A Speckled Bird

"'One can suffer only so much, then numbness comes. After the misery of many months a last blow does not crush. The petrified are not always where they belong – in the grave.'

"After the funeral she closed Nutwood, moved her books, piano, and horses down to my little cottage in the heart of the pine woods, denied herself to every one, and there we have lived in strict seclusion. Day and night she pored over books of Arctic travel, and on the walls of her room she had maps and charts, and what she called her 'comfort calendar,' that she patched together from almanacs, to mark what time day and night began near the Pole and when the new moons were due. It made my heart ache to see her face each day as she searched the papers for some news of you. At last she ceased to expect any, and your name was not mentioned. Mr. Herriott, do you recollect your striped silk smoking-jacket, with pink poppies embroidered on collar and cuffs and down the front?"

"Yes. I had such a jacket."

"One sultry summer night, about one o'clock, I went on tiptoe into Eglah's room to get a vial of medicine that was kept in a closet there, and, as she slept poorly, I tried not to disturb her. Her window was open, the curtains looped back, and a full moon shone in. She was sitting up in bed, with her face buried in some bright wrapping, and a sort of strangled moan came from her. I went to the bed and asked what the trouble was. Had she neuralgia in her face, that she was muffling it on such a hot night? Oh, Mr. Herriott, if you could have heard the quiver in her voice!

"'No, no. Heartache – heartache only the grave can ease.'

"Next day, while she was away, I searched for that striped thing which I had never seen before. She kept it in a long, satin-lined, sandalwood case, among her perfumed laces, and when I examined it I found a smoking-jacket, with a dog whistle in one pocket, and in the other a handkerchief marked 'Herriott.' I – "

Mr. Herriott had walked away, and after several moments recalled the search for the missing jacket on the day of his departure, and the pride with which Amos only three nights ago, had shown him a warm, quilted cashmere gown "the madam" had sent him because the jacket left for him had never been found. When he came back to the seat, he stood with his face turned from her, and she could see only his profile.

"Sir, if you don't hear me out, you can't understand why I came. Eglah would sit for hours, a book before her, her hands folded in a way peculiar to her – her wedding ring against her lips – so silent, so still, she seemed a stone; but she roused to a manifestation of interest when we heard your old gardener was ill and needed attention. While we were at your house she seemed more like herself than at any time since that express package reached her; but a deep undercurrent of sorrow she could not hide. Over the house and grounds she wandered continually, and that long lake beach was her favorite walk. Every evening she shut herself in one of the rooms downstairs – I think it was your smoking-room – and the last night we were there she spent locked in that room. She sent for a photographer from the city and had copies taken of your mother's portrait and of yours – that one hanging next to your father's in the drawing-room. To-day on her dressing-table stand two pictures of you and one she insists resembles you – the photograph of a French poet she saw once in Arles. She thinks the brow and eyes and nose are yours, and, though she does not like the lower portion of the face, she had the photograph enlarged and framed. I could not keep my tears back when, leaning from the carriage, she took her last look at your home. There was such a world of suffering in her sad eyes, and her dear lips and chin trembled like a little child's.

"'Being here is next best to seeing the master. I can never come again. When he returns I must be in Europe, out of his way.'"

Mr. Herriott turned suddenly and looked down steadily at his companion.

"Pardon me, Mrs. Mitchell. You prefer to stay at home? You do not wish to go abroad?"

His keen eyes searched hers, and their flash answered him.

"Whatever the child thinks is best for her peace I want above everything else; and I am ready and willing to go with her to Europe, Africa, the Fiji Islands – to the ends of the earth. I do love my little home, still more my husband's grave, almost in sight of it; I love my cows and my chickens; but first and last, and better than all, I love my baby, who came to my arms when she was three hours old, and who now, in turning her back upon an unjust world, clings only to me. I never took an oath before God that I would 'for better, for worse, love and cherish her till death,' but I rather think my love will abide, will stand all tests and trials that have crumbled some other vows she once trusted."

After a moment she added:

"Perhaps I have already said too much, and you may not care to hear more."

"Madam, I wish you to tell me everything you think it best I should know. I am here for that purpose, at your request."

"Eglah was terribly hurt to find Amos had heard twice from you while, consumed with suspense, she had received not even a line. After we went home she grew more and more restless, but I noticed she carefully avoided any allusion to you. One night I heard her moving about, and then she left her room. It is a lonely little place where we live, rather unprotected, and the servants – man and wife – do not wake easily. Eglah had a way of walking about the gallery and yard when she could not sleep that made me uneasy. I went out to expostulate, and found her sitting on the steps in the moonlight with that jacket of yours in her arms. I sat down and took her hand. In a horrible dream, she had seen you lying dead between two blue slabs of ice, a white owl on your breast, and she was hugging and stroking that striped silk as only those who love can caress the garments of lost darlings. You know she very rarely cries. In all her life I never saw tears on her face more than three or four times. I tried to soothe her, and said that full moon overhead was making the Pole itself bright. She turned suddenly to me, the tears dripping, and, oh, if I could give you the heartbroken tone in which she said:

'The broad noonday was night to me,The full-moon night was dark to me,The stars whirled and the poles spanThe hour God took him far from me.'

"After that night she guarded herself more closely against any expression of feeling, and carefully abstained from all reference to you until the evening she learned from a Boston paper that your vessel had returned to Europe, and you had preferred to stay in Arctic regions. My poor baby! She looked so white, so stunned, as if some one had struck her a heavy blow."

Eliza sobbed and her tears streamed.

"Mr. Herriott, she felt assured you would not come home because you feared you might meet her, and then she asked me to keep my promise and go with her to Europe as soon as some stone-cutting designs could be filled. She waited only to see three memorials completed. From the day she learned the 'Ahvungah' had returned, I saw a bitter, resentful element beginning to invade what had been only regretful tenderness, and her lips were locked. The window in the Episcopal Church at Y – was placed, and soon after we went North to see the monument ordered for her father's grave. I dreaded she would break down there, but she was as quiet as the marble angel of the Resurrection standing on the slab. She showed me where she wished her body laid, close to her father's, and then she asked me to be sure – after she was safe in her coffin – to take off her wedding ring and send it to you, because you had wanted it back from the day you gave it to her. She refused to stop in New York, fearing some of her friends or yours might see and question her. Any allusion to her marriage was as the touch of red-hot irons. On our way home she went one afternoon to Calvary House to see her cousin Temple – the priest – and look at an altar she had given him. I waited outside in the carriage, and she joined me, holding her thick mourning veil over her face. As she and her father designed this altar after one they had seen somewhere abroad, I thought her silence and evident distress resulted from its association with him. After a while she said, in a strange, muffled way, that she had done everything she was sure her father would like if he could speak to her, and now her hands were empty, and she wished to sail for Europe at the earliest possible date – probably within a week. As she leaned against me, and I held her hand, I felt her shiver. Then she told me she had just seen you at Calvary House, strong and well, and she must leave America at once."

"She saw me! When?"

Mr. Herriott had grown very pale.

"A week ago yesterday. She said you had brought some sick, blind man there, and you were going home. I asked her why she did not speak to you, and she answered that three years ago you had willed you and she should be strangers; you had built a wall of silence, and no word, no sign from her should ever break it. Unobserved by you, she had seen you in the cloister, heard you talking of your plans for future travel, and, fearing discovery, she had hurried from the chapel. Since then every nerve has been strained to get away."

Mr. Herriott walked a few yards, put on his glasses, and stood for some time with his hands behind him. A sad, perplexed face met Eliza's eager eyes when he came back, and for the first time seated himself beside her.

"To what portion of Europe are you going?"

"To Spain; to a quiet little place hidden away in the Pyrenees, where she hopes she will meet no one who ever heard of her, and where, having nothing to remind her of three horrible years, she can try to forget her suffering. To avoid all acquaintances, she will not sail from New York, but goes directly to Charleston, and thence to Havana, where she can take a steamer to Spain. I think, sir, no one can understand her terrible humiliation in being rejected. While you were away, surrounded by dangers, and she was on the rack of suspense, tortured almost beyond endurance, only deep and tender love filled her heart. Since she has seen you safe and well – yet no word of remembrance has been sent to her – wounded pride possesses her, and she seems indeed petrified. Even now she maintains with strange composure: 'He is within his rights; he is not to blame. It was all my fault. I made the mistake of presuming too far on his love, which was less than I counted on, and I deserve my punishment; but sometimes I think God, who saw my heart and knew I did not intend any wrong, might have spared me some of the bitter dregs I have had to drink.' With all her pride, she is acutely sensitive to adverse gossip. From childhood she has borne so much on account of her father's unpopularity in the State, and people do not understand her. In Washington her loyalty to the South and to the Maurices subjected her to sneers and much unpleasantness. Her sudden marriage and subsequent events, especially her coming home before you sailed, have caused annoying comment, and now she is hurrying through Y – , anxious to get away before the fact of your return is known there. She does not suspect the opposition manifested by some of the vestrymen to that memorial window. Only the pleadings of the rector and the influence of Mr. Whitfield, who is not an Episcopalian and who had no cause to like Judge Kent, availed to smother the objections to its erection. This mortification we have managed to save her. Now, sir, you will please pardon me if I speak very frankly. What passed between you and Eglah after your marriage I do not know, nor did Judge Kent. Her lips have been sealed, but I have often thought the estrangement arose from your discovery of the fact that she did not love you as she should have done before she married you, and therefore I have come here to try to save you both from making shipwreck of your lives. If that was the cause of the trouble, it exists no longer. She loves you now as devotedly as even you could wish."

He shook his head and swept his hand across his face.

"Madam, she pities me, she deplores my disappointment; perhaps she censures herself unduly, but love! She knows no more of love than a baby in its cradle. She never will. She is absolutely incapable of loving any man. Too many have tried zealously to touch her heart, and failed as signally as I certainly did."

Mrs. Mitchell's black eyes sparkled through her tears.

"Mr. Herriott, since she was three hours old she has been my child. I know her as well as I know myself. I am a woman; I loved my husband better than my life, and when I see genuine, loyal, tender love in a wife I know it as surely as you know where the sun rises. My baby did not love you when she took her marriage vows, but you were deep in her heart when she came home; and her love has grown until it is now so strong it is a slow torture, from which she would gladly escape if she could. Do you suppose a woman proud, reserved, cold as Eglah is would treasure and caress, and sleep with her cheek on a man's faded old smoking-jacket if she did not tenderly love the wearer whose touch had made it sacred? Oh, Mr. Herriott, if you could have seen her all these years – her patient, hopeless face! If you could realize the life she leads in the overseer's house and contrast it with that brilliant past when you saw her admired and sought in New York – even in London – you might perhaps understand how changed she is. I longed for you to know that your wife's heart is wholly yours, because I have believed you would always love her. If she ever suspects I have told you her secret she will never forgive – she will disown me. You must not cause me to lose my child. Just now she is sorely mortified and resentful, but – "

Eliza paused and looked at the man beside her, but she could not see his eyes.

"Please do me the kindness to finish your sentence."

"But if you could meet her and – "

Again she hesitated, discouraged by the expression settling around his mouth.

"In consequence of a voluntary pledge on my part, I could not now intrude upon her."

"If you called and asked to see her, I am sure she would decline to receive you; but if you really desire to see her before she sails, it could be arranged without her knowledge or co-operation. We go from Maurice to-morrow night at eight o'clock and pass through Y – without stopping. Eglah comes from Y – at eight to-night. To-morrow she will be at my house all day until four o'clock, when she goes over to the Willow Bend plantation to say good-bye to the Boyntons and negro tenants, and also the tenants and field hands from Canebrake plantation, whom Mr. Boynton will have present. Eglah usually takes a book and spends the morning under the trees in my front yard, or in the old mill, where she often sits for hours. If you merely want to see your wife again before she passes forever out of your life you can easily do so from the shelter of my butter-bean arbor, which is near the trees, and she will never know it. If you care to speak to her, you may be sure of no interruption. Mr. Herriott, God took my husband, but I could not have borne my loss if my Robert had voluntarily taken himself from me. My heart aches for Eglah. She is indeed my all in this world, and I have risked a great deal to put you in possession of the truth. She loves you as earnestly and tenderly as you could wish, but it remains for you to make her admit it – to compel her to confession. Her pride has been so sorely wounded she would die sooner than move one inch toward reconciliation."

She looked at her watch and rose.

"My train will soon be due."

As they walked toward the small station-house, Mr. Herriott held out his hand.

"Whatever the future may hold, I shall always thank you inexpressibly for the confidence, the sacred trust you have reposed in me, and I will never betray it. I doubt the wisdom of seeing Eglah. I know only too well the difference between true love and that regretful compassion her kind heart indulges. There are reasons that make me unwilling to violate my own pledge to her, but if I should decide to go to your house, will you direct me how to find it?"

"You can drive to Maurice, ten miles south, or take the night train, which will not stop here unless it is flagged. Once at Maurice, any one will show you Willow Bend road. When you pass the plantation, which is quite a settlement, cross the bridge, turn to the right, and you will soon see an old red mill in front of my gate. Here comes my train."

"No, madam; not your train. That is only a freight-engine and gravel cars."

"I came on it, and I go back the same way. For many reasons I prefer to keep this trip as secret as possible, at least until after to-morrow, when we leave home; so I avoided the passenger train that brought up some Maurice Masons. The smaller the place, the wider the eyes, the keener the ears, and the more nimble the tongues that dwell there. Rufus Boling, the conductor yonder, expects to marry my favorite Sunday-school pupil, Minna Gaines, to-morrow night, and I have done all I could for the child's wedding. Consequently, though the railroad officials grumble and forbid, he consented to let me ride in the caboose, provided I would not sit at the window, and promised not to sue for damages if I lost a limb or an eye on the trip. Are you ready, Rufus? Good-bye, Mr. Herriott. I have done my best for my child and for you. God help you both!"

He took her hand and pressed it cordially.

"In any event, you may rest assured I never shall cease to thank you for your effort; and life will always be sweeter because of some facts you have given me."

He assisted her into the close, smoky caboose, lifted his hat and, as the engine pulled slowly out, he took off his glasses and walked back to the red-oak grove.

CHAPTER XXVII

It was a cloudless, warm day when Mr. Herriott crossed the bridge, and walked up the road bordering a creek hidden by its vivid fringe of willows. At the ruined mill he paused; here the sandy road ended. Beyond on an upland towered a pine forest, its organ pipes whispering as the south wind touched the tremolo; in front nestled the small, white house, partly veiled by rose and yellow jasmine vines, and all the little hollow was brimmed with cool, green shadows cast by trees across clustering flower beds. A blended perfume distilled by dew from Hersé's crystal fingers hovered over the Dingle, the cold, unctuous odor of tuberoses, the warm spice of carnations, and that clinging breath of wan lilies that evokes white faces and folded fingers of the dead, but stronger than all, the fragrance of wild grapes in creamy bloom. More than cloistral quiet reigned; only the rippling monody of water feeling its way over the crumbling dam to the far-off sea, and the tinkle of the spring runnel sounding low, clear, elfish, as if some Malis or "April-eyed Nycheia" smote her tambourine and set silver bells ringing. Once from the green silken tent of willows a shy lark, hermit of dells, thrilled the silence with his resonant, sylvan roulade, and a locust under beech boughs answered, clashing his brazen sistrum.

The blinds and windows at the front of the cottage were open, and white muslin curtains stirred now and then, as the breeze swayed them. Pots of flowering geranium and heliotrope were grouped on the piazza, and among them slept Delilah. As Mr. Herriott looked at the humble nest of a home, and thought of stately Nutwood, of gilded ballrooms where Eglah had reigned an acknowledged beauty, he began to realize the monotony, the dreary loneliness of life here in the heart of almost primeval forests. She had elected to shut herself far away from the brilliant circle of former days, but he could not believe it was for his sake; grief for her father had made her a recluse.

The dazzling possibility with which Mrs. Mitchell enticed him, he had put aside as a delusion he could not indulge a second time, for behind it was the biting mockery with which he had once grappled. His nominal wife had led the life of a nun during his absence, but loyalty was far removed from love, and the steps of an altar suited her nature better than a husband's arms. For many hours he had fought the hope that would smile out of the folds of his old jacket, but the intense longing to see her again conquered reason, prudence, consistent adherence to the line of action he had voluntarily prescribed for both. He would secrete himself, and merely look once more at the face he had striven ineffectually to forget, and she should never suspect his presence.

At a little distance was the gate of the low wire fence, but he stepped across the wire, and passed through the open door of the dairy to a tall tulip tree, around the body of which coiled the brown serpent of the muscadine. Very near this tree, now all aglow with its orange-spotted cups, stood – on the edge of a verbena bed – an ancient mimosa in full bloom. Years before, an August gale had pollarded it, and lateral branches drooped almost to the ground, except on one side, where they were cut away to frame an arch, and this entrance showed a wooden bench set against the trunk of the tree. To-day it resembled a huge Japanese umbrella of olive-green lace thickly studded with pink silk aigrettes that shook out waves of sweetness, mellow, fruity, languorous. Looking around for the best coign of vantage, Mr. Herriott noticed the narrow arbor covered by a thick growth of butter-bean vines, where he stood secure from observation. On the ground, only five yards distant, lay a woman's broad black straw hat tied basket-fashion with its ribbon strings, and filled with spikes of tuberoses. By cautious pressure of the bean vines he could see very distinctly the front of the house and the mimosa seat.

With his head on his hand and a throbbing of his heart that defied control, he waited, his eyes on the hat, he never knew how long, until a sudden thrill shook him.

From an invisible corner of the garden, Eglah came slowly toward the arbor. Her mourning gown of lustreless, thin black silk fitted perfectly the curves of her finely moulded figure, and at her throat she had fastened a spray of white star jasmine. High on her head the glossy, gold-flecked chestnut hair was piled in soft loose coils and puffs that caught the sunshine as she walked, holding in the clasp of one arm a sheaf of long-stemmed lilies. Advancing until she reached the hat, she leaned down, swung the knotted ribbons over her right wrist, and stood a moment listening to the peaceful woodland message of the lark. Three years had wrought a marvellous change. The rich promise of her youth had expanded into an almost flawless loveliness. A certain girlish slimness had given place to the fuller, rounded lines of graceful, perfect womanhood, and over the pathetic, pale face had settled a passionless repose that comes only when hope is dead, and silent pride sits on its tombstone. As she held the lilies with her left arm, the hand gleamed white against the folds of her black dress, and the wedding ring flashed. Her cold, exquisite purity matched that of a Roman vestal on her way to shrines, but her large brown eyes, looking far away, were so darkened by shadows of mournful memory, of helpless yet uncomplaining renunciation, that Mr. Herriott could not endure the sight. He threw his hand across his face, and strangled the impulse to spring to her side, to catch her in his arms. When he looked again, she had walked away toward the house.

With a book in her hand, Mrs. Mitchell ran down the steps.

"I am waiting for the flowers, before I close the box for the little bride. These lilies are just what she needs for the altar. Give them to me."

Then a low, sweet, sad voice swept the heartstrings of the man who watched and listened.

"Do not forget to send my present. I put my card inside the case. Dear little Minna, I hope she may be happy. If her husband really loves her, she enters her heaven; but if not, the poor little thing will soon wish the burial instead of marriage service had been read over her to-night. I trust the child may never find out that a tolling bell is sweeter than a wedding peal. You found my Baedeker?"

"Yes, in the mill where you left it a week ago."

"I must look out one or two points in it, and the air is so deliciously sweet I think I shall stay a while in the garden on this last Dingle day, unless you need me to help you."

"There is nothing for you to do inside; everything is ready."