Jupiter Lights

By-and-by the door at the far end of the hall opened, and for the first time in her life Eve saw a vision: Ferdie, half dressed and carrying a lighted candle, appeared, his eyes fierce and fixed, his cheeks flushed. At that moment his beauty was terrible; but he saw nothing, heard nothing; he was like a man listening to something afar off.

“Come,” whispered Cicely.

Swiftly and noiselessly she went round the angle of the corridor, opened a door, and, closing it behind them, led the way to the north wing; Eve followed, or rather she kept by her side. After a breathless winding transit through the labyrinth of halls and chambers, they reached the ballroom.

“Now we can run,” Cicely whispered. Silently they ran.

Before they had quite reached the door at the far end, they heard a sound behind them, and saw a gleam across the floor: he had not waited in Eve’s room, then; he had divined their flight, and was following. Cicely’s hand swiftly found and lifted the latch; she opened the door, and they passed through. Eve gave one glance over her shoulder; he was advancing, but he was not running; his eyes had the same stare.

Cicely threw up a window, gave Jack to Eve, climbed by the aid of a chair to the sill and jumped out; then she put up her arms for Jack, and Eve followed her; they drew down the window behind them from the outside. There was a moon, but dark clouds obscured its light; the air was still. Cicely led the way to the thicket; pushing her way within, she sank down, the bushes crackling loudly as she did so. “Hurry!” she said to Eve.

Eve crouched beside her beneath the dense foliage. They could see nothing, but they could hear. They remained motionless.

After several minutes of suspense they heard a step on the plank floor of the veranda; he had made his way out. Then followed silence; the silence was worse than the sound of his steps; they had the sense that he was close upon them.

After some time without another sound, suddenly his candle gleamed directly over them; he had approached them unheard by the road, Eve not knowing and Cicely having forgotten that it was so near. For an instant Eve’s heart stopped beating, she thought that they were discovered; escape was cut off, for the thorns and spiny leaves held their skirts like so many hands. But the fixed eyes did not see them; after a moment the beautiful, cruel face, lit by the yellow gleam of the candle, disappeared from above; the light moved farther away. He was going down the road; every now and then they could see that he threw a ray to the right and the left, as if still searching.

“He will go through the whole thicket, now that he has the idea,” Cicely whispered. They crept into the road, Eve carrying Jack. But, once outside, Cicely took him again. They stood erect, they looked back; he and his candle were still going on towards the sea.

Cicely turned; she took a path which led to the north point. “There’s no thicket there. And if he comes, there’s a boat.”

The distance to the point was nearly a mile. The white sand of the track guided them through the dark woods.

“Shouldn’t you be safer, after all, in the house?” Eve asked.

“No, for this time he is determined to kill us; he thinks that I am some one else, a woman who is going to attack his wife; and he thinks that Jack is some other child, who has injured his Jack.”

“He shall never touch Jack! Give him to me, Cicely; he is too heavy for you.”

“I will not give him to any one – any one,” Cicely answered, panting.

As they approached the north point, the moon shone through a rift in the clouds; suddenly it was as light as day; their faces and hands were ivory white in the radiance.

“What is that on your throat, and down the front of your dress?” said Eve. “It’s wet. Why, it’s blood!”

“Yes; I am cut here a little,” Cicely answered, making a gesture with her chin towards her left shoulder; “I suppose it has begun to bleed again. He has a knife to-night. That is what makes me so afraid.”

The Sound now came into view. At the same instant Eve, looking back, perceived a point of yellow light behind them; the path was straight for a long distance, and the light was far away; but it was advancing in their direction. Little Jack, fully awakened by their rapid flight, had lifted his head, trying to see his mother’s face; as no one paid any attention to him, he began to cry. His voice seemed to make Cicely frantic; clasping him close, pressing his head down against her breast, she broke into a run.

“Get into the boat and push off, don’t wait for me; I’m in no danger,” Eve called after her. She stood there watching.

Cicely reached the beach, put Jack into the boat, and then tried to push it off. It was a heavy old row-boat, kept there for the convenience of the negroes who wished to cross to Singleton Island; to-night it was drawn up so high on the sands that with all her effort Cicely could not launch it. She strained every muscle to the utmost; in her ears there was a loud rushing sound; she paused dizzily, turning her head away from the water for a moment, and as she did so, she too saw the gleam, pale in the moonlight, far down the path. She did not scream, there was a tension in her throat which kept all sound from her parched mouth; she climbed into the boat, seized Jack, and staggered forward with the vague purpose of jumping into the water from the boat’s stern; but she did not get far, she sank suddenly down.

“She has fainted; so much the better,” Eve thought. Jack, who had fallen as his mother fell, cried loudly. “He is not hurt; at least not seriously,” she said to herself. Then, turning into the wood, she made her way back towards the advancing point of light. After some progress she stopped.

Ferdie was walking rapidly now; in his left hand he held his candle high in the air; in his right, which hung by his side, there was something that gleamed. The moonlight shone full upon his face, and Eve could see the expression, whose slight signs she had noticed, the flattening of the corners of the mouth; this was now so deepened that his lips wore a slight grin. Jack’s wail, which had ceased for several minutes, now began again, and at the same instant his moving head could be seen above the boat’s side; he had disengaged himself, and was trying to climb up higher, by the aid of one of the seats, in order to give larger vent to his astonishment and his grief.

Ferdie saw him; his shoulders made a quick movement; an inarticulate sound came from his flattened, grimacing mouth. Then he began to run towards the boat. At the same moment there was the crack, not loud, of a pistol discharged very near. The running man lunged forward and fell heavily to his knees; then to the sand. His arms made one or two spasmodic movements. Then they were still.

Eve’s figure went swiftly through the wood towards the shore; she held her skirts closely, as if afraid of their rustling sound. Reaching the boat, she made a mighty effort, both hands against the bow, her body slanting forward, her feet far behind her, deep in the sand and pressing against it. She was very strong, and the boat moved, it slid down slowly and gratingly; more and more of its long length entered the water, until at last only the bow still touched the sand. Eve jumped in, pushed off with an oar, and then, stepping over Cicely’s prostrate form to reach one of the seats, she sat down and began to row, brushing little Jack aside with her knee (he fell down more amazed and grief-stricken than ever), and placing her feet against the next seat as a brace. She rowed with long strokes and with all her might; perhaps he was not much hurt, after all; perhaps he too had a pistol, and could reach them. She watched the beach breathlessly.

The Sound was smooth; before long a wide space of water, with the silvery path of the moon across it, separated them from Abercrombie Island. Still she could not stop. She looked at Cicely’s motionless figure; Jack, weary with crying, had crawled as far as one of her knees and laid his head against it, sobbing “Aunty Eve? Aunty Eve?”

“Yes, darling,” said Eve, mechanically, still watching the other shore.

At last, with her hands smarting, her arms strained, she reached Singleton Island. After beaching the boat, she knelt down and chafed Cicely’s temples, wetting her handkerchief by dipping it over the boat’s side, and then pressing it on the dead-white little face. Cicely sighed. Then she opened her eyes and looked up, only half consciously, at the sky. Next she looked at Eve, who was bending over her, and memory came back.

“We are safe,” Eve said, answering the look; “we are on Singleton Island, and no one is following us.” She lifted the desperate little Jack and put him in his mother’s arms.

Cicely sat up, she kissed her child passionately. But she fell back again, Eve supporting her.

“Let me see that – that place,” Eve said. With nervous touch she turned down the little lace ruffle, which was dark and limp with the stain of the life-tide.

“It’s nothing,” murmured Cicely. The cut had missed its aim, it was low down on the throat, near the collar-bone; it was a flesh-wound, not dangerous.

Cicely pushed away Eve’s hands and sat up. “Where is Ferdie?” she demanded.

“He – he is on the other island,” Eve answered, hesitatingly. “Don’t you remember that he followed us? – that we were trying to escape?”

“Well, we have escaped,” said Cicely. “And now I want to know where he is.”

She got on her feet, stepped out of the boat to the sand, and lifted Jack out; she muffled the child in a shawl, and made him walk with her to the edge of the water. Here she stood looking at the home-island, straining her eyes in the misty moonlight.

Eve followed her. “I think the farther away we go, Cicely, the better; at least for the present. The steamer stops at Singleton Landing at dawn; we can go on board as we are, and get what is necessary in Savannah.”

“Why don’t I see him on the beach?” said Cicely. “I could see him if he were there – I could see him walking. If he followed us, as you say, why don’t I see him!” She put a hand on each side of her mouth, making a circle of them, and called with all her strength, “Ferdie? Fer-die?”

“Are you mad?” said Eve.

“Fer-die?” cried Cicely again.

Eve pulled down her hands. “He can’t hear you.”

“Why can’t he?” said Cicely, turning and looking at her.

“It’s too far,” answered Eve, in a trembling voice.

“Perhaps he has gone for a boat,” Cicely suggested.

“Yes, perhaps he has,” Eve assented, eagerly. And for a moment the two women gazed southward with the same hopefulness.

Then Eve came back to reality. “What are we thinking of? Do you want to have Jack killed?”

Cicely threw up her arms. “Oh, if it weren’t for Jack!” Her despair at that moment gave her majesty.

“Give him to me; let me take him away,” urged Eve again.

“I will never give him to any one; I will never leave him, never.”

“Then you must both go with me for the present; we will go farther north than Savannah; we will go to New York.”

“There is only one place I will go to – one person, and that is Paul; Ferdie loves Paul; – I will go nowhere else.”

“Very well; we will go to Paul.”

The struggle was over; Cicely’s voice had grown lifeless. Little Jack, tired out, laid himself despairingly down on the sand; she sat down beside him, rearranged the shawl under him and over him, and then, as he fell asleep, she clasped her hands round her knees, and waited inertly, her eyes fixed on the opposite beach.

Eve, standing behind her, also watched the home-island. “If I could only see him!” was her constant prayer. She was even ready to accept the sight of a boat shooting from the shadows which lay dark on the western side, a boat coming in pursuit; he would have had time, perhaps, to get to the skiff which was kept on that side, not far from the point; he knew where all the boats were. Five minutes – six – had elapsed since they landed; yes, he would have had time. She looked and looked; she was almost sure that she saw a boat advancing, and clasped her hands in joy.

But where could they go, in case he should really come? To Singleton House, where there was only a lame old man, and women? There was no door there which he could not batter down, no lock which could keep him out – the terrible, beautiful madman. No; it was better to think, to believe, that he could not come.

She walked back to the trees that skirted the beach, leaned her clasped arms against the trunk of one of them, and, laying her head upon the arm that was uppermost, stood motionless.

XI

THE dawn was still very faint when the steamer stopped at Singleton Landing. There was no one waiting save an old negro, who caught the shore rope, and there was no one stirring on the boat save the gruff captain, muffled in an overcoat though the night was warm, and two deck-hands, who put ashore a barrel and a sack. Lights were burning dimly on board; the negro on the dock carried a lantern.

Two women came from the shadows, and crossed the plank to the lower deck, entering the dark space within, which was encumbered with loose freight – crates of fowls, boxes, barrels, coils of rope. The taller of the two women carried a sleeping child.

For Cicely had come to the end of her strength; she could hardly walk.

Eve found the sleepy mulatto woman who answered to the name of stewardess, and told her to give them a cabin immediately.

“Cabin? Why, de cabin’s dish-yere,” answered the woman, making a motion with her hand to indicate the gaudy little saloon in which they stood. She surveyed them with wonder.

“State-room,” murmured Cicely.

Upon the lower bed in the very unstately white cell which was at last opened for them, her little figure was soon stretched out, apathetically. Her eyes remained closed; the dawn, as it grew brighter, did not tempt her to open them; she lay thus all day. Jack slept profoundly for several hours on the shelf-like bed above her. Then he woke, and instantly became very merry, laughing to see the shining green water outside, the near shores, the houses and groves and fields, and now and then a row-boat under sail. Eve brought him some bread and milk, and then she gave him a bath; he gurgled with laughter, and played all his little tricks and games, one after the other. But Cicely remained inert, she could not have been more still if she had been dead; the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed was so slight that Eve was obliged to look closely in order to distinguish it at all. Just before they reached Savannah she raised her to a sitting position, and held a cup of coffee to her lips. Cicely drank. Then, as the steamer stopped, Eve lifted her to her feet.

Cicely’s eyes opened; they looked at Eve reproachfully.

“It will only take a few moments to go to the hotel,” Eve answered.

She called the stewardess and made her carry Jack; she herself half carried Cicely. She signalled to the negro driver of one of the carriages waiting at the dock, and in a few minutes, as she had said, she was undressing her little sister-in-law and lifting her into a cool, broad bed.

Jack asleep, she began her watch. The sun was setting, she went to one of the windows, and looked out. Below her was a wide street without pavement, bordered on each side by magnificent trees. She could see this avenue for a long distance; the perspective made by its broad roadway was diversified, every now and then, by a clump of greenery standing in the centre, with a fountain or a statue gleaming through the green. Trees were everywhere; it was a city in a grove. She remembered her first arrival off this coast, when she came from England, – Tybee Light, and then the lovely river; now she was passing through the same city, fleeing from – danger? – or was it from justice? Twilight deepened; she left the window and sat down beside the shaded lamp; her hands were folded upon her lap, her gaze was fixed unseeingly upon the carpet. After ten minutes had passed, she became conscious of something, and raised her eyes; Cicely was looking at her. Eve rose and went to her. “Are we in Savannah?” Cicely asked.

“Yes.”

Cicely continued to look at her. “If you really want me to go on, you had better take me at once.”

“But you were too tired to go on – ”

“It is not a question of tired, I shall be tired all my life. But if you don’t want me to go back by the first boat to-morrow, you had better take me away to-night.”

“By the midnight train,” Eve answered.

And at midnight they left Savannah.

At Charleston they were obliged to wait; there had been a flood, and the track was overflowed.

Some purchases were necessary for their comfort; Eve did not dare to leave Cicely with Jack, lest she should find them both gone on her return; she therefore took them with her, saying to the negro coachman, privately, “If that lady should tell you to return to the hotel or to drive to the steamer when I am not with you, pay no attention to her; she is ill, and not responsible for what she says.”

As she was coming out of a shop, a face she knew met her eyes – Judge Abercrombie. He had come from Gary Hundred that morning, and was on his way to Romney; he intended to take the evening boat.

He recognized them; he hurried to the carriage door, astonished, alarmed. Eve seemed cowed by his presence. It was Cicely who said, “Yes, we are here, grandpa. Get in, and I will tell you why.”

But when the old man had placed himself opposite to her, when Eve had taken her seat again and the carriage was rolling towards the hotel, Cicely still remained mute. At last she leaned forward. “I can’t tell you,” she said, putting her hand into his; “at least I can’t tell you now. Will you wait, dear? Do wait.” Her voice, as she said this, was like the voice of a little girl of ten.

The old man, wondering, held her hand protectingly. He glanced at Eve. But Eve’s eyes were turned away.

The drive was a short one. As they entered Cicely’s room, Eve took Jack in her arms and went out again into the hall, closing the door behind her.

The hall was long, with a window at each end; a breeze blew through it, laden with the perfume of flowers. Jack clamored for a game; Eve raised him to her shoulder, and went to the window at the west end; it overlooked a garden crowded with blossoms; then she turned and walked to the east end, Jack considering it a march, and playing that her shoulder was his drum; the second window commanded a view of the burned walls of the desolated town. Eight times she made the slow journey from the flowers to the ruins, the ruins to the flowers. Then Cicely opened the door. “You can come in now. Grandpa knows.”

Grandpa’s face, in his new knowledge, was pitiful to see. He had evidently been trying to remain calm, and he had succeeded so far as to keep his features firm; but his cheeks, which ordinarily were tinted with pink, had turned to a dead-looking yellow. “I should be greatly obliged if you would come with me for a walk,” he said to Eve; “I have travelled down from Gary Hundred this morning, and, after being shut up in the train, you know, one feels the need of fresh air.” He rose, and gave first one leg and then the other a little shake, with a pathetic pretence of preparing for vigorous exercise.

“I don’t think I can go,” Eve began. But a second glance at his dead-looking face made her relent, or rather made her brace herself. She rang the bell, and asked one of the chamber-maids to follow them with Jack; once outside, she sent the girl forward. “I have taken Jack because we cannot trust Cicely,” she explained. “If she had him, she might, in our absence, take him and start back to the island; but she will not go without him.”

“Neither of them must go back,” said the judge. He spoke mechanically.

They went down the shaded street towards the Battery. “And there’s Sabrina, too, poor girl! How do we know what has happened to her!” Eve hesitated. Then she said, slowly, “Cicely tells me that when these attacks are on him, he is dangerous only to herself and Jack.”

“That makes him only the greater devil!” answered the judge. “What I fear is that he is already on her track; he would get over the attack soon – he is as strong as an ox – and if he should reach her, – have a chance at her with his damned repentant whinings – We must get off immediately! In fact, I don’t understand why you are stopping here at all,” he added, with sudden anger.

“We couldn’t go on; the track is under water somewhere. And perhaps we need not hurry so.” She paused. “I suppose you know that Cicely will go only to Paul Tennant,” she added. “She refuses to go anywhere else.”

“Where the devil is the man?”

“It’s a place called Port aux Pins, on Lake Superior. I really think that if we don’t take her to him at once, she will leave us and get back to Ferdie, in spite of all we can do.”

“If there’s no train, we’ll take a carriage, we’ll drive,” declared the judge. “This is the first place he’ll come to; we won’t wait here!”

“There’ll be a train this evening; they tell me so at the hotel,” Eve answered. Then she waited a moment. “We shall have to stop on the way, Cicely is so exhausted; I suppose we go to Pittsburgh, and then to Cleveland to take the lake steamer; if you should write to Miss Sabrina from here, the answer might meet us at one of those places.”

“Of course I shall write. At once.”

“No, don’t write!” said Eve, grasping his arm suddenly. “Or at least don’t let her send any answer until the journey is ended. It’s better not to know – not to know!”

“Not to know whether poor Sabrina is safe? Not to know whether that brute is on our track? I can’t imagine what you are thinking of; perhaps you will kindly explain?”

“It’s only that my head aches. I don’t know what I am saying!”

“Yes, you must be overwrought,” said the judge. He had been thinking only of Cicely. “You protected my poor little girl, you brought her away; it was a brave act,” he said, admiringly.

“It was for Jack, I wanted to save my brother’s child. Surely that was right?” Eve’s voice, as she said this, broke into a sob.

“They were in danger of their lives, then?” asked the grandfather, in a low tone. “Cicely didn’t tell me.”

“She did not know, she had fainted. A few minutes more, and I believe he would – We should not have them now.”

“But you got the boat off in time.”

“But I got the boat off in time,” Eve repeated, lethargically.

They had now reached the Battery Park; they entered and sat down on one of the benches; the negro girl played with Jack on the broad walk which overlooks the water. The harbor, with Sumter in the distance, the two rivers flowing down, one on each side of the beautiful city – beautiful still, though desolated by war – made a scene full of loveliness. The judge took off his hat, as if he needed more air.

“You are ill,” said Eve, in the same mechanical voice.

“It’s only that I cannot believe it even now – what Cicely told me. Why, it is my own darling little grandchild, who has been treated so, who has been beaten – struck to the floor! His strong hand has come down on her shoulder so that you could hear it! —Cicely, Eve; my little Cicely!” His old eyes, small and dry, looked at Eve piteously.

She put out her hand and took his in silence.

“She has always been such a delicate little creature, that we never let her have any care or trouble; we even spoke to her gently always, Sabrina and I. For she was so delicate when she was a baby that they thought she couldn’t live; she had her bright eyes, even then, and she was so pretty and winning; but they said she must soon follow her mother. We were so glad when she began to grow stronger. But – have we saved her for this?”

“She is away from him now,” Eve answered.

“And there was her father – my boy Marmaduke; what would Duke have said? – his baby – his little girl!” He rose and walked to and fro; for the first time his gait was that of a feeble old man.

“They can’t know what happens to us here! – or else that they see some way out of it that we do not see,” said Eve, passionately. “Otherwise, it would be too cruel.”

“Duke died when she was only two years old,” the judge went on. “‘Father, ’ he said to me, just at the last, ‘I leave you baby.’ And this is what I have brought her to!”

“You had nothing to do with it, she married him of her own free will. And she forgot everything, she forgot my brother very soon.”