________________________________________________
_ Two days later Fletcher's big new carriage crawled over the muddy
road, and Christopher, looking up from his work in the field,
caught a glimpse of the sullen face Will turned on the familiar
landscape. The younger Fletcher had come home evidently nursing a
grievance at his heart; his eyes held a look of dogged
resentment, and the hand in which he grasped the end of the linen
dust-robe was closed in an almost convulsive grip. When he met
Christopher's gaze he glanced angrily away without speaking, and
then finding himself face to face with his grandfather's scowl he
jerked impatiently in the opposite direction. It was clear that
the tussle of wills had as yet wrung only an enforced submission
from the younger man.
Lifting his head, Christopher stood idly watching the carriage
until it disappeared between the rows of flowering chestnuts;
then, returning in a half-hearted fashion to his work, he found
himself wondering curiously if Fletcher's wrath and Will's
indiscretions were really so great as public rumour might lead
one to suppose.
An answer to his question came the next evening, when he heard a
light, familiar whistle outside the stable where he was at work,
and a moment afterward Will appeared in the shadow of the
doorway.
"So it wasn't a cut, after all?" said Christopher with a laugh,
as he held out his hand.
"I'll be hanged if I know what it was," was Will's response,
turning away after a limp grasp and seating himself upon the big
box in the corner. "To tell the truth, grandpa has put me into
such a fluster that I hardly know my head from my heels. There's
one thing certain, though; if he doesn't take his eye off me for
a breathing space he'll send me to the dogs before he knows it."
His face had lost its boyish freshness of complexion and his weak
mouth had settled into lines of sullen discontent. Even his dress
displayed the carelessness which is one of the outward marks of a
disordered mind, and his bright blue tie was loosely knotted in
unequal lengths.
"What's the trouble now?" demanded Christopher, coming from the
stall and hanging his lantern from a nail beside the ladder,
where the light fell full on Will's face. "Out with it and have
done. I thought yesterday that you had been driving a hard
bargain with the old man on my account."
"Oh, it's not you this time, thank heaven," returned Will. "It's
all about that confounded scrape I got into at the university. I
told him it would mean trouble if he sent me there, but he would
do it whether or no. He dragged me away from here, you remember,
and had me digging at my books with a scatter-brained tutor for a
good six months; then when I knew just about enough to start at
the university he hauled me there with his own hands and kept
watch over me for several weeks. I'm quick at most things like
that, so after he went away I thought I'd have a little fun and
trust luck to make it up to me at the end--but it all went
against me somehow, and then they stirred up that blamed rumpus
about the examinations."
Yawning more in disgust than in drowsiness, he struck a match on
the edge of the box and lighted a cigarette. His flippant manner
was touched with the conscious resentment which still lingered in
his eyes, and from the beginning to the end of his account he
betrayed no hint of a regret for his own shabby part in the
affair. When it was not possible to rest the blame upon his
grandfather, he merely shrugged his shoulders and lightly tossed
the responsibility to fate.
"This is one of the things I daren't do at the house," he
remarked after a moment, inhaling a cloud of smoke and blowing it
in spirals through his nostrils; "the old man won't tolerate
anything more decent than a pipe, unless it happens to be a chew.
Oh, I'm sick to death of the whole business," he burst out
suddenly. "When I woke up this morning I had more than half a
mind to break loose and go abroad to Maria. By the way, Wyndham's
dead, you know; he died last fall just after we went away."
"Ah, is that so!" exclaimed Christopher. "She'll come home, then,
will she?"
"That's the queer part--she won't, and nobody knows why. Wyndham
turned out to be a regular scamp, of course; he treated her
abominably and all that, but he no sooner died than she turned
about and picked up one of his sisters to nurse and coddle. Oh,
it's all foolishness, but I've half a mind to run away, all the
same. A life like this will drive me crazy in six months, and
I'll be hanged if it is my fault, after all. He knew I never had
a head for books, but he drove me at them as if I were no better
than a black slave. Things have all been against me from the
start, and yet I used to think that I was born to be lucky--"
"What does he mean to do with you now?" inquired Christopher.
"Put me to the plough, he says; but I can't stand it--I haven't
the strength. Why, this morning he made me hang around that
tobacco field in the blazing sun for two mortal hours, minding
those shiftless darkies. If I complain; or even go off to sit
down in a bit of shade, he rushes up and blusters about kicking
me out of doors unless I earn my bread. Oh, his temper is simply
awful, and he gets worse every day. He's growing stingy, too,
and makes us live like beggars. All the vegetables go to market
now, and most of the butter, and this morning he blew Aunt
Saidie's head off because she had spring chickens on the
breakfast table. I don't dare ask him for a penny, and yet he's
rich--one of the richest men in the State, they say."
"Well, it sounds jolly," observed Christopher, smiling.
"Oh, you can't imagine the state of things, and you'd never
believe it if I told you. It's worse than any fuss you ever heard
of or ever saw. I used to be able to twist him round my finger,
you know, and now he hates me worse than he does a snake. He
hasn't spoken a word to me since that scene we had at the
university, except to order me to go out and watch the Negroes
plant tobacco. If he finds out I want a thing he'll move heaven
and earth to keep me from getting it--and then sit by and grin.
He's got a devil in him, that's the truth, and there's nothing to
do except keep out of his way as much as possible. I'm patient,
too--Aunt Saidie knows it--and the only time I ever hit back was
when he jumped on you the other day. Then I got mad and struck
out hard, I tell you."
Christopher leaned over and began buckling and unbuckling a
leather strap in the harness-box.
"Don't get into hot water on my account," he returned; "the more
he abuses me, you know, the better I like it. But it's odd that
after all these years he should want to turn you into an
overseer."
"Well, he shan't do it; that's certain. It will be a cold day
when he gets me masquerading in the family character. Let him go
just one step too far and I'll shake him off for good, and strike
out on a freight-train. Life couldn't be any worse than it is
now, and it might be a great deal better. As to my hanging round
like this much longer and swearing at a pack of worthless
darkies--well, it's more than I bargain for, that's all."
"There's not much excitement in it, to be sure. I would rather be
a freight-hand myself, I think, when all is said."
"Oh, you needn't joke. You were brought up to it and it doesn't
come so hard."
"Doesn't it?"
"Not so hard as it does to me, at any rate. There's got to be
some dash about life, I tell you, to make it suit my taste. I
wasn't born to settle down and count my money and my tobacco from
morning till night. It's spice I want in things, and--hang it! I
don't believe there's a pretty woman in the county."
For a moment Christopher stared silently down at the matted
straw. His face had grown dark, and the reckless lines about his
mouth became suddenly prominent.
"Why, where's Molly Peterkin?" he asked abruptly, with a laugh
that seemed to slip from him against his will.
The other broke into a long whistle and tossed the end of his
cigarette through the doorway.
"You needn't think I've forgotten her," he replied; "she's the
one bright spot I see in this barren hole. By the way, why do you
think her a fool?"
"Because she is one."
"And you're a brute. What does a man want with brains in a woman,
anyway. Maria had them and they didn't keep her from coming to
shipwreck."
Christopher reached for the lantern.
"Well, I've got to go now," he broke in, "and you'd better be
trotting home or you'll have the old man and the hounds out after
you."
With the lantern swinging from his hand, he went to the door and
waited for Will; then passing out, he turned the key in the lock,
and with a short "Good-night!" started briskly toward the house.
Will followed him to the kitchen steps, and then keeping to the
path that trailed across the yard, he passed through the
whitewashed gate and went on along the sunken road which led by
the abandoned ice-pond. Here he turned into the avenue of
chestnuts, and with the lighted windows of the Hall before him,
walked slowly toward the impending interview with his
grandfather.
As he entered the house, Miss Saidie looked out from the
dining-room doorway and beckoned in a stealthy fashion with the
hen-house key.
"He has been hunting everywhere for you," she whispered, "and I
told him you'd gone for a little stroll along the road."
An expression of anger swept over Will's face, and he made a
helpless gesture of revolt.
"I won't stand it any longer," he answered, with a spurt of
resolution which was exhausted in the feeble speech.
Miss Saidie put up her hand and straightened his necktie with an
affectionate pat.
"Only for a little while, dear," she urged; "he's in one of his
black humours, and it will blow over, never fear. Things are
never so bad but there's hope of a mending some day. Try to
please him and go to work as he wants you to do. It all came of
the trouble at the university--he had set his heart on your
carrying off the honours."
"It was his fault," said Will stubbornly. "I begged him not to
send me there. It was his fault."
"Well, that can't be helped now," returned the little woman
decisively. "All we can do is to make things as easy as we can,
and if thar's ever to be any peace in this house again you must
try to humour him. I never saw him in such a state before, and
I've known him for sixty years and slept in a trundle-bed with
him as a baby. The queerest thing about it, too, is that he seems
to get closer and closer every day. Just now thar was a big fuss
because I hadn't sent all the fresh butter to market, and I
thought he'd have a fit when he found I was saving some asparagus
for dinner to-morrow."
"Where is he now?" asked Will in a whisper.
"Complaining over some bills in his setting-room; and he actually
told me a while ago, when I went in, that he had been a fool to
give Maria so much money for Wyndham to throw away. Poor Maria!
I'm sure she has had a hard enough time without being abused for
something she couldn't help. But it really is a passion with him,
thar's no use denying it. He spends his whole time adding up the
cost of what we eat."
Then, as the supper-bell rang in the hall, she finished
hurriedly, and assuming a cheerful manner, took her place behind
the silver service.
Fletcher entered with a heavy step, his eyes lowering beneath his
bushy eyebrows. The weight of his years appeared to have fallen
upon him in a night, and he was no longer the hale, ruddy man of
middle age, with his breezy speeches and his occasional touches
of coarse humour. The untidiness of his clothes was still
marked-his coat, his cravat, his fingér nails, all showed the old
lack of neatness.
"Won't you say grace, Brother Bill?" asked Miss Saidie, as he
paused abstractedly beside his chair.
Bending his head, he mumbled a few hurried words, and then cast a
suspicious glance over the long table.
"I told you to use the butter with onions in it," he said,
helping himself and tasting a little on the end of his knife.
"This brings forty cents a pound in market, and I'll not have the
waste."
"Oh, Brother Bill, the other is so bad," gasped Miss Saidie
nervously.
"It's good enough for you and me, I reckon. We wan't brought up
on any better, and what's good enough for us is good enough for
my grandson." Then he turned squarely upon Will. "So you're back,
eh? Whar did you go?" he demanded
Will tried to meet his eyes, failed, and stared gloomily at the
white-and-red border of the tablecloth.
"I went out for a breath of air," he answered in a muffled voice.
"It's been stifling all day."
"You've got to get used to it, I reckon," returned the old man
with a brutal laugh. "I'll have no idlers and no fancy men about
me."
An ugly smile distorted his coarse features, and, laying down his
knife and fork, he sat watching his grandson with his small,
bloodshot eyes. _
Read next: Book III - The Revenge: Chapter VII. The Toss of a Coin
Read previous: Book III - The Revenge: Chapter V. The Happiness of Tucker
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