at her. “Why do you tell?”

“Because I am the one you must curse. Not Paul.”

“It’s all for Paul, then.”

“But it was for you in the first place, Cicely. Don’t you remember that we escaped? – that we went through the wood to the north point? – that you tried to push the boat off, and couldn’t? Baby climbed up by one of the seats, and Ferdie saw him, and made a dash after him; then it was that I fired. I did it, Cicely. Nobody else.”

“Oh,” said Cicely, slowly, “you did it, did you?” She rose. “And Paul kept me from going to him! It was all you two.” She went to the crib, and lifted Jack from his nest. He stirred drowsily; then fell asleep again. (Poor little Jack, what journeys!)

“Open that door; and go,” Cicely commanded.

Eve hesitated a moment. Then she obeyed.

Cicely wrapped a shawl about Jack, and laid him down; she set to work and made two packets of clothing – one for herself, and one for the child – slinging them upon her arm; she put on her straw hat, took Jack, and went out, closing the door behind her. Eve, who was waiting outside in the darkness, followed her. She dared not call for help; she hoped that they might meet Paul coming back, or Porley, or the nurse. But they met no one, Paul was still at the big pine. Cicely turned down to the beach, and began to walk westward. Eve followed, moving as noiselessly as possible; but Cicely must have heard her, though she gave no sign of it, for, upon passing a point, Eve found that she had lost her, there was no one in sight. She ran forward, she called her name entreatingly; she stood by the edge of the water, fearing to see something dark floating there. She called again, she pleaded. No answer from the dusky night. She turned and ran back to the camp.

At its edge she met Paul. “You promised me that you would not leave the lodge,” he said.

“Oh, Paul, I don’t know where she is. Oh, come – hurry, hurry!”

They went together. She was so tired, so breathless, that he put his arm round her as a support.

“Oh, do not.”

“This is where you ought always to be when you are tired – in my arms.”

“Don’t let us talk. She may be dead.”

“Poor little Cicely! But you are more to me.”

His tones thrilled her, she felt faint with happiness. Suddenly came the thought: “When we find her, she will tell him! She will tell him all I said.”

“Don’t believe her; don’t believe anything she may tell you,” she entreated, passionately. A fierce feeling took possession of her; she would fight for her happiness. “Am I nothing to you?” she said, pausing; “my wish nothing? Promise me not to believe anything Cicely says against me, – anything! It’s all an hallucination.”

Paul had not paid much heed to her exclamations, he thought all women incoherent; but he perceived that she was excited, exhausted, and he laid his hand protectingly on her hair, smoothing it with tender touch. “Why should I mind what she says? It would be impossible for her to say anything that could injure you in my eyes, Eve.”

Beyond the next point they saw a light; it came from a little fire of twigs on the beach. Beside the fire was Jack; he was carefully wrapped in the shawl, the two poor little packets of clothing were arranged under him as a bed; Cicely’s straw hat was under his head, and her handkerchief covered his feet. But there was no Cicely. They went up and down the beach, and into the wood behind; again Eve looked fearfully at the water.

“She isn’t far from Jack,” said Paul. “We shall find her in a moment or two.”

Eve’s search stopped. “In a moment or two he will know!”

“Here she is!” cried Paul.

And there was Cicely, sitting close under the bank in the deepest shadow. She did not move; Paul lifted her in his arms.

“The moon is under a cloud now,” she explained, in a whispering voice; “as soon as it comes out, I shall see Ferdie over there on the opposite shore, and I shall call to him. “Don’t let that fire go out, I haven’t another match; he will need the light as a guide.”

“She thinks she is on Singleton Island!” said Eve; – “the night we got away.”

Her tone was joyous.

XXVI

PAUL AND EVE took Cicely back to the camp. And almost immediately, before Mrs. Mile could undress her, she had fallen asleep. It was the still slumber of exhaustion, but it seemed also to be a rest; she lay without moving all that night, and the next day, and the night following. As she slumbered, gradually the tenseness of her face was relaxed, the lines grew lighter, disappeared; then slowly a pink colored her cheeks, restoring her beauty.

They all came softly in from time to time to stand beside her for a moment. The nurse was sure that the sleep was nature’s medicine, and that it was remedial; and when at last, on the second day, the dark eyes opened, it could be seen that physically the poor child was well.

She laughed with Jack, she greeted her grandfather, and talked to him; she called Porley “Dilsey,” and told her that she was much improved. “I will give you a pair of silver ear-rings, Dilsey, when we get home.” For she seemed to comprehend that they were not at home, but on a journey of some sort. The memory of everything that had happened since Ferdie’s arrival at Romney had been taken from her; she spoke of her husband as in South America. But she did not talk long on any subject. She wished to have Jack always with her, she felt a tranquil interest in her grandfather, and this was all. With the others she was distant. Her manner to Eve was exactly the manner of those first weeks after Eve’s arrival at Romney. She spoke of Paul and Hollis to her grandfather as “your friends.”

She gathered flowers; she talked to the Indians, who looked at her with awe; she wandered up and down the beach, singing little songs, and she spent hours afloat. Mrs. Mile, who, like the well-trained nurse that she was, had no likes or dislikes as regarded her patients, and who therefore cherished no resentment as to the manner in which she had been befooled in the forest – Mrs. Mile thoroughly enjoyed “turning out” her charge each morning in a better condition than that of the day before. Cicely went willingly to bed at eight every evening, and she did not wake until eight the next morning; when she came out of her lodge after the bath, the careful rubbing, and the nourishing breakfast which formed part of Mrs. Mile’s excellent system, from the crisp edges of her hair down to her quick-stepping little feet, she looked high-spirited, high-bred, and fresh as an opening rose. Mrs. Mile would follow, bringing her straw hat, her satisfaction expressed by a tightening of her long upper lip that seemed preliminary to a smile (though the smile never came), and by the quiet pride visible in her well-poised back. When, as generally happened, Cicely went out on the lake, Mrs. Mile, after over-seeing with her own eyes the preparations for lunch, would retire to a certain bench, whence she could watch for the returning boats, and devote herself to literature for a while, always reading one book, the History of Windham, Connecticut, Windham being her native place. As she sat there, with her plain broad-cheeked face and smooth scanty hair, her stiff white cuffs, her neat boots, size number seven, neatly crossed before the short skirt of her brown gown, she made a picture of a sensible, useful person (without one grain of what a man would call feminine attractiveness). But no one cared to have her attractive at Jupiter Light; they were grateful for her devotion to Cicely, and did not study her features. They all clustered round Cicely more constantly than ever now, this strange little companion, so fair and fresh, so happily unconscious, by God’s act, of the sorrows that had crushed her.

Paul was back and forth, now at the camp for a day or two, now at Port aux Pins. One afternoon, when he was absent, Eve went to the little forest burying-ground belonging to Jupiter Light. On the way she met Cicely, accompanied by Mrs. Mile.

“Where are you going? I will go with you, I think,” Cicely remarked. “It can’t be so tiresome as this.”

Mrs. Mile went intelligently away.

“I am very tired of her,” Cicely continued; “she looks like the Mad Hatter at the tea-party: this style ten-and-six. Why are you turning off?”

“This path is prettier.”

“No; I want to go where you were going first.”

“Perhaps she won’t mind,” thought Eve.

When they came to the little enclosure, Cicely looked at it calmly. “Is this a garden?” she asked. She began to gather wild flowers outside. Eve went within; she cleared the fallen leaves from the grave of the little girl. While she was thus occupied, steps came up the path, and Hollis appeared; making a sign to Eve, he offered his arm quickly to Cicely. “Mrs. Morrison, the judge is in a great hurry to have you come back.”

“Grandpa?” said Cicely. “Is he ill?”

“Yes, he is very ill indeed,” replied Hollis, decidedly.

“Poor grandpa!” said Cicely. “Let us hurry.”

They went back to the camp. Reaching it, he took her with rapid step to her lodge, where the judge and Mrs. Mile were waiting. “You are ill, grandpa?” said Cicely, going to him.

“I am already better.”

“But not by any means well yet,” interposed Mrs. Mile; “he must stay here in this lodge, and you shouldn’t leave him for one moment, Mrs. Morrison.”

Porley and Jack were also present; every now and then Mrs. Mile would give Porley a peremptory sign.

Hollis and Eve stood together near the door talking in low tones. “A muss among the Indians,” Hollis explained. “Those we brought along are peaceful enough if left to themselves; in fact, they are cowards. But a dangerous fellow, a very dangerous scamp, joined them this morning on the sly, and they’ve got hold of some whiskey; I guess he brought it. I thought I’d better tell you; the cook is staying with them to keep watch, and the judge and I are on the lookout here; I don’t think there is the least real danger; still you’d better keep under cover. If Paul comes, we shall be all right.”

“Do you expect him to-day?”

“Sorter; but I’m not sure.”

A drunken shout sounded through the forest.

“An Indian spree is worse than a white man’s,” remarked Hollis. “But you ain’t afraid, I see that!” He looked at her admiringly.

“I’m only afraid of one thing in the world,” replied Eve, taking, woman-like, the comfort of a confession which no one could understand.

“Can you shoot?” Hollis went on. – “Fire a pistol?”

She blanched.

“There, now, never mind. ’Twas only a chance question.”

“No, tell me. I can shoot perfectly well; as well as a man.”

“Then I’ll give you my pistol. You’ll have no occasion to use it, not the least in the world; but still you’ll be armed.”

“Put it on the table. I can get it if necessary.”

“Well, I’ll go outside. I’m to stroll about where I can see the cook; that’s my cue; and you can stay near the door, where you can see me; that’s yours. And the judge, he has the back window, one of the guns is there. All right? Bon-sor, then.” He went out.

Eve sat down by the door. The judge kept up a conversation with Cicely, and anxiously played quiet games with little Jack, until both fell asleep; Cicely fell asleep very easily now, like a child. Mrs. Mile lifted her in her strong arms and laid her on the bed, while Porley took Jack; poor Porley was terribly frightened, but rather more afraid of Mrs. Mile, on the whole, than of the savages.

By-and-by a red light flashed through the trees outside; the Indians had kindled a fire.

Twenty minutes later Hollis paused at the door. “Paul’s coming, I guess; I hear paddles.”

“Of course you’ll go down and meet him?” said Eve.

“No, I can’t leave the beat.”

“I can take your place for that short time.”

“Don’t you show your head outside – don’t you!” said Hollis, quickly.

Eve looked at him. “I shall go down to the beach myself, if you don’t.” Her eyes were inflexible.

All Hollis’s determination left him. “The judge can take this beat, then; you can guard his window,” he said, in a lifeless tone. He went down to the beach.

All of them – the judge, Mrs. Mile, and Porley, as well as Eve – could hear the paddles now; the night, save for the occasional shouts, was very still. Eve stood at the window. “Will the Indians hear him, and go down?”

But they did not hear him. In another five minutes Paul had joined them.

Hollis, who was with him, gave a hurried explanation. “We’re all right, now that you are here,” he concluded; “we are more than a match for the drunken scamps if they should come prowling up this way. When the whiskey’s out of ’em to-morrow, we can reduce ’em to reason.”

“Why wait till to-morrow?” said Paul.

“No use getting into a fight unnecessarily.”

“I don’t propose to fight,” Paul answered.

“They’re eleven, Tennant,” said the judge; “you wouldn’t have time to shoot them all down.”

“I’m not going to shoot,” Paul responded. He went towards the door.

“Don’t go,” pleaded Eve, interposing.

He went straight on, as though he had not heard her.

“I can’t move him,” she thought, triumphantly. “I can no more move him than I could move a mountain!”

Paul was gone. Hollis followed him to the door. “We two must stay here and protect the women, you know,” said the judge, warningly.

“Why, certainly,” said Hollis; “of course, – the ladies.” He came back.

Suddenly Eve hurried out.

Paul reached the Indian quarters, and walked up to the fire. He gave a look round the circle.

The newly arrived man, the one whom Hollis had called dangerous, sprang to his feet.

Paul took him by the throat and shook the breath out of him.

When Hollis came hurrying up, the thing was done; the other Indians, abject and terrified, were helping to bind the interloper.

“The cook can watch them now,” said Paul. “I suppose there’s no supper, with all this row?”

Hollis gave a grim laugh. “At a pinch – like this, I don’t mind cooking one.”

Paul turned. And then he saw Eve behind him.

Hollis had gone to the kitchen; he did not wish to see them meet.

“You did absurdly wrong to come, Eve,” said Paul, going to her. “What possible good was it? And if there had been real danger, you would have been in the way.”

“You are trembling; are you so frightened, then?” he went on, his voice growing softer.

“I am not frightened now.”

They went towards the lodge.

“It’s a desolate life you’ve arranged for me, Eve,” he said, going back to his subject, the Indians already forgotten. “I’m not to say anything to you; I’m to have nothing; and so we’re to go on apparently forever. What is it you are planning for? I am sure I don’t know. I know you care for me, and I don’t believe that you’ll find anything sweeter than the love I could give you, – if you would let me.”

“There is nothing sweeter,” Eve answered.

“Have you given up keeping me off?” He drew her towards him. She did not resist.

In her heart rose the cry, “For one day, for one hour, let me have it, have it all! Then – ”

XXVII

ON the second day after the alarm, Paul took the Indians back to Port aux Pins, and dismissed them, after handing the ringleader to the proper authorities; the others slunk away with their long black hair hanging down below their white man’s hats, their eagle profiles, in spite of fierceness of outline, entirely unalarming. Paul then selected half a dozen Irishmen, the least dilapidated he could find (the choice lay between Indians and Irishmen), and brought them to Jupiter Light to take the place of the crestfallen aborigines. He remained there a few days to see that all went well; then he returned to Port aux Pins for a week’s stay. “Come a little way up the lake to meet me,” he said to Eve, as he bade her good-by; “I shall be along about four o’clock next Wednesday afternoon.”

His manner still remained a little despotic. But to women of strong will despotism is attractive; when a despotism of love, it is enchanting. Eve’s feeling was, “Oh, to have at last found some one who is stronger than I!”

Even now not for a moment did she bend her opinions, her decisions, to his, of her own accord; each time it was simply that she was conquered; after contesting the point as strongly as she could, how she gloried in feeling herself overridden at last! She would look at Paul with delighted eyes, and laugh in triumph. To have yielded because she loved him, would have had a certain sweetness; but to be conquered unyielding, that was a satisfaction whose intensity could go no further.

Since that walk in the darkness from the Indian quarters to Cicely’s lodge, when, suddenly, she had let her love have its way, she had allowed herself to be carried along by chance events whithersoever they pleased; she had defied conscience, she had accepted the bliss that hung temptingly before her; she did not think, she only enjoyed. Once or twice she had sent forth mentally this defiance, – “If you feel as I do, then you may judge me!” To whom was this said? To Fate? To the world at large? In reality it was said to all women who in that summer of 1869 were young enough to love: “If you can feel as I do, then you may judge me.” But it was only once or twice that this mood had come to her, only once or twice that she thought of anything but Paul; his offered hand taken, her acceptance of it was at least superb in its completeness; there was no looking back, no fear, no regret; nothing but the fulness of joy.

Still sweeter was it to feel that, deeply as she loved, she was loved as deeply. Paul might be imperious, he might be negligent in explaining things, and in other small ways; but there was nothing negligent in his passion. His genius for directness, which puzzled Hollis in other matters, showed itself also here; he had little to say – that was possible – but no woman could have misunderstood the language of his eyes or of the touch of his hand; or fail to be thrilled by it. The feeling that possessed him went straight to its end, namely, Eve Bruce for his wife; the same Eve whom he had not liked at all at first; to whom he had found it difficult only a few weeks before to write a short letter. This inconsistency did not trouble him; love had arrived, had descended upon him in some way, he knew not how, had taken possession of him by force and forever – he recognized that, and did not contest it. Women are only women: this had been one of the settled convictions in the depths of his mind, and it was a conviction not much changed even now; yet this same Paul, with his mediæval creed, made a lover much more invincible than a hundred, a thousand other men, who would have said, perhaps, that they revered women more. “Revered?” Paul would have answered, “I don’t revere Eve, I love her!”