CHAPTER XXIII. A STRANGE DEPARTURE.
The old home rose coldly gray ’gainst the darkness of a threatening sky. But yesterday the scene had been one of almost unearthly sweetness and placidity. Ideal summer seemed to have enthroned herself never more to be dislodged, but the morrow brought a storm, phenomenal in its force and destructiveness.
At first one could see, away to the west, but a broad gash of crimson, a seeming wound in the breast of heaven, and could scarcely hear the rising wind moan sobbingly through the trees that with knotted roots clung undisturbed to their vantage ground. Electricity, very like an uplifted dagger, kept piercing with sharp glitter the density of the low hanging haze. Gradually the wind increased, and soon, with fierce gusts, shook the trees with shuddering anxiety. An appalling crash of thunder followed almost instantly, its deep boom vibrating in suddenly grand echoes; then, with a whirling, hissing rush of rain, the unbound storm burst forth, alive and furious. After an hour there was a temporary lull, the wind no longer surged with violence, rain fell at intervals, a sullen mist obscured earth and heaven.
Robert was preparing to confront the weather when there came a loud knock on the door. Throwing it wide open there stood, in bold relief against the back-ground of dense fog, a sturdy, seafaring figure, dripping like a water dog. Rain was running in little rivers from his soft slouched hat, his weather-beaten face glowing like a hot coal, the only bit of color in this neutral-tinted picture.
“Come inside, the sight of a fire on such a day as this won’t hurt you,” said Robert, cheerily, motioning his visitor toward the kitchen where a warm fire blazed.
“Much obliged to you, sir,” returned the intruder, stepping onto the door-mat, and shaking the rain from his hat.
“Another time I’ll come in,” and once more shaking the rain from his dripping garments he fumbled for something in the farthest end of his capacious pockets.
“Here’s a note—they’ll be waiting at the station for you, sir.” These words followed in the uncontrolled audibility of a man’s voice. There was a rustle of paper, and the next minute Robert told the man:
“That’s all right; I’ll be there by eight.”
The light all gone out of her face, Cherokee turned appealingly to Marrion:
“What does this mean—where is he going?”
Shaking his head, sadly:
“I can’t tell what he ever means of late.”
Closing the door with an impatient bang, the husband was saying:
“I can’t wait for breakfast; I am going away.”
“Isn’t this rather sudden—what is so important as to make you go without your breakfast?” she questioned.
“A matter that concerns me alone. Don’t worry if I am not back by nightfall,” and before she could reply he was gone.
Cherokee bit her lips to conceal a quiver; turning almost appealingly to Marrion, she urged:
“Won’t you please go, too?”
He did not answer.
“Please go, and look after him.”
He was calm almost to coldness, and he replied, tentatively:
“Robert would have asked me if he had wanted me along.”
“Oh, dear friend,” she murmured, brokenly, as she sank into a chair, “how much better it would have been if I had never known loving or wedding.”
Marrion looked through the windows into the bleared, vague, misty world, the familiar landscape was unrecognizable in the clinging fog. He understood, as she did, what had taken Robert from his work. He did not look at her, as he returned:
“I hope he’ll quit this, sometime.”
“Sometime,” she repeated, “pain and struggle will give place to death, and then the soft shroud of forgetting will help me bear this grief.”
“But I am looking forward to the change to bless this life,” he tried to impress upon her. “He will get through this great work which he considers the effort of a life, and pretty soon he will leave off the old way, and then his past will be atoned for by a future of tenderness and devotion to you.”
“But, dearest friend,” she broke in, greatly agitated, “help me to live in the present, I am weary of waiting. I hunger for repose. Memories crush me while longing has worn my youth away. I know my one longing is hopeless—hopeless as though I should stretch these hungry arms to clasp the sun above us. I have given up hope at last!” Meeting his troubled look her face showed traces of tears. She handed him a paper and pointed to a bit of verse.
He read to himself:
“I know a land where the streets are paved
With the things which we meant to achieve;
It is walled with the money we meant to have saved,
And the pleasures for which we grieve—
And kind words unspoken, the promises broken,
And many a coveted boon,
Are stowed away there in that land of somewhere,
The land of “Pretty Soon.”
There are uncut jewels of possible fame
Lying about in the dust,
And many a noble and lofty aim
Covered with mould and dust
And oh, this place, while it seems so near,
Is further away than the moon;
Though our purpose is fair, yet we never get there—
To the land of “Pretty Soon.”
The roads that lead to that mystic land
Are strewn with pitiful wrecks;
And the ships that have sailed for its shining strand
Bear skeletons on their decks.
It is further at noon than it was at dawn,
And further at night than at noon;
Oh let us beware of that land down there—
The land of “Pretty Soon.””
Marrion laid the paper by, and summoning all his powers of self-control:
“I spoke of his reformation just now,” he began, as if reading her thoughts. “Answer me one question; if he never reforms, have you ever thought of changing your life?”
“You mean separation; the world or a convent?” she began, gently, growing calmer as she went on, “I had thought of that, I must out with the truth. I went away once, but a good friend advised me to go back. She told me living for others was a long way towards being happy.” Looking on the floor she got out the remainder of her sentence, “and now I intend to stay.”
As she spoke the words to Marrion there came upon her a terrible sense of emptiness and desolation. Obeying a sudden impulse, she arose to leave.
“I shall go to my room now; I must think awhile alone. I am glad it’s such a sad sort of a day; if it were bright I couldn’t stand it.”
Marrion followed her to the door, raised her hands to his lips, and suddenly breaking away as if unworthy to pay such homage cried:
“I could kneel to you, true, grand woman. Your resolution is full of the gravest, tenderest meaning. You think of him only; his reputation is dearer to you than your own happiness. This nobility of your character is the very touchstone and measure of your womanliness.”
She paused on the threshold a moment, then hurried away.
The whole day Marrion spent in sympathy with her. If he could find but some way to make Robert promise never to touch another drop of drink, he knew he would be safe; for he was one man who never made a promise but to keep.
Of ever securing his promise, he sometimes despaired, but not for the world would he hint it to Cherokee.
As the day wore to a close the wind came in fitful gusts; a pale moon glittered faintly among the ragged clouds that drifted across the sky like sails torn from wrecked ships. Cherokee sat by the window watching for Robert.
In that warm latitude the soft, dewless hours are spent in lightless rooms or on piazzas. The daffodil tints of the higher sky were reddening to a guinea gold. There was no other light except the moon. Marrion sat just outside, smoking; he was allured again and again by a strong sense of Cherokee’s beauty of face and pose, enticed by some spiritual vivacity, and hazed by cares.
The moon, still pale and languorous, shone from the lately racked sky on the tree buds, so warm in tone that their color became an old ivory, and the limbs and branches black carvings and traceries.
Faint mists rose in wreaths and floated in gossamer folds about the trunks of the trees, and at times above their forms. The whole scene had a meaning of sad regrets.
Cherokee broke the silence:
“I wonder what keeps Robert so long; it must be nine o’clock.”
“Don’t be uneasy, he is doubtless with some congenial companion.” Then, almost before he knew it, Marrion asked:
“Did you know that Robert was dissipated before you married him?”
He felt himself tremble, as if he intruded where she knelt. As intimately as he had known her, yet he never before had dared approach her inner life so nearly.
“Tell me all,” he said. “If ever a heart could open to a friend, now must that door unclose.”
“No. I didn’t believe it; I should have never married him if I had known. I made a mistake. A Southern girl should only marry one of her kind; he alone could understand and appreciate her nature.”
It was not prompted by accidental harmony, this answer, she felt he had a right to know all:
“When I first loved Robert, he was a splendid masterman, and so tender of me. He seemed the breath of my body; his heart, not mine, beating within me. I fancy now that his love was only a reflection from the flame that burned in my soul, for if it were not true surely that love would have reformed him.”
“No, he does love you, and you will yet be happy together.”
She was hungry for his assurance, and her “Heaven bless you for your sympathy,” was spoken earnestly.
“But I wish he would come. Suppose he has gotten into that quick-sand in the creek bed.”
“Suppose he has swallowed the gun.”
“Don’t speak so lightly,” she corrected.
Marrion thought as he noted her anxiety: “Blind devotion is the sainthood of woman.”
“Now, here he comes. I hope you are happy,” but a chill gripped his heart as he saw it was a stranger, whose walk indicated haste.
“Ain’t this here whar Mars’ Milburn’s wife stay?”
“Yes, what is it?” asked Marrion.
“What is it?” Cherokee repeated, coming forward, “has anything happened to my husband?”
“I’d bin out possum huntin’. I comed up de road, and I mighty nigh run over sumpin in de paff. I got down and he looked powr’ful like de artist I seed at de station.”
“Marrion; my God, he is dead!”
“Wait and I will find out.” He put his arm around her to support her. The stranger kept on talking:
“I tried to tote him, but he ’peared like two men; he’d weigh mighty nigh three hundred pounds, and den I didn’t know as I oughter move him till de coroner and de jury set on him.”
Marrion could not stop him.
“He ain’t bin dead long, marm.”
“That will do,” interrupted Marrion.
“I will go and see; it may not be Robert; it may be someone else.”
“Let me go with you,” she pleaded.
“I don’t know nothin’ better fur you ter do than stay whar you is,” put in the negro.
So Marrion hurried away to look after his friend. There was no sound in the gloomy wood—which was painful—any kind of noise would have been a relief. The thick foliage baffled the slightest light, and it was with the greatest difficulty that they groped their way, keeping in the road.
“Stop! here he am!” cried the negro, who had been piloting the way. “I thought he couldn’t o’ bin dead long, fer he ain’t cold yet.”