Mrs. Red Pepper Part 34

Charlotte sat up suddenly, opening her eyes, pressing her free hand again over her heart with that unconscious gesture as old as suffering.

"If I had not insisted on keeping Granny here she would not have--would not have--"

She sank back, covering her face.

"What had her being here to do with it? You took every care of her. She was old--ripe--ready to go. The wonder is that she has lived so long, with such a frail hold on life."

"But--she had an exposure. This dreadful weather--night before last--her window blew in--she was chilled--"

Her voice broke. With difficulty she told him the story of the experience. He lifted her hand to his lips and held it there. After a minute he spoke very gently:

"I doubt if that had anything to do with it. It was probably the crash of the window blowing in that woke you, although you did not know it; she may not have lain there but a moment. You overcame the slight chill, if there was one, with your prompt measures. You brought her downstairs, and carried her back. There was no strain whatever upon her, it was all upon you. Dr. Burns has told me that her heart-action was the weakest and most irregular he had encountered; that, at any hour, without seeming provocation, it might stop. Why should you mourn? It was a happy way to go--merely to stop breathing, as her att.i.tude and expression show she did. Her hour had come--you had nothing to do with it. Take that to your heart, and don't blame yourself for one moment more."

She lay back in the chair again, relaxing a little under the firm words.

"Shall I go now and send Mrs. Macauley? It is nearly ten o'clock, time we were letting them know. But before I go let me tell you one thing, then I will say no more to-night. There is no more now to come between us than there was a year ago when--listen, Charlotte--we knew--we both knew--that we belonged to each other, and nothing waited but the spoken word. I dare to say this to you, for I am sure, in my inmost soul, that you know as well as I do where we stood at that time. And--the thing is gone which came between us afterward."

He stood up, put on his coat, said quietly: "You shall be alone but a very short time," and went out.

Left alone Charlotte laid both arms suddenly down upon the arm of the chair--Granny's chair--and broke into a pa.s.sion of weeping. It lasted only for a little while, then she raised herself suddenly, threw back her head, lifted both arms high--it was an old gesture of hers when she was commanding her own self-control--gripping the clenched fists tight. Then, as steps and the sound of voices were heard outside, she stood up, holding herself quietly.

When Mrs. Macauley came in, excitedly sympathetic and eager to comfort, she found a quiet mourner ready to talk with her more composedly than she herself was able to do. Martha, shocked though she was by the sudden call, was full of curiosity as to the return of John Leaver, and only Charlotte's reticent dignity of manner kept back a torrent of eager questions.

"It's certainly very fortunate he's here," she admitted. "He can take charge of the journey South, knowing trains and routes much better than Jim or I do. Of course we will go with you, dear. I judge from what Dr.

Leaver says he will go all the way--which will certainly be a comfort. He seems so strong and capable--so changed from the way he acted when he first came here, languid and indifferent. Oh, how sorry Red and Ellen will be not to be here! Red was so fond of dear Madam Chase."

Martha proved not unpleasant company for that first night, for her practical nature was always getting the better of her notion that she must speak only of things pertaining to the occasion. She went out into Charlotte's kitchen and stirred about there, returning with a tray of light, hot food. She had been astonished at the meagreness of the supplies she found, but made no comment.

"You must keep up your strength, my dear girl," she urged, when Charlotte faltered over the food. "It's a long way between now and the time when it will be all over. We may be delayed a day or two in getting off, and delayed all the way down. I hear this storm is raging all over the country."

Her words proved true. It was two days before the little party could be off. During that time Charlotte was overwhelmed with attention from her neighbours. The Macauleys and Chesters could not do enough. Either Winifred or Martha was constantly with her, and their presence was not ungrateful. John Leaver came and went upon errands, never seeing Charlotte alone, but making no effort to do so, conveying to her by his look or the grasp of his hand the comrades.h.i.+p which she felt more convincingly with every pa.s.sing hour. His personality seemed somehow as vital and stirring as the course of a clear stream in a desert place.

At the short, private service which preceded the departure of the party for the train, he came and took his place beside her in a quiet way which had in it the quality of a right. Although he did not touch or speak to her the sense of his near presence was to her like a strong supporting arm. When the moment came to leave the room she heard his whisper in her ear and felt his hand upon her arm:

"Courage! You are not going alone, you know."

It went to her heart. On the threshold she suddenly looked up at him through her veil, and met in return such a look as a woman may lean upon.

Her heart throbbed wildly in response, throbbed as only a sad heart may when it realizes that there is to be balm for its wounds.

All through the long journey Charlotte felt Leaver's constant support, although he made no further effort to define the relation between them, even when for a short s.p.a.ce, now and then, the two were alone together.

Instead he talked of his hurried trip abroad with the Burnses, and once, when they were pacing up and down a platform, at a long stop, he told her of his visit to a certain noted specialist in Berlin.

"I had had a breakdown in my work last spring," he said, in a quite simple way, as if he were speaking of something unimportant. "I had made up my mind that I could never hope fully to recover from its effects. Dr.

Z---- told me that I was perfectly recovered, that I was as sound, mentally and physically, as I had ever been, and that, if I used ordinary common sense in the future about vacations at reasonable intervals, there was no reason why the experience should ever be repeated. This a.s.surance was what sent me home. I found I couldn't stay in Germany and go sightseeing with my friends after that. I wanted to be at work again."

"I wonder that Dr. Burns didn't want to rush home with you," Charlotte observed--though it was not of Red Pepper she was thinking. This simple statement, she knew, was the explanation he was giving her of the thing he had said to her last August under her apple-tree. It made clear to her that which she had suspected before--it somehow seemed, also, to take away the last barrier between them.

"Burns needed the change--he hasn't had a vacation except his honeymoon for years. By the way, he's having a second honeymoon over there."

"I'm very glad," Charlotte responded.

Then the summons came for the return to the train, and Mr. and Mrs.

Macauley, waving to them from the other end of the platform, met them at the step.

On the morning of the third day the party reached their destination. They were met at the small station by a staid but comfortable equipage, driven by an old family coachman with grizzled, kinky hair and a black face full of solemnity. They were taken to the hospitable home of the owner of the dignified old carriage and the fat, well-kept horses which had brought them to her door, and were there welcomed as only Southern hostesses can welcome. Mrs. Catesby's mother had been a friend of Madam Chase's youth, and for her sake the daughter had thrown open her house to do honour to the ashes of one whom she had never seen.

"How glad I am," Charlotte said, soon after her arrival, standing by a window with kind Mrs. Catesby, "to come down here where it is spring. I could never have borne it--to put Granny away under the snow. She didn't like the snow, though she never said so. Are those camellias down by the hedge? Oh, may I go out and pick some--for Granny?"

"I thought you might like them--and might want to pick them yourself, or I should have had them ready. I sent for no other flowers. I remember my mother telling me how Madam Chase loved them--as she herself did."

From an upper window, in the room to which he had been a.s.signed, Leaver saw Charlotte go down the garden path to the hedge, there to fill a small basket with the snowy blooms. When she turned to go back to the house she found him beside her.

"I see now why you wanted no other flowers," he said, as he took the basket. "These are like her--fair and pure and fragile."

"She was fond of them. She wore them in her hair when she was a girl.

They have no fragrance; that is why I want them for her now. How people can bear strong, sweet flowers around their dead I can never understand."

"I have always wondered at that, too," Leaver admitted. "My mother had the same feeling." He looked closely at Charlotte's face, as the bright sunlight of the Southern spring morning fell upon it. "You are very tired," he said, and his voice was like a caress. "Not in body, but in mind--and heart. I wish, by some magic, I could secure for you two full hours' sleep before--the hour."

"I couldn't sleep. But I am strong, I shall not break down."

"No, you will not break down; that wouldn't be like you. And to-night--you shall sleep. I promise you that."

"I wish you could," Charlotte said, and her lips trembled ever so slightly. "But I shall not."

"You shall. Trust me that you shall. I know a way to make you sleep."

However that might be, she thought, his presence was now, as all through this ordeal, the thing which stood between her and utter desolation. A few hours later, when he stood beside her at the place which was to receive that which they had brought to it, she felt as if she could not have borne the knowledge that she was laying away her only remaining kinswoman, if it had not been for the sense of protection which, even at the supreme moment, he managed to convey to her. Her hand, as it lay upon his arm, was taken and held in a close clasp, which tightened possessively upon it, minute by minute, until it was as if the two were one in the deep emotion of the hour.

All the beauty of spring at her tenderest was in the air, as the little party turned slowly away, in the light of the late afternoon sun.

Somewhere in the distance a bird was softly calling to its mate.

Behind Charlotte and Leaver, the kindly old clergyman who had been Madam Chase's life-long friend was gently murmuring:

"'Dust is dust, to dust returneth, Was not written of the soul.'"

Upon the evening of that day, spent as such evenings are, in subdued conversation at a hearthside, Leaver came across the room and spoke to Charlotte.

"I am wondering," he said, "if a short walk in the night air won't make you fitter for sleep than you look now. It is mild and fine outside. Will you come?"

"It will do you good, Miss Ruston," urged her hostess, who had taken a strong liking to Dr. Leaver. The Macauleys seconded the suggestion also, and Charlotte, somewhat reluctantly as to outward manner, but, in spite of sorrow and physical fatigue, with a strong leap of the heart, made ready.

As her companion closed the door behind them Charlotte understood that she was alone with him at last, as she had not been alone with him in all these days, even when no person was present. She had small time in which to recognize what was coming, for, almost instantly, it was at hand.

There was a small park opposite the house, and to the deserted walk which circled it she found herself led.

"Dear," Leaver's voice began, in its tenderest inflection, "I have a curious feeling that no words can make it any clearer between us than it already is. Last winter we knew how it was with us--didn't we? Won't you tell me that you knew? It is my dearest belief that you did."

"Yes, I knew," Charlotte answered, very low.