Throckmorton Part 19

Besides this, Throckmorton and Jack would be over every day to look after her. When it was all arranged, Judith felt a sensation of gladness. She would have four days in which she would not be compelled to play her silent and desperate part. She could weep all night without the fear that Mrs. Temple's clear eyes would notice how pale and worn she was in the morning; she could relax a little the continual tension on her nerves, her feelings, her expression. So, when they were gone, she came back into the lonely house, and, leaving Beverley with his mammy, went up to her own room, and taking out the white silk wedding-gown went to work on it with a pale, unhappy face; she had dared not show an unhappy face before.

The day pa.s.sed quickly enough, and the short winter afternoon closed in.

Judith would no longer take time for her usual afternoon walk; every moment must be devoted to Jacqueline's gown. About eight o'clock, as she sat in the drawing-room, st.i.tching away, while overhead in her own room Delilah watched the little Beverley as he slept, she heard Throckmorton's step upon the porch. As she heard it, she gave a slight start, and put her hand on her heart--something she always felt an involuntary inclination to do, and which she had to watch herself to prevent. Throckmorton came in, and greeted her with his usual graceful kindness.

"I thought I would come over and see that n.o.body stole you and Beverley," he said.

"There's no danger for me," answered Judith; "but for a beautiful boy like my boy--why, he's always in danger of being stolen."

Throckmorton scoffed at this.

In five minutes they were seated together, having the first real _tete-a-tete_ of their lives. Judith sat under the mellow gleam of the tall, old-fas.h.i.+oned lamp, the light falling on her chestnut hair and black dress and the billowy expanse of white silk spread over her lap, making high white lights and rich shadows. Throckmorton had often admired her as she sewed. Sewing was a peculiarly gracious and feminine employment, he thought, and Judith's sewing, when he saw it, was always something artistic like what she was now doing. Throckmorton lay back in one corner of the great sofa, his feet stretched out to the fire. They talked occasionally, but there were long stretches of silence when the only sound was the crackling of the wood-fire and the dropping of the embers. Yet the unity was complete; there is no companions.h.i.+p so real as that which admits of perfect silence. Throckmorton, on the whole, though, talked more than usual. Something in Judith always inspired him to speak of things that he rarely mentioned at all. They talked a little of Jacqueline, but there were innumerable subjects on which they found themselves in sympathy. The evening pa.s.sed quickly for both. When Throckmorton had gone, and the house was shut up for the night, Judith felt that she had pa.s.sed the evening in a sort of shadowy happiness; it would have been happiness itself, except that in ten days more it would be wrong even to think of Throckmorton.

Two days more pa.s.sed. Every evening Throckmorton found himself making his way toward Barn Elms. Each evening pa.s.sed in the same quiet, simple fas.h.i.+on, but yet there was something different to Throckmorton from any evenings he had ever spent in his life. As for Judith, after the first one, she began to look forward with feverish eagerness to the evening. She lived all day in expectation of that two hours' talk with Throckmorton. She dressed for him; she hurried little Beverley to bed that she might be ready for him. Her eyes a.s.sumed a new brilliancy, and she became handsomer day by day.

On the day that the general and Mrs. Temple were to leave for home a letter arrived from Mrs. Temple. The general had been seized with an acute attack of gout, and it would probably take two or three days nursing to bring him around, so that they would not be home until the last of the week. Mrs. Temple had written to Jacqueline, and would write again in a day or two, notifying Judith when to send to the river landing for them. The delay was peculiarly inconvenient then, but it was G.o.d's will. Mrs. Temple never had any trouble in reconciling herself to G.o.d's will, except where Beverley was concerned.

Not a line had been received from Jacqueline. It did not surprise Judith, because Jacqueline hated letter-writing; but Throckmorton admitted, in an embarra.s.sed way, that he had written to her, but she had not answered his letter.

During all this time Freke had not put in an appearance, for which Judith was devoutly thankful.

On the fifth evening that Throckmorton went his way to Barn Elms, it occurred to him that he went there oftener when Jacqueline was away than when she was there, and he was glad there were no gossiping tongues to wag about it. But luckily little Beverley, Delilah, and Simon Peter were the only three persons who knew where Throckmorton spent his evenings, and none of them were either carping or critical.

He found Judith as usual in the drawing-room, and as usual embroidering on the wedding-dress. But there was something strange about her appearance; she looked altogether different from what she usually did--more girlish, more unrestrained. Throckmorton could not make it out for a long time. Then he said, suddenly, "You have left off your widow's cap."

Judith let her hands fall into her lap, and looked at him with glittering eyes.

"Yes," she said, calmly. "I grew intolerably tired of being a hypocrite, and to-night I determined for once to be my true self, so I laid aside my widow's cap. I believe, if I had owned a white gown, I should have put it on."

Throckmorton was so startled that he rose to his feet. Judith rose, too, letting the white silk fall in a heap on the floor.

"Are you surprised?" she asked, with suppressed excitement. "Well, so am I. But I will tell you--what I never dared breathe before--I am no true widow to Beverley Temple's memory. I never loved him. I married him because--because I did not know any better, I suppose. I spent two miserable weeks as his wife. I was beginning to find out--and then he went away, and almost before I realized it, he was killed." She hesitated for a moment; the picture of Throckmorton and Beverley in their life-and-death struggle came quickly before her eyes. Throckmorton was too dazed, astounded, confounded, to open his mouth. He only looked at her as she stood upright, trembling and red and pale by turns.

"I had no friends but General and Mrs. Temple; he was my guardian. You know, I had neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. I felt the most acute remorse for Beverley, and the most intense pity for him, cut off as he was, and I fancied I felt the profoundest grief. One suffers in sympathy, you know, and, when I saw his mother's pitiable sorrow, it made me feel sorry too. The world--_my_ world--saw me a broken-hearted widow--a widow while I was almost a bride. Don't you think any woman of feeling would have done as I did--tried to atone to the man I had mistakenly married by being true to his memory? I determined to devote my life to his father and mother; and, in some way I can't explain, except that you know how Mrs. Temple is, I pretended that my heart was broken; but I tell you, Beverley Temple never touched my heart, either in life or death, although I did not know it then. But for--for some time the deceit has lain heavy upon me. I am tired of pretending to be what I am not. I wish for life, for love, for happiness."

She stopped and threw herself into a chair with an _abandon_ that Throckmorton had never seen before. Still, he did not utter a word. But Judith knew that he was keenly observing her, feeling for her, and even deeply moved by what she told him.

"So to-night the feeling was so strong upon me, I took off my widow's cap and threw it on the floor; it was a sudden impulse, just as I was leaving my room, and I took Beverley's picture from around my neck, and I didn't have the courage to throw it in the fire as I wanted to; I only"--with a nervous laugh--"put it in my pocket."

She took the picture from her dress and handed it him. Throckmorton received it mechanically, but, the instant his eyes fell upon it, his countenance changed. In a moment or two he said, in an indescribable voice:

"I know this face well; he was killed on the 14th of April. I shall never forget that face to my dying day."

"I know all about it," responded Judith, rising and coming toward him; "Freke told me."

Her excitement was no longer suppressed, and Throckmorton was deeply agitated. He took Judith's hand.

"But did he tell you all? _I_ did not fire the shot that killed your husband; it was fired by one of his own men--probably aimed for me. I never succeeded in drawing my pistol at all. The first I knew, in those frightful moments, was when he shrieked and threw up his arms. I thought he would never breathe again."

"But he lived some hours," continued Judith, "and--and--I thought it was you, and I ought to have hated you for it, but I could not; I could not; and now, G.o.d is so good!"

She dropped into a chair. Throckmorton felt as if the world were coming to an end, his ideas about Judith were being so quickly and strangely transformed. He was too stupefied to speak, and for five minutes there was a dead silence between them. Then Throckmorton's strong common sense awoke. He went to her and took her hand.

"For your own sake, for your child's sake, be careful. Do not tell any one what you have told me. The penalty of deception is great, and your penalty will be to keep it up a little while longer. When I am married to Jacqueline, you will have a friend, a home. Then, if you want to take off those black garments, to be yourself, you may count on me; but, for the present, be prudent. You are so impulsive."

But Judith now was weeping violently and accusing herself. The reaction had come. Throckmorton felt strangely thrilled by her emotion. He comforted her, he held her hands, and even pressed kisses on them. In a few minutes he had soothed her. The old habits of self-control came back to her. She rallied bravely, and in half an hour she was quite composed.

But it was the composure of despair. She remembered, then, had Throckmorton but loved her, the only obstacle between them would have been shown to be imaginary.

Throckmorton stayed late. In spite of Judith's quietness, he felt unhappy about her. She was too quiet, too deathly pale. He felt an intense pity for her, and he feared that she and her child would not much longer find a home under the roof of Barn Elms.

Three days more pa.s.sed. There was still no word from Jacqueline, and Mrs. Temple wrote that the general's gout bade fair to be a much more serious matter than they had first antic.i.p.ated. It might be that the wedding--which was to be of the quietest sort--might have to be postponed. But that was nothing to Mrs. Temple and the general, who reveled in the luxury of a meeting where Beverley was remembered, praised, and eulogized as can be done only by Southerners. Nor did it seem to matter to Jacqueline. In fact, Throckmorton and Judith appeared to be the only persons particularly interested in it. As for Freke, he had not been seen by either of them since the day the Barn Elms people left.

Throckmorton continued to spend his evenings at Barn Elms. The idea of Judith sitting solitary and alone in the drawing-room the whole long, dull evening, drew him irresistibly. Not one line had Jacqueline written, either to him or to Judith. Nor had Throckmorton written again to her. He was not the man to give a woman more than one opportunity to snub him. In his heart he was cruelly mortified; his pride, of which he had much, was hurt. He feared that it was a part of that arrogance which first youth shows to maturity.

On the eighth day after Jacqueline's departure something like alarm began to possess Judith. She called it superst.i.tion, and tried to put it away from her. The day had been dull and gloomy--a fine, drizzling rain falling. The flat, monotonous landscape looked inexpressibly dreary in the gray mist that hung low over the trees. It was dark long before six o'clock. The night had closed in, and Judith, sitting alone in the drawing-room, had risen to light the lamp, when she heard the front door open softly, and the next instant she recognized Jacqueline's peculiar light step--so light that even Mrs. Temple's keen ears could not always detect it when fits of restlessness seized the girl at night, and she would walk up and down her room over her mother's head. And in a moment Jacqueline came into the room, and up to Judith, and looked at her with strange, agonized eyes.

The surprise, the shock of seeing her at that hour and in that way, was extreme; and Judith's first words as her hands fell on Jacqueline's shoulder were:

"Jacqueline, you are wet through."

"I know it," answered Jacqueline, in a voice as unlike her own as her looks; "I have been out in the rain for hours and hours!"

"What is the matter with you?" cried Judith, taking hold of her.

"Something dreadful has happened!"

"Dreadful enough for me!" replied Jacqueline, white and dry-eyed.

"What is it?" Judith was not easily frightened, but she trembled as she spoke.

"Everything!" answered Jacqueline. "In the first place, I have left Freke. That broke my heart!"

"Left Freke!"

"Yes. I didn't go to Aunt Steptoe's. I got off at the station and Freke was there. He took me to a minister's and got him to marry us. The man could hardly read and write, and he said something about a license; but Freke gave him fifty dollars, and he performed the ceremony."

Judith caught hold of her, to see if she were really in the flesh, talking in this way.

"Don't hold me so hard, Judith. I will tell you all I can; but I feel as if I should die, I am so weak and ill--" and she suddenly began to cough violently. Judith ran and got her a gla.s.s of wine. The first idea in her mind was, not the poor, deluded child, but Throckmorton.

"But where is Freke--and your father and mother?--O Jacqueline, Jacqueline!"

"Don't reproach me, Judith. But for you I would never have returned. My father and mother know nothing about it. Freke found out they were yet in Richmond. If they had been at Barn Elms, I don't think I ever would have had the courage to come back. The feeling soon came to me that I had committed a great wrong in marrying Freke; and then--and then--he told me perhaps we weren't married at all in Virginia, and so I would have to go with him out to the place--somewhere in the West--and be married to him straight and right."

"If Freke had never committed any other wrong in his whole life, his telling you that made him deserve to be killed!" cried Judith.

"Don't say a word against Freke," said Jacqueline, a new anger blazing up in her eyes. "I love Freke; it almost kills me when I think I may never see him again, for I ran away from him. At first I thought all the time of the trouble I should bring upon you all. I could see my father's gray head sink down in his hands. I could imagine how my mother would shut herself up in her room as she did when Beverley died. They had always thought so little of me that it gave me a kind of triumph when I remembered, 'They'll have to think about me now!'"

"And Throckmorton?"

"I never thought about him at all. As Freke said, he was entirely too old for me. But I will not speak of him. He knew I never loved him--or he ought to have known it. Then, when Freke found out that mamma and papa were still in Richmond, it came to me like a flash that I could get home, and I was sure of one friend, and only one in the world now--yourself. And I thought you were so clever you could manage to keep anybody from finding out where I had been. I seemed to hear your voice calling to me all the time, and every moment it seemed to crush me more and more that Freke was a divorced man, and that, however he might say he was free, he was not. So, we were staying at a little town through which the railroad pa.s.sed, and Freke had to go into Richmond yesterday to get some money, and my conscience suddenly rose up and tortured me, and I couldn't stay another moment--and, mind you, Judith, I love Freke.