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_ As she hastened on, Christopher's presence was still with
her--his arm still enveloped her, his voice still spoke in her
ears; and so rapt was the ecstasy in which she moved that it was
with a positive shock that she found herself presently before the
little area which led into the brick kitchen in the basement of
the Hall. Here from the darkness her name was spoken in a stifled
voice, while a hand reached out and clutched her by the shoulder.
"I say, Maria, I've been waiting hours to speak to you."
Forcing back the cry upon her lips, she opened the door and stole
softly into the kitchen. Then, turning, she faced Will with a
frightened gesture.
"How reckless--how very reckless!" she exclaimed in a whisper.
He closed the door that led up into the house, and coming over to
the stove, where the remains of a fire still smouldered in a deep
red glow, stood looking at her with nervous twitches of his
reddened eyelids. There was a wildness in his face before which
she fell back appalled, and his whole appearance, from the damp
hair lying in streaks upon his forehead to his restless feet
which he shuffled continually as he talked, betrayed an agitation
so extreme as to cause her a renewed pang of foreboding.
"Oh, Will, you have been drinking again!" she said, in the same
frightened whisper.
"And why not?" he demanded, throwing out his words between thick
breaths. "What business is it of yours or of anybody else's if I
have been? A pretty sister you are--aren't you?--to let a fellow
rot away on a tobacco farm while you wear diamonds on your
fingers."
She looked at him steadily for a moment, and his shifting glance
fell slowly to the floor.
"If you are in any fresh trouble you may as well tell me at
once," she said. "It is a mere waste of time and breath to
reproach me. You can't possibly make me angry to-night, for I
wear an armour of which you do not dream, and so little a thing
as abuse does not even touch me. Besides, grandfather may hear us
and come down at any moment. So speak quickly."
Her coolness sobered him instantly, as if a splash of icewater
had been thrown into his face, and his tone lost its
aggressiveness and sank into a whimpering complaint.
It was the same old thing, he went on, only worse and worse.
Molly had been ill again, and the doctor ordered medicine he
couldn't buy. Yes, he had tried to take the diamond from her, but
she flew into hysterics at the mere mention of selling it. Once
he had dragged it off her finger, and had given it back again
because her wildness frightened him, "Why on earth did you ever
let her have it?" he finished querulously.
"Well, I never imagined she would be quite so silly," returned
Maria, distressed by what she heard. "But it may be that jewels
are really her passion, and the bravest of us, I suppose, are
those who sacrifice most for their dearest desire. I really don't
see what is to be done, Will. I haven't any money, and I don't
dare ask grandfather, for he makes me keep a strict account of
every cent I spend. Only yesterday he told me he couldn't allow
me but two postage stamps a week, and yet I believe that he is
worth considerably more than half a million dollars. Sometimes I
think it is nothing short of pure insanity, he grows so miserly
about little things. Aunt Saidie and I have both noticed that he
would rather spend a hundred dollars--though it is like drawing
out an eyetooth--than keep a pound of fresh butter from the
market."
"And yet he likes you?"
"Oh, he tolerates me, as far as that goes; but I don't believe he
likes anything on earth except his money. It's his great passion,
just as Molly's love of jewelry is hers. There is something so
tremendous about it that one can't help respect it. As for me, he
only bears with my presence so long as I ask him for absolutely
nothing. He knows I have my little property, and we had a
dreadful scene when I refused to let him keep my check-book. I
gave you all the interest of the last six months, you know, and
the other isn't due until November. If he finds out that it goes
to you, heaven help us!"
"And there's not the faintest hope of his coming to his senses?
Have you spoken of me again?"
"I've mentioned your name twice, that was all. He rose and
stamped out of the room, and didn't speak for days. Aunt Saidie
and I have planned to bring the baby over when it comes. That may
soften him--especially if it should be a boy."
"Oh, the bottom will drop out of things by that time," he
returned savagely, tearing pieces of straw from his worn
hat-brim. "If this keeps up much longer, Maria, I warn you now
I'll run away. I'll go off some day on a freight train and hide
my head until he dies; then I'll come back to enjoy his precious
money."
She sighed, thinking hopelessly of the altered will.
"And Molly?" she questioned, for lack of a more effectual
argument.
"I can't stop to think of Molly: it drives me mad. What use am I
to her, anyway, I'd like to know? She'd be quite as well off
without me, for we do nothing but quarrel now night and day; and
yet I love her--I love her awfully," he added in a drunken
whimper.
"Oh, Will, Will, be a man for her sake!"
"I can't; I can't," he protested, his voice rising in anger. "I
can't stand the squalor of this life; it's killing me. Why, look
at the way I was brought up, never stopping an instant to ask
whether I could have a thing I wanted. He had no right to
accustom me to luxuries till I couldn't do without them and then
throw me out upon the world like this!"
"Hush! Hush! Your voice is too loud. It will bring him down."
"I'll be hanged if I care!" he retorted, but involuntarily he
lowered his tone.
"You mustn't stay here five minutes longer," urged Maria. "I'll
give you a diamond brooch I still have left, and you may take it
to town yourself and sell it. Only promise me on your honour that
you will spend the money on the things Molly needs."
"Oh, I promise," he replied roughly. "Where is it?"
"In my room. I must get it now. Be perfectly quiet until I
return."
Opening the door and closing it carefully behind her, she stole
noiselessly up the dark staircase, while Will, twitching
nervously, paced restlessly up and down the brick floor. A pile
of walnuts which Miss Saidie had been shelling for cake lay on
the hearth, and, picking up the heavy old hammer she had used, he
cracked a nut and ate it hurriedly. Hungry as he was--for he had
not been home to supper--he found difficulty in swallowing, and,
laying the hammer down upon the bricks, he rose and stood waiting
beside the stove. Though the night was warm, a shiver ran
suddenly through him, and, stirring the fading embers with a
splinter of resinous pine, he held out his shaking hands to the
blaze.
In a moment Maria entered and handed him the brooch in a little
box.
"Try to keep up courage, Will," she said, pushing him into the
area under the back steps; "and above all things, do not come
here again. It is so unsafe."
He promised lightly that he would not, and then told her good-by
with an affectionate pat upon the arm.
"Well, you are a bully good chap, after all," he added, as he
stepped out into the night.
For a while Maria stood looking after him across the moonlit
fields, and then, even as she turned to enter the house, the last
troubled hour was blotted from her consciousness, and she lived
over again the moment of Christopher's embrace. With that
peculiar power to revive and hold within the memory an instant's
emotion which is possessed by ardent and imaginative women, she
experienced again all the throbbing exhilaration, all the fulness
of being, which had seemed to crowd the heartbeats of so many
ordinary years into the single minute that was packed with life.
That minute was hers now for all time; it was a possession of
which no material loss, no untoward fate could defraud her; and
as she felt her steps softly up the dark staircase, it seemed to
her that she saw her way by the light of the lamp that was
burning in her bosom.
To her surprise, as she reached the dining-room a candle was
thrust out before her, and, illuminated by the trembling flame,
she saw the face of Fletcher, hairy, bloated, sinister, with the
shadow of evil impulses worked into the mouth and eyes. For a
moment he wagged at her in silence, and in the flickering
radiance she saw each swollen vein, each gloomy furrow, with
exaggerated distinctness. He reminded her vaguely of some hideous
gargoyle she had seen hanging from an early Gothic cathedral.
"So you've taken to gallivanting, like the rest," he observed
with coarse pleasantry. "I'd thought you were a staid and
sober-minded woman for your years, but it seems that you are of a
bunch with all the others."
"I've been out in the moonlight," answered Maria, while a
sensation of sickness stole over her.
"It is as bright as day, but I thought you were in bed long ago."
"Thar's not much sleep for me during tobacco planting, I kin tell
you," rejoined Fletcher; "but as for you, I reckon thar's more
beneath your words than you like to own to. You've been over to
see that young scamp, ain't you?"
"I saw him, but I did not go out for that purpose."
"It's the truth, I reckon, for I've never known you to lie, and
I'll be hanged if it ain't that I like about you, after all.
You're the only person I kin spot, man or woman, who speaks the
truth jest for the darn love of it."
"And yet I lived a lie for five years," returned Maria quietly.
"Maybe so, maybe so; but it set on you like the burr on a
chestnut, somehow, and when it rolled off thar you were, as clean
as ever. Well, you're an honest and spunky woman, and I can't
help your traipsing over thar even if I wanted to. But thar's one
thing I tell you now right flat--if that young rascal wants to
keep a whole skin he'd better stay off this place. I'd shoot him
down as soon as I would a sheep-killing hound."
"Oh, he won't come here," said Maria faintly; and, going into the
dining-room, she dropped into a chair and lay with her arms
outstretched upon the table. The second shock to her emotional
ecstasy had been too much, and the furniture and Fletcher's face
and the glare of the candle all spun before her in a sickening
confusion.
After looking at her anxiously an instant, Fletcher poured out a
glass of water and begged her to take a swallow. "Thar, thar, I
didn't mean to skeer you," he said kindly. "You mustn't mind my
rough-and-ready ways, for I'm a plain man, God knows. If you are
sure you feel fainty," he added, "I'll git you a sip of whisky,
but it's a pity to waste it unless you have a turn."
"Oh, I'm all right," answered Maria, sitting up, and returning
his inquiring gaze with a shake of the head. "My ankle is still
weak, you know, and I felt a sudden twinge from standing on it.
What were you looking for at this hour?"
"Well, I've been out in the air sense supper, and I feel kind of
gone. I thought I'd like a bite of something--maybe a scrap of
that cold jowl we had for dinner. But I can't find it. Do you
reckon Saidie is such a blamed fool as to throw the scraps away?"
"There's Malindy, you know; she must eat."
"I'd like to see one nigger eat up half a jowl," grumbled
Fletcher, rooting among the dishes in the sideboard. "Thar was a
good big hunk of it left, for you didn't touch it. You don't seem
to thrive on our victuals," he added bluntly, turning to peer
into her face.
"I'm a small eater; it makes little difference."
"Well, we mustn't starve you," he said, as he went back to his
search; "and if it's a matter of a pound of fresh butter, or a
spring chicken, even, I won't let it stand in your way. Why,
what's this, I wonder?"
Ripping out an oath with an angry snort, he drew forth Miss
Saidie's walnut cake and held it squarely before the candle. "I
declar, if she ain't been making walnut cake agin, and I told her
last week I wan't going to have her wasting all my eggs. Look at
it, will you? If she's beat up one egg in that cake she's beat up
a dozen, to say nothing of the sugar!"
"Don't scold her, grandfather. She has a sweet tooth, you know,
and it's so hard for her not to make desserts."
"Pish! Tush! I don't reckon her tooth's any sweeter than mine.
I've a powerful taste for trash myself, and always had since the
time I overate ripe honey-shucks when I was six months old; but
the taste don't make me throw away good money. I'll have no more
of this, I tell you, and I've said my say. She can bake a bit of
cake once a week if she'll stint herself to an egg or two, but
when it comes to mixing up a dozen at a time, I'll be darned if
I'll allow it."
Lifting the plate in one hand, he stood surveying the big cake
with disapproving yet admiring eyes. "It would serve her right if
I was to eat up every precious crumb," he remarked at last.
"Suppose you try it," suggested Maria pleasantly. "It would
please Aunt Saidie."
"It ain't to please her," sourly responded Fletcher, as he drove
the knife with a lunge into the yellow loaf. "She's a thriftless,
no-account housekeeper, and I'll tell her so tomorrow."
Still holding the knife in his clenched fist, he sat munching the
cake with a relish which brought a smile to Maria's tired eves.
"Yes, I've a powerful sweet tooth myself," he added, as he cut
another slice. _
Read next: Book V - The Ancient Law: Chapter VII. Will Faces Desperation and Stands at Bay
Read previous: Book V - The Ancient Law: Chapter V. Christopher Plants by Moonlight
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