Lewis Rand Part 51

At last she stirred, lifted her head from her arm, and arose, moving stiffly and slowly as though she had grown old. Her face was drawn and colorless. She moved, mechanically, to the fire, laid fresh wood upon it, and, taking a small broom from the corner, made the hearth clean; then, returning, sat down upon the couch that was printed with bright roses and held out her hands. "Come," she said, in her low, musical voice. "Come, tell me--"

He sank upon his knees beside her and bowed his head upon her lap.

"Jacqueline, Jacqueline! I rode away from Richmond, in black anger--"

He told her all, now speaking with a forced and hard deliberation, now with a broken and strangled voice, short words and short sentences--at the last, monosyllables.

When the tale was done, they stayed for a little, motionless. There was yet bright lightning with long peals of thunder, and the rain beat with pa.s.sion against the panes. Jacqueline moistened her ups, tried to speak, at last found a broken and uncertain voice. "You left him--lying there?"

"The horse broke away--ran on through the wood. It will have been caught ere now, or it will make its way to Greenwood. Is Fairfax Cary at home?"

"He came last night. He was at Fontenoy this morning."

Rand stood up. "It is done, and all the rueing in the world will not make the breath alight again." With a gesture, singular and decided, he walked to the window and again looked out at the rain and lightning. "If I know--if I know Fairfax Cary--Has the horse been captured--and where?

It may be known now, and it may not be known for hours." He stood, reviewing chances, and the shaken soul began to settle to its ancient base. At last he turned. "There's danger enough, but the struggle must be made. If you love me still, I'll find the heart to make it; ay, and to succeed!" Coming back to her, he took her in his arms. "You do love me? That isn't dead?"

"I love you, Lewis."

"Then, by G.o.d, I'll fight it out! Jacqueline, Jacqueline--"

She presently freed herself. "What are you going to do--what are you going to do now, Lewis?"

"I will tell you what I have done, and where the danger's greatest--"

"The danger?"

"The danger of discovery."

"Lewis--will you not tell them?"

"Tell them--"

"Is it not--oh, Lewis, is it not the only thing to do? Sin and suffering--yes, yes, the whole world sins and suffers! But oh, ign.o.ble to sin and to reject the suffering!"

He stared at her incredulously. "Do you know, Jacqueline,--do you know what you are saying?"

"Will it be so hard?" she asked, and put out her arms to him. "It is right."

"Let me understand," he said. "When the mist cleared and I saw him lying there, I sat down upon a stone, and I said to myself, 'This is a strange land, and I am to eat the fruits thereof.' For a while I did not think of moving. You would have had me stay there as he stayed, watch there beside him until men came?"

She answered almost inaudibly, "It had been n.o.bler."

"And then and there to have given myself up?"

"Lewis, if it was right--I would have said to G.o.d and the world and him, 'It is the least that I can do!'"

He stared at her. "By G.o.d, the _amende honorable!_"

There came blinding lightning, followed by thunder which seemed to shake the room. Rand crossed to the hearth and, with his booted foot upon the iron dogs, rested his arm upon the mantel-shelf and his head upon his hand. "I'll think of that awhile," he said harshly. "That means disgrace and may mean death."

He heard the drawing of her breath. There was a knock at the door followed by Mammy Chloe's voice. "De bread an' meat an' wine on de table, marster."

"Very well, Mammy, I'll come presently," the master answered; then, when she was gone, "This is the earth, Jacqueline. It was long while I sat there upon the stone and saw matters as they might be upon another plane, but that appearance pa.s.sed. Because for those moments I saw its shape, I know the aspect that is before your eyes. But it is not reality that you see; it is an appearance, thin and unsubstantial as the mist upon the hills. Expiation, purgation, aided retribution, the criminal to spare Justice the search, and the offender against Society to turn and throw his weight into the proper scale!--that is a dream of the world as it may become. This is the present earth,--earth of the tobacco-fields, earth of the struggle, earth of the fight for standing-room! I have fought--and I have fought--I cannot cease to fight."

With his foot he pushed back the burning wood. "I did not kill him in self-defence. I killed him in anger. That is murder. Say, for argument, that it is confessed murder. I will tell you, as a lawyer, what that means. It means a full stop. Life stopped, work stopped, fame stopped--a period black as ink, and never to be erased! A stop deep as the grave and sharp as the hangman's drop, and the record that it closes empty, vile, read at the best with horror and pity, read at the worst with a glance aside at every man and woman whom the stained hand had ever touched! That is what would come if I followed this appearance." He struck the hand at which he looked against the mantel-shelf. "And if he says, 'Ay, Lewis Rand, it is so that I would do,' I will answer, 'Yes!

being you!--but what, Ludwell Cary, had you lain in my cradle?" His face worked and he turned from the mantel to the great chair. "Oh, _mother!_"

he said beneath his breath.

Jacqueline came and knelt beside him. "Lewis, Lewis, is it all so dark?"

He touched her hair with his fingers. "Dark! I feel as though I were in a bare, light place. Underground, you know, but bare and flooded with light. Well, Jacqueline, well--"

She clung to him without speech, and he went on. "There is enough to create suspicion. We were travelling at the same hour, and it is known that we were opponents. The crossroads where I slept last night--there was nothing, I think, said at the inn. Then the forge, and the mill. At the mill they will swear to telling me that he took the main road, and since they could not see the ford, they must suppose that I, too, went that way. The main road. There's the insistence. I kept to the main road. As for Young Isham, I can manage him. That old Frenchman is more difficult. Danger there--unless he holds his tongue. There's a witness indeed lying at the bottom of some pool below the strand, but the strand may sink into the sea before that witness is found! There is this and there is that, but they'll serve no warrant on the this and that the world can see. I have won more difficult cases."

"You propose," she cried, "to lie--and lie--and lie!"

After a moment he answered, with bitterness, "I am not unreasonable. I do not match white with black. The dyer's hand accepts the hue it works in. I'll not win rest, forgiveness, sleep! But, by G.o.d, I'll keep what men care for. I'll keep strength and reputation, name, and room to work a lever in! Ay, and I'll not endure the world to say, 'This was his friend, and that his lover; look how they are stained!' O G.o.d, O G.o.d!"

She put her arms around him. "There is no stain! I will forever love you. Love casts off soil as it casts out fear. Will you not come with me--and tell them?"

He sat for some minutes, still in her clasp, then, leaning forward, took her face in his hands and kissed her on the brow. "No!" he said, with finality.

Another moment and he arose. "I am hungry. I have not eaten since daybreak. As for sleep--I don't know when I slept. It is not only the darkness of the storm; it is growing late. I think that we will hear nothing to-night. We will sleep, and I need it." He moved to a table and took up the pair of holsters which, on entering, he had laid there In a corner of the room stood a heavy chest of drawers. He placed the holsters in one of these, locked the drawer, and withdrew the key. "I'll think that out," he muttered, "just as soon as may be," then turned again to his wife. "I'll go now and get some meat and wine. Stay here by the fire, Jacqueline, and try to see that all this must be fought, and fought as I have said! Think of yourself, and think of Deb, Unity, your uncles--at last you will come to see that there is no other way."

He was gone. Jacqueline dragged herself from the chair to the hearth, sank down before the glowing logs, and saw at once a picture of the river road.

She had been lying throughout the night almost without motion, but toward three o'clock he was aware that she had left the bed. A moment, and he heard the tap of her slippers across the polished floor of the chamber, the hail, and the dining-room. She paused, he could tell, at the sideboard; when, presently, she slipped again into bed, she was trembling violently. He turned and put his arms about her. "I am so cold," she said. "It is cold indoors and out-of-doors."

"I have brought you misery," he answered, and then lay in silence.

They heard the clock ticking, and the sighing of the branches after the storm. For awhile she was quiet within his clasp, then the shuddering recommenced. He arose, put on his dressing-gown, and, going to the fireplace where the logs yet smouldered, threw on light wood and built a cheerful fire, then took her in his arms and carried her to the great chair of flowered chintz, set in the light of the dancing flames. "The wine will warm you. Look, too, what a fire I have made!"

She still shuddered, staring over her shoulder. "Draw the blinds closer. There's a sound as of some one sighing."

"It is the wind in the beech leaves."

She put an arm across her eyes. "How long is he to lie there, stretched out upon the wet rocks, beside the stream? Oh, heartless!"

"The storm and darkness have made it long. He will be found this morning."

"He never was your enemy, Lewis. You thought him that, but he never was, he never was!"

"I want to tell you," he said, "that all rage is dead. I feel as though I had left anger far behind, and why there was in my mind so great venom and rancour I no longer know. Envy and jealousy, too, are gone. They have been struck out of life, and other things have come to take their place."

"Ay," she cried, "what other things! O G.o.d, O G.o.d!"

There was a long silence, while the wind sighed in the beech tree and the fire muttered on the hearth. Jacqueline sat in the flowered chair, her raised arms resting upon its back, her head buried in her arms.