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Clark's Field, a novel by Robert Herrick |
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Chapter 42 |
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_ CHAPTER XLII There is always the awakening, the coming back once more to consciousness, to the world that has been, and must endure, but will never again be as it was. Adelle woke to consciousness in the orangery, where they had laid mattresses for her and the dead child. Through the open door she might see the blackened walls of what had been Highcourt. The fire had swept clear through the three parts, scorching even the eucalyptus trees above on the hillside, and had died out at last for lack of food. The debris was now smouldering sullenly in the cloudless, windless day that had succeeded the storm. All the beauty of an early spring morning in California rioted outside, insulting the bereaved woman with its refreshment and joy. It was on mornings like this after a storm that Adelle loved the place most. She would take "Boy" and ramble through the fragrant paths. For then Nature, like a human being, having thrown off its evil mood, tries by caresses and sweet smiles to win favor again.... Adelle lay there this golden morning, one arm around the little figure of her dead child, staring at the pool outside which was dappled with sunshine, at the ghastly wreck of her great house--not thinking, perhaps not even feeling acutely--aware merely of living in a void, the shattered fragments of her old being all around her. How long she might have lain there one cannot tell: she felt that she should be like this always, numbed in the presence of life and light. They brought her food and clothes, and said things to her. Archie came in and sat down on one of the upturned flower-pots. He was fully dressed now, but still looked shaken, bewildered, a little cowed, as if he could not understand. At sight of him Adelle remembered the night, remembered the shaking, feeble figure of her husband, trying to get his arm into the sleeve of his dress-coat, useless before the tragedy, useless in the face of life. "What can I do!" he had whined then. Adelle could not then realize that she had made him as he was and should be merciful. She was filled with a physical loathing, a spiritual weariness of him, and turned her face to the wall so that she might not even see him. "Adelle," he said. There was no reply. "Dell, dear," he began again, and put his hand coaxingly upon her shoulder. She sat up, looking like a fierce animal, her hair tumbled about her neck and breasts, her pale face drawn and haggard. "Don't touch me--don't speak to me!" she whispered hoarsely. "Never again!" She threw into those last words an intensity, a weight of meaning that startled even Archie, who whimpered out,--"It wasn't my fault!" Adelle neither knew nor cared then what had caused the fire. It was stupid of Archie to understand her so badly--she was not blaming him for the fire. She turned her face again to the wall, but suddenly, as if a light had struck through her blurred and blunted consciousness of the world, she called,-- "I want to see him--Clark, the mason;--tell him to come here to see me!" Archie, crestfallen, sneaked out of the orangery on her errand. After a time he returned with the young mason, who stumbled into the dark room. Clark was washed and his cut had been bandaged, but he showed the terrible strain of those few minutes on the wall. His face twitched and his large hands opened and closed nervously. He looked pityingly at Adelle and mumbled,-- "Sorry I was too late!" That was all. Adelle made a gesture as if to say that it was useless to use words over it. She did not thank him. She looked at him out of her gray eyes, now miserable with pain. She felt a great relief at seeing him, a curious return of her old interest in his simple, native strength and nerve, his personality. It made her feel more like herself to have him there and to know that he was sorry for her. After one or two attempts to find her voice she said clearly,-- "I must tell you something.... I thought of telling you about it before, but I couldn't. I thought there were reasons not to. But now I must tell you before you go." "Don't trouble yourself now, ma'am," the mason said gently. "I guess it'll keep until you're feelin' stronger." "No, no, I can't wait. I must tell you now!" She raised herself with effort and leaned her thin face upon her hands. "I want him"--she pointed to Archie--"to hear it, too." Then she tried again to collect her mind, to phrase what she had to say in the clearest possible way. "Half of my money belongs to you, Mr. Clark." The two men must have thought that her reason had left her after the terrible night, but she soon made her meaning clear. "I didn't know it until a little while ago when I found out from those letters who you were. Not even then, just afterwards. Clark's Field was left to your grandfather and mine together, and somehow I got the whole of it--I mean I did from my mother and uncle. The lawyers can tell you all about it. Only it's really half yours--half of all there was!" Archie now began to comprehend that his wife referred to the old legal difficulty over the title to Clark's Field, and interposed. "You'd better wait, dear, until you are stronger before you try to think about business." But Adelle utterly ignored him, as she was to do henceforth, and addressed herself singly to her cousin. "I always thought it was all mine--they said it was. And when I knew about you, I didn't want to give it up; there isn't as much as there was because he has lost a good deal. But that makes no difference. Half of the whole belongs to you and your brothers and sisters. I'll see that you get it. That's all!" She lay back exhausted. The mason remarked,-- "It's rather surprising. But I guess it can wait. It's waited a good many years." And after standing by her side and looking down on her dumb, colorless face a while longer, he left the room. Archie, who was clearly mystified by his wife's brief statement, concluded to regard it all as an aberration, an effort on her part to express fantastically her sense of obligation to the stone mason who had risked his life to save the child. He was concerned to have Adelle moved to a more comfortable place and told her that friends were coming to take her to their home. She made a dissenting gesture without opening her eyes. She wished to be left alone, entirely alone, here in the orangery whither she had taken her dead child the night before. Archie, seeing that he could not persuade her immediately to leave the cheerless spot, spoke of other things. He was voluble about the cause of the fire, hinting at a dire "anarchistic" plot of some discharged workingmen. There was much talk in their neighborhood at this time of the efforts of "anarchists" to destroy rich people's property by incendiary fires. Adelle, with her face turned to the wall, moaned,-- "Go away!" And at last Archie went. _ |
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