The Prodigal Judge Part 42

"I am going to stay here as long as you need me," he presently said.

"She--Miss Malroy asked me to, and then I am going back to the river where I belong."

Norton turned on him quickly.

"You don't mean you've abandoned the notion of turning planter?" he demanded in surprise.

"Well, yes. What's the use of my trying my hand at a business I don't know the first thing about?"

"I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to decide finally on that point,"

urged Norton.

"It has decided itself," said Carrington quietly.

But Norton was conscious of a subtle change in their relation.

Carrington seemed a shade less frank than had been habitual with him; all at once he had removed his private affairs from the field of discussion. Afterward, when Norton considered the matter, he wondered if it were not that the Kentuckian felt himself superfluous in this new situation that had grown up.

Charley Norton's features recovered their accustomed hue, but he did not go near Belle Plain; with resolute fort.i.tude he confined himself to his own acres. He was tolerably familiar with certain engaging little peculiarities of Mr. Ware's; he knew, for instance, that the latter was a gentleman of excessively regular habits; once each fortnight, making an excuse of business, he spent a day in Memphis, neither more nor less.

Norton told himself with satisfaction that Tom was destined to return to the surprise of his life from the next of these trips. This conviction was the one thing which sustained Charley for some ten days. They were altogether the longest ten days he had ever known, and he had about reached the limit of his endurance when Betty's groom arrived with a letter which threw him into a state of ecstatic happiness. The sober-minded Tom would devote the morrow to Memphis and business.

This meant that he would leave Belle Plain at sun-up and return after nightfall.

"You may not like Tom, but you can always count on him," said Norton.

Then he ordered his horse and rode off in the direction of Raleigh, but before leaving the house, he scribbled a line or two to be handed Carrington, who had gone down to the nearest river landing.

It was nightfall when the Kentuckian returned, Hearing his step in the hall, Jeff came from the dining-room, where he was laying the cloth for supper.

"Mas'r Charley has rid to Raleigh, Sah," said he; "but he done lef' this fo' me to han' to yo"--extending the letter.

Carrington took it. He guessed its contents. Breaking the seal he read the half dozen lines.

"To-morrow--" he muttered under his breath, and slowly tore the sheet of note-paper into thin ribbons. He turned to Jeff. "Mr. Charley won't be home until late," he said.

"Then I 'low yo' want yo' supper now, Sar?" But Carrington shook his head.

"No, you needn't bother, Jeff," he said, as he turned toward the stairs.

Ten minutes later and he had got together his belongings and was ready to quit Thicket Point. He retraced his steps to the floor below. In the hall he paused and glanced about him. He seemed to feel her presence--and very near--to-morrow she would enter there as Norton's wife. With his pack under his arm he entered the dining-room in search of Jeff.

"Tell your master I have gone to Memphis," he said briefly.

"Ain't yo' goin' to have a hoss, Mas'r Carrington?" demanded Jeff in some surprise. He had come to regard the Kentuckian as a fixture.

"No," said Carrington. "Good-by, Jeff," he added, turning away.

But when he left Thicket Point he did not take the Memphis road, but the road to Belle Plain. Walking rapidly, he reached the entrance to the lane within the hour. Here he paused irresolutely, it was as if the force of his purpose had already spent itself. Then he tossed his pack into a fence corner and kept on toward the house.

CHAPTER XXII. AT THE CHURCH DOOR

There was the patter of small feet beyond Betty's door, and little Steve, who looked more like a nice fat black Cupid than anything else, rapped softly; at the same time he effected to squint through the keyhole.

"Supper served, Missy," he announced, then he turned no less than seven handsprings in the upper hall and slid down the bal.u.s.trade to the floor below. He was far from being a model house servant.

His descent was witnessed by the butler. Now in his own youth big Steve with as fair a field had cut similar capers, yet he was impelled by his sense of duty to do for his grandson what his own father had so often done for him, and in no perfunctory manner. It was only the sound of Betty's door opening and closing that stayed his hand as he was making choice of a soft and vulnerable spot to which he should apply it. Little Steve slid under the outstretched arm that menaced him and fled to the dining-room.

Betty came slowly down the stairs. Four hours since Jeff had ridden away with the letter. Already there had come to her moments when, she would have given much could she have recalled it, when she knew with dread certainty that whatever her feeling for Charley, it was not love; moments when she realized that she had been cruelly driven by circ.u.mstances into a situation that offered no escape.

"Mas'r Tom he say he won't come in to supper, Missy; he 'low he's powerful busy, gittin' ready to go to Memphis in the mo'ning," explained Steve, as he followed Betty into the dining-room.

His mistress nodded indifferently as she seated herself at the table; she was glad to be alone just then; she was in no mood to carry on the usual sluggish conversation with Tom; her own thoughts absorbed her more and more they became terrifying things to her.

She ate her supper with big Steve standing behind her chair and little Steve balancing himself first on one foot and then on the other near the door. Little Steve's head was on a level with the chair rail and but for the rolling whites of his eyes he was no more than a black shadow against the walnut wainscoting; he formed the connecting link between the dining-room and the remote kitchen. Betty suspected that most of the platters journeyed down the long corridor deftly perched on top of his woolly head. She frequently detected him with greasy or sticky fingers, which while it argued a serious breach of trust also served to indicate his favorite dishes. These two servitors were aware that their mistress was laboring under some unusual stress of emotion. In its presence big Steven, who, with the slightest encouragement, became a medium through which the odds and ends of plantation gossip reached Betty's ears, held himself to silence; while little Steve ceased to s.h.i.+ft his weight from foot to foot, the very dearth of speech fixed his attention.

The long French windows, their curtains drawn, stood open. All day a hot September sun had beaten upon the earth, but with the fall of twilight a soft wind had sprung up and the candles in their sconces flared at its touch. It came out of wide solitudes laden with the familiar night sounds. It gave Betty a sense of vast unused s.p.a.ces, of Belle Plain clinging on the edge of an engulfing wilderness, of her own loneliness.

She needed Charley as much as he seemed to think he needed her. The life she had been living had become suddenly impossible of continuance; that it had ever been possible was because of Charley; she knew this now as she had never known it before.

Her thoughts dealt with the past. In her one great grief, her mother's death, it had been Charley who had sustained and comforted her. She was conscious of a choking sense of grat.i.tude as she recalled his patient tenderness at that time, the sympathy and understanding he had shown; it was something never to be forgotten.

Unrest presently sent her from the house. She wandered down to the terrace. Before her was the wide sweep of the swampy fore-sh.o.r.e, and beyond just beginning to silver in the moonlight, the bend of the river growing out of the black void. With her eyes on the river and her hands clasped loosely she watched the distant line of the Arkansas coast grow up against the sky; she realized that the moon was rising on Betty Malroy for the last time.

She liked Charley; she needed some one to take care of her and her belongings, and he needed her. It was best for them both that she should marry him. True she might have gone back to Judith Ferris; that would have been one solution of her difficulties. Why hadn't she thought of doing this before? Of course, Charley would have followed her East.

Charley met the ordinary duties and responsibilities of his position somewhat recklessly; it was only where she was concerned that he became patiently determined.

"I suppose the end would have been the same there as here," thought Betty.

A moment later she found herself wondering if Charley had told Carrington yet; certainly the Kentuckian would not remain at Thicket Point when he knew. She was sure she wished him to leave not Thicket Point merely, but the neighborhood. She did not wish to see him again--not see him again--not see him again--She found herself repeating the words over and over; they shaped themselves into a dreadful refrain.

A nameless terror of the future swept in upon her. She was cold and sick. It was as though an icy hand was laid upon her heart. The words ran on in endless repet.i.tion--not see him again--they held the very soul of tragedy for her, yet she was roused to pa.s.sionate protest. She must not think of him, he was nothing to her. She was to be married to another man, even now she was almost a wife--but battle as she might the struggle went on.

There was the sound of a step on the path. Betty turned, supposing it to be Tom; but it was not Tom, it was Carrington himself who stood before her, his face haggard and drawn. She uttered an involuntary exclamation and shrank away from him. Without a word he stepped to her side and took her hands rather roughly.

For a moment there was silence between them, Betty stared up into his face with wide scared eyes, while he gazed down at her as if he would fasten something on his mind that must never be forgotten. Suddenly he lifted her soft cold hands to his lips and kissed them pa.s.sionately again and again; then he held them in his own against his cheek, his glance still fixed intently upon her; it held something of bitterness and reproach, but now she kept her eyes under their quivering lids from him.

"What am I to do without you?"--his voice was almost a whisper. "What is this thing you have done?" Betty's heart was beating with dull sickening throbs, but she dared not trust herself to answer him. He took both her hands in one of his, and, slipping the other under her chin, raised her face so that he could look into her eyes; then he put his arm loosely about her, holding her hands against his breast. "If I could have had one moment out of all the years for my own--only one. I am glad you don't care, dear; it hurts when you reach the end of something that has been all your hope and filled all your days. I have come to say good-by, Betty; this is the last time I shall see you. I am going away."

All in an instant Betty pressed close to him, hiding her face in his arm; she clung to him in a panic of pain and horror. She felt something stir within her that had never been there before, as a storm of pa.s.sionate longing swept through her. Her words, her promise to another man, became as nothing. All her pride was forgotten. Without this man the days stretched away before her a blank. His arm drew her closer still, until she felt her heart throb against his.

"Do you care?" he said, and seemed to wonder that she should.

"Bruce, Bruce, I didn't know--and now--Oh, my dear, my dear--" He pressed his lips against the bright little head that rested in such miserable abandon against his shoulder.

"Do you love me?" he whispered. The blood ran riot in his veins.

"Why have you stayed away--why didn't you come to me? I have promised him--" she gasped.

"I know," he said, and shut his lips. There was another silence while she waited for him to speak. She felt that she was at his mercy, that whether right or wrong, as he decided so it would be. At length he said.

"I thought it wasn't fair to him, and it seemed so hopeless after I came here. I had nothing--and a man feels that--so I kept away." He spoke awkwardly with something of the reserve that was habitual to him.