We Three Part 27

"I know."

So she knew, did she?

"Can you meet me at ten o'clock tonight?"

"Where?"

"Leave the house at ten sharp, and walk toward the town; I'll be watching for you. You'll come?"

"Yes, sir."

XXV

Near the Fultons, fronting on the street, is a large overgrown yard that has never been built on. Here in the shadow of a great cedar tree I waited and watched for Hilda. On the stroke of ten I saw her coming.

She had a neat, brave, brisk way of walking, her head well up, as if she was afraid of nothing. A few moments later I hailed her from under my cedar, and after glancing up and down the street to see if anyone was watching, she joined me there.

It was very dark. I could just make out her face. She was breathing fast and had one hand pressed upon her heart.

"Thank you for coming, Hilda. You saw Mrs. Fulton and me in the hall?"

"And heard you."

"I'm throwing myself on your mercy, Hilda. Mrs. Fulton and I love each other. When we get back to New York we are going to tell Mr. Fulton.

He will let Mrs. Fulton divorce him, and then we are to be married.

You'll be my friend, won't you, and not tell? There's been nothing wrong, Hilda----"

"Only kisses."

"But if he found out from anyone but Mrs. Fulton--you see he isn't very well and he might do something crazy--something tragic. You see if you told him what you'd seen, he might act before anyone had a chance to explain."

I was trying to make the matter sound more serious than I felt it to be. Whatever happened, I did not think that Fulton was the kind of man who forgets his education and his civilization, but I wanted, if I could, to frighten Hilda into secrecy.

"You'd not want to get me all shot up, would you, Hilda?"

She was silent for a time, as if weighing pros and cons in her head.

Then she looked up at me and said:

"When _I_ saw, _I_ didn't do anything crazy."

"Hilda," I said, "he has to be hurt and you have to be hurt. That's always been the way with love--it always will be."

She was silent again. Then she said in a low voice that carried with it a certain power to thrill: "He'd die for her. And I'd die for you.

But he's only a worn-out glove, and I'm only a common servant. She thinks she'd die for you, and you think you'd die for her. But you're both wrong. A woman that won't stand by her babies isn't going to die for anyone, not if she knows it. A man that gets to your age without marrying any of the women he's gone with isn't going to die for anyone if he can help it. Wait till you've crossed her selfish will a few times and see how much she'll die for you; wait till she begins to use you the way she used him. A whole lot you'll want to die for--her--then----"

"I can't listen to this, Hilda."

"You _will_ listen, or else I'll scream and say you attacked me--a whole lot she'll feel like dying for you _then_. Servants have eyes and ears and hearts. There's servants in that house that know how things used to be, who see how things are now, since you came philandering around. And do you know what those servants think of her, and what I think of her for the way she's treated him? Oh, they like her well enough because she's gentle and easy-going, and good-tempered and easy to get on with; but there isn't a servant in that house would change characters with her. We think she's the kind of woman that's beneath contempt--lazy, selfish, spendthrift--always pampering number one--and going about the world looking like a sad, bruised lily. Do you think the servants in that house don't know all about your goings and comings, and the life you've led, the harm you've done and didn't have to do, the good you might have done, and didn't?"

"But, Hilda----"

She motioned me to be silent. Her ears, sharper than mine, or more attentive, had heard voices. They were negro voices, a man's and a woman's. We drew deeper into the shadow of the cedar.

"So you got no mo' use for me, n.i.g.g.e.r?" The man's voice rumbled softly and threatened like distant thunder. "Yo' got to have yo' fling?"

Then the woman's voice, shrill but subdued: "I don' love you no mo', Frank."

"You got er nice home 'n nice lil' babies, 'n you goin' to leave 'em fo' a yaller man--is you?"

They were opposite us now, walking very slowly and occasionally lurching against each other.

"Yo' ain't goin' ter make trouble, Frank?"

"I ain't goin' ter give you up, Lily."

"You ain't? How you goin' ter fix fo' ter keep me?"

They came to a halt and faced each other, the woman defensive and defiant, the man somber, quiet, with a certain savage dignity and slowly smoldering like an inactive volcano. You couldn't see their features, only a white flas.h.i.+ng of eyes and teeth in such light as there was.

"You's one er dese new women," said the man softly. "You's got ter be boss 'n have yo' own way."

He stood for some moments looking down into her face, appraising as it were her flightiness, and meditating justice. Then he struck her quietly, swiftly and hard, so that her half-open mouth closed with a sharp snap.

She was not senseless, but she made no effort to rise. He stood over her, smoldering. Then, his voice suddenly soft and tender, "I reckon I is got ter learn you," he said, and he picked her up in his arms and carried her from the roadside deep into the tangled growths of the vacant yard--deeper and deeper, until no sound at all came to us from them.

"That was Mrs. Fulton's laundress and her husband," said Hilda. "She's been trying to copy Mrs. Fulton; but _he's_ settled that. He's a real man, and he'll keep his wife. Women like to be hit and trampled. It proves to them that they're worth while."

"That may be, Hilda. I don't know. I couldn't hit a woman. . . . You haven't told me that you're not going to tell what you saw."

"I don't know," she said; "he's suffered enough. It ought to end."

"But I thought you--didn't want to hurt me?"

"I don't. Still----"

"Still what?"

"Oh, favors aren't everything."

"What do you mean, Hilda!"

"Oh, I'm just a servant. I suppose I could be bought."

"I thought better of you."

"Not with money."