CURSING AND BEATING HER BREAST, SHE FELL UPON THE GRAVE.
Mrs. Joe sought, and very easily obtained, Leonard's confidence in regard to the grievance to which Dr. Stanley had alluded. Hampton had been only too glad, so he averred, to accept his aid in overcoming Brigston; and if that was in the way of accomplishment (and who could deny it?) the fact was more attributable to him (Leonard) than to any other man. "I simply popularized Dr. Burley's learned, but certainly obscurely-written article, giving its author full credit; and now he says I misrepresented him, and his complaint is echoed by every toady in Hampton. The papers, even the secular papers, are actually making sport of me."
"But Dr. Burley can't deny what he wrote."
Even Leonard smiled at her simplicity. "He can deny what I wrote, although, in other words, it is exactly what he wrote. And that is morally just as bad."
The lady was full of sympathy; the more so as his "bumptiousness" was gone. He had been plainly deeply wounded, yet out of consideration for his wife, he had borne his grief in silence. In Mrs. Joe's eyes this abnegation deserved recognition. There was a way by which he could humiliate his enemies, and yet be of so much importance that they would not venture to show resentment. She had, as we know, already "worked the Seminary" in behoof of her "policy." She could work it a little more, and help both Leonard and herself. Her donations to the library had not heretofore been of large amounts, for she shrank from ostentation, but she had always intended to be magnificent on some convenient occasion. By being so through Leonard, she could avoid display and yet possess its advantages, for the Seminary authorities would, of course, know the source of a donation from a modestly anonymous lady, coming through the hands of Leonard.
So this matter was easily arranged. "And," suggested the lady, "after you have given notice of the donation and have heaped coals on Dr. Burley's head, go away for awhile. It will do you good, and they can think their conduct over."
The idea appealed to Leonard, who saw the situation dramatically; but when Mrs. Joe proposed that he accompany herself, Paula and Natalie on a visit to Mrs. Leon at Newport, he declined with some perturbation. "I'll go to New York," he said. And, on the whole, Mrs. Joe thought this was best, though she was surprised.
She was glad when he had departed, believing that his absence would have the effect of rousing Natalie from a condition incompatible with the life of every day, in that it would result in wholesome longing for her husband. And the politic lady soon saw her hope justified. Leonard had been gone but a day when Natalie announced a desire to return to her own house; not to remain, but to order some domestic arrangements, more especially with the view of making Leonard's study more attractive than it had been, even in those days of "coddling" which Mrs. Joe had once found objectionable, but whose returning symptoms she now hailed with approval.
At Natalie's request she was driven past the cemetery, where she alighted, and, bidding the coachman wait, she sought her child's grave. Some tears came to her eyes as she laid flowers on the still fresh earth and stood for many minutes leaning on the headstone. Her thoughts were far away. In a room in Paris she saw a woman humbled by a consciousness of wrong; and here, at the most sacred spot on earth, she renewed her vow of atonement.
She returned slowly to the carriage and was driven to the Morley mansion, where she was welcomed with effusion by the maids. From them she for the first time learned that her husband had often worked far into the night, and while listening to their comments, she reproached herself that she had left him alone. The house, with its closed shutters, was gloomy even on this bright day; what had it been in the long nights?
She instructed the servants to prepare a light luncheon for her at noon and leave it on the dining table, paying no further heed to her. She intended, she said, to arrange her husband's books.
But first she went upstairs. There beside her bed was the child's crib, cheerless without its sheets and embroidery. The empty room, from which daylight was nearly excluded chilled her. The rugs were removed and her heels clicked sharply on the bare floor, making hollow echoes as she walked. She overcame the oppressive sense of desolation and went about her tasks.
She put the child's trinkets away; the spoon which had been useless, the cup from which he had never drunk, the gold chain given by Mrs. Joe, and which, partaking of the nature of the Great Serpent, had been found too heavy for agreeable wear; these were laid among her treasures. His clothes, except the little gown he had worn when dying, were put aside to be sent to poor women, already mothers or about to become such. Leonard had once suggested kindly that they were too fine. "The mothers won't think so," she had replied.
This work finished, she closed the door of the room and walked down the broad, old-fashioned stairway, every foot-fall echoing through the ancient house of which she seemed to be the only occupant; and though she knew the maids were at their tasks and within reach, the impression affected her unpleasantly. She glanced more than once over her shoulder as she descended the staircase and walked through the echoing hall.
She entered the library—a large room, dedicated, at least nominally, even in the days of Jeremiah Morley, to its present purpose, and later, by Cousin Jared and her husband, lined from floor to ceiling with books, a cheerful room when lighted, but now, with bare floor and closed shutters, a gloomy vault in whose distant corners, where the shadows were dark, the spirits of former occupants might lurk and peer at this invader. The uncanny impressions that had been with her were deepened by the sombre fancies awakened by the aspect of the room, in which the confusion attendant on Leonard's labors was everywhere apparent. Books were everywhere—on chairs, on tables, on the floor, face downward in the shelves.
She took up a small volume. Its evident antiquity attracted her and she read the title-page: "Delay Not; or, A Call to the Careless," by the Reverend Eliphalet Claghorn. Numerous names on the fly-leaves disclosed that the book had been handed down through many Claghorns. The last name was her husband's; preceding that his father's, to whom it had been given, as testified by the inscription, by "E. Beverley Claghorn." E. Beverley Claghorn, she knew, had been her own father. Turning the pages, her attention was arrested.
She read for hours. Sunk in a heap on the floor, forgotten by the servants, her eyes gloated on the page written by her ancestor. No romance had ever enchained her attention as did all this "Call to the Careless." If the writer had so charmed the reader of his own generation, the dead hand that had composed the pages which held this reader spell-bound must have been guided by a brain cunning in the author's craft. Whatever was the story, the woman lived in its terrors; she cowered and moaned, her eyes stood out, and her face was a face distorted by the horror of a soul in fear. But she could not leave the story. Enthralled until the last page had been turned, she only then looked up, and her eyes, which that morning had been bright with the light of hope, born of the resolve to resume her duties as a wife, were now dull with the shadow of an awful dread.
She glanced fearfully around and tried to rise, but crouched again upon the floor, one hand still clutching book and dust-cloth, the other held as though to shield her from a blow. She uttered no word, but a strange, hoarse rattle came from her throat, as though she would have prayed, had her voice been at her command. At last she rose, half staggering, retreating backward toward the door, as though she feared some presence, and, not daring to turn, must face it. Thus she passed out of the room and from the house.
She walked, at first, with uncertain steps, then more firmly, and with ever swifter stride. The by-streets through which she passed were quiet, almost deserted; she was hardly noticed, though in one or two observers a faint curiosity was aroused by the figure of the well-dressed, hatless woman, be-aproned and clasping to her breast a dust-cloth and a book. As for her, she noticed nothing as she hastened on.
Without pause, with ever-increasing pace, which had now become a run, she entered the gates of the cemetery, threading its alleys, seeing nothing with her bodily eyes; for their horror and despair were no reflection of the mournful yet peaceful scene in which she passed. She came to the grave of her child. Again she crouched as she had done in the library of her home; her despairing eyes were turned upward and her hands raised in appeal to the serene and pitiless sky.
Words came to her in the language of her childhood. "My God," she cried, "Fiend that dwellest beyond the sky, have mercy. Pitiless Father, who didst condemn thy Son for sport, whose nostrils love the scent of burning men, whose ears find music in their agony, whose eyes gloat upon their writhings, take me to thy hell of torment and release my child."
And so, with frantic blasphemy, cursing God and beating her breast, she fell forward upon the baby's grave.