CHAPTER XL
Minister Graves watched his child painfully climb the front steps. He could see, even through the dim shadows, how thin she had become, how she panted for breath over the slight exertion of walking up the hill. A thought that stung him like a whip seized him, convulsing his heart and shaking his powerful frame as if he had been attacked by sudden ague. Was his daughter going to die? She could not die—God would not take her from him! He remembered Teola's birth, with a groan of pain: remembered how he had taken the dark-haired babe, so tiny and helpless, into his study alone, and had uttered the sincerest prayer of a father's life, that the blessings of Heaven would cover his new-found treasure and would guide the little footsteps during the whole bright future—her future must be bright, with his love to shield her. He could remember each succeeding day—his pride and ambitions for her—and now—
Teola paused on the top step, clinging to the veranda pillar. He came hastily to her, the darkness covering the emotions that had paled his face, and bent over the exhausted girl, kissing her lips tenderly.
"Teola, darling! My darling, why will you persist in being out at night?... See, now, how you are coughing.... Child, what would become of me, if anything should happen to you?"
Teola knew the heart of her father. He had sternly preached orthodox doctrine, had persecuted the squatters according to his beliefs; but he loved his children, and especially had he idolized her. The thought of the babe in the fisherman's hut sped through her mind, her father's consternation and horror if she should be compelled to tell her secret. But Tessibel stood in her place as mother to the little boy, and had taken an oath that nothing could force her to break. The squatter had been the scapegoat upon which had been heaped the sins of a girl no one had thought capable of doing wrong. Teola, resting in her father's arms, struggled with her conscience, trying to press down the moral weakness that had compelled her to keep the tragedy in the cabin quiet. The minister helped her to her chamber, and, after she had retired, went in and prayed with and for her. His voice, low and tender, with the exquisite tones of an orator, was strangely moved.
"Child," he groaned, "I would give much to see you in good health again."
"I shall never be better, dearest; never. I know now that I cannot—that I sha'n't—"
His hand covered her lips.
"If you want to break my heart, Teola," he cried, unnerved, "then say what you were going to. I can't, and won't, bear it! You are not yet eighteen. You've always been well until these past few weeks.... Oh, I wish your mother and I had never gone abroad—or that you had gone with us.... But you begged so hard to stay at home!"
Teola had coveted the chance to tell him of the little human link between Dan Jordan's life and hers. She raised herself on her pillow, the long hair mantling her shoulders and aureoling the death-like face.
"Father," she gasped. "Father! Let me tell you something about Tessibel Skinner. No! Don't put your fingers over my lips! Don't! Don't! Listen."
"Teola," interjected Graves gravely, "if you want to displease me—"
"She's so lonely," broke in the girl, her courage ebbing away under the bent brows of her father. "I thought—you—might help her."
"Go to sleep," replied the minister, "there's a good girl!... Good-night."
For a moment, Teola lay panting nervously. She had been so near the confession, so near telling her father about the little babe in the shanty. She slipped out of bed to the window. The wind still flung the dead leaves, whirling them to and fro in the orchard like willful spirits. The night had darkened until, to Teola, shivering and ill, it seemed alive with shadowy goblins which mocked at her.
She could just make out the dark line of the hut under the willow branches. A candlelight flickered a moment in the window, and was gone. Teola moaned long, muttering loving messages to the child cuddled in Tessibel's arms. She loved it, but could not bring it home—yet! At last sleep, a deep, fatigued sleep, enveloped her. She was too tired to dream.
After Tess was alone, she made ready for bed. The child whimpered drowsily. The squatter lifted it up with infinite tenderness, binding the rags more closely about the scrawny body.
"Ye don't amount to as much as the tuft on Kennedy's mare's tail," she said aloud. "Eat now, I says, or I opens yer mouth and pours it full."
The words, gathered from the vocabulary of the squatter, were harsh, but the emotion in the tones softened them.
"Ye air a-dyin' 'cause ye won't eat, kid, and ye have the smell of a dead rat, too. Yer lips be that blue—and yer mouth air like a baby-bird's.... Eat, I says, damn ye.... Will ye swallow that?"
She held the withered lips open, and filled the cavity with warm milk.
"Eat, I says," crooned the girl; "eat, and Tess takes ye tight—like this—and the rats can't bite ye, or the ghosts get ye till ye air dead. Tess loves ye, ye poor little brat."
The child, strangling for breath, gulped down a mouthful of milk, but the jaws set again, and the lips settled into a blue line. Tess prepared the sugar rag, putting in a large amount of sweet, and dipped it in the tea-pan in which she had warmed the milk. Then she allowed a little of the syrup to fall upon the lips. The mouth snapped upon it, and long after Tess had gathered the infant into her arms the smacking went on and on, until both slept. Neither heard the wind that rattled the hut boards, that rasped its endless sawing on the tin roof; neither heard the willow branches brushing to and fro against the rickety chimney. The child slept the sleep of a human creature moving silently toward death; and Tess the sleep of the exhausted.
The next morning she stood in the doorway, grimly watching the cottagers' boats, loaded with household goods, one by one as they passed. This time of year was prophetic of the coming winter, and told Tess a few more weeks would see the snow piled up about the hut and the lake covered with ice. Deacon Hall's private launch steamed by, with huge piles of bedding heaped up on the bow. One after another of the summer residents disappeared in the inlet, and Tess was waiting for the hill-house people also to leave.
She heard Frederick's voice in the lane, and closed the door, pressing her face to the window. She saw him climb into his father's little yacht to make it ready for the summer's stock from the cottage. Teola, too, was on the shore, and Tess saw the girl turn longing eyes toward the hut. Then, with a boyish tug at his belt, Frederick started up the hill. His face in profile showed the squatter that he had changed—he was thinner, paler, and looked years older. Closer pressed the sweet face to the dirty pane, brighter grew the brown eyes. Drawn by his own desire, the student turned and looked at her. First an expression of eagerness leaped into his face; then one of sorrow settled upon it. He went on to the cottage without even nodding his head. He would soon come down with his father, mother and sister Babe, and Tess would see him no more.
She sank down upon the bed beside the sucking child, and did not hear the hut door open softly.
"Tess, Tess! It's Teola, dear. What is the matter?"
The squatter choked back her tears, and sat up.
"There ain't nothin' the matter," she replied sulkily. "I can cry if I wants to, can't I?"
"But, Tessibel, I have never seen you cry like that before, never! Is it money? Here, dear; here is a dollar. Father gave it to me. It will buy some milk, until I can send more. Oh, let me see my baby again. Darling little man! Your mother does love you, even if she must leave you. Tess, he looks worse than he did when I went home last night. You—you will bring him to the church to-morrow?"
"Yep."
"And, Tess, I left a lot of white cloths on the pear-tree near the barn. I could not bring them to you before, for Mother only sorted them out to throw away this morning. Oh, the baby looks so thin and ill, Tess!"
Tears trickled down upon the infant. Teola pressed her lips again and again to the thin mouth. The vivid mark was offering its crimson tinge sharply against the dead blue of the rest of the baby face.
"And, Tess," burst forth Teola, "how gladly I would give you a dress for yourself if I could, and a dress for him! You can't bring him like this to the church. You don't mind coming as you are?"
"Nope," came the bitter interruption from the squatter. "I don't need no clothes to have a brat sprinkled. I air a squatter, and squatters don't give—a hell about nothin'."
Her looks belied the words. With the dignity of a queen, the fine young head had settled back upon the broad shoulders sloping bare at the arms. The sweet face gave the lie to the hardened speech uttered from the grief she had just spent upon the bed.
"Don't speak like that, Tess! Don't! don't!" gasped Teola. "Some day, after the babe and I are dead—"
Teola had come close to the fisher-girl, her pale face thrust beseechingly forward. Tess hesitated; then flung out her arms and drew the minister's daughter into them. Her eyes were filled with awe indescribable.
"I's a mean brat to make ye say that," she faltered. "I brings the kid to-morry to the church. And, yes, I gets him a dress, too. See? And I buys milk for him, and makes him eat, and he sleeps here," Tess pounded her own strong breast, and ended, "till his dead pappy and his ma come after him, poor little cuss."
Both girls cried softly, till Frederick's voice on the hill rang out sharply in answer to a question from his father. Teola kissed her babe over and over, drawing a small shawl about her shoulders, and picked a path out through the fish-bones on the floor. When Frederick returned to the boat, she was listlessly throwing small stones into the water.