BECKY'S CONFESSION.
The Wallencamp bonfire, like Christmas or a Fourth of July celebration in less ingenious and erratic communities, came only once a year. It was kindled on Eagle Hill, that runs out from the mainland of Wallencamp into Herrin' River,—the Wallencampers called the Hill an island,—and from most points of view it answered to the geographical description of "Land entirely surrounded by water," seeming, indeed, to stand solitary in the river, with an air of infinite repose on its broad, sloping sides; green and gold, so I remember it ever, with the sun setting over it in the spring-time,—green and gold, in a crimson river!
It had an air of sublimity, too, looking over and beyond the cedars to the bay, and down the length of the winding stream that fretted at its feet or lapped them quietly.
There I planned to build a house, in some bright future day, that should be in effective keeping with the natural grandeur of the place,—quaint, lordly, substantial, with the appearance of having fallen somewhat into disuse, ivy growing over the dark stone walls, and moss in the winding drives, and carved lions at the gate.
The hill was a favorite resort of mine, and Rebecca had generally accompanied me on my excursions thither.
Once she said—it was in the days when she had been happier—"I guess this place is just as God made it to begin with."
Rebecca had been struck with and had retained an idea which she had probably heard promulgated sometime at the West Wallen Sunday-school, that, at the time of man's spiritual fall, the earth also, with all terrestrial things, had undergone a general mixing up. Her own idea in regard to Eagle Hill she expressed very modestly, looking off with a childish content and assurance in her eyes. And I was delighted with her.
"You are always thinking such things as that," I exclaimed, enthusiastically. "I know you are!"
Rebecca blushed, smiling, and shook her head.
"I ain't often sure," she said.
I think I told her then that when I had my house on the hill, she should be the housekeeper to guard my keys and conduct my affairs; "that is, my dear, attend to all the little practical details connected with living," and Rebecca, to whom my castles on the Hill were never castles in the air, but who believed most implicitly that I would, sooner or later, perform all things that ever I dreamed of doing, accepted her prospective matronship with a becoming sense of its advantage and dignity.
Eagle Hill was haunted by a horse, a pure white horse—not Lovell's—with a flowing mane and tail, and a beautiful arched neck. His motions, the Wallencampers said, were most fiery and graceful. Occasionally he paused and fell back, quivering on his haunches, looked this way and that, and then, with a wild plunge, swept on again, swifter than before. Every true Wallencamper could both see and hear the "white horse" when, at night, clearly outlined against the sky, he galloped back and forth along the very summit of the hill.
It was on one of the blackest nights of the season that the fuel, which less grand and poetic souls would doubtless have reserved for another winter's use, was borne in jubilant triumph by the Wallencampers up the sides of this sacred and illustrious steep, and there consumed in a most glorious conflagration. The spectacle was appalling. At intervals in the roaring and crackling of the flames was heard the roar of the near ocean, while the familiar features of the landscape and the faces of the encircling spectators, stood out with unreal and terrible distinctness in the hellish light.
Emily, who had coughed all the way climbing up the hill, stood stirring the fire with a long pole, and making reckless and facetious remarks the while, which, uttered in the midst of that unearthly scene, struck me cold with horror.
"Come, Bachelder," said she; "git onto the end of my pole, and I'll hold ye over there a while. Ye might as well be gittin' used to it!"
"Heh! yes," said Bachelor Lot. "But what I'm a thinkin' is, you'd ought to have a subordinate. I never heered—heh!—of putting a person of such importance in the Kingdom—heh!—however efficient—into the position of Fire Tender!"
"Crazy Silvy" was at the bonfire. I had never seen her before. Silvy did not go out on ordinary occasions. I watched her as she stood with a scant, thin shawl thrown over her head, looking intently into the flames, shivering often, and smiling as she moved her lips in apparently delightful conversation with herself.
Some of the children essayed to tease her; she seemed quite unconscious of their efforts, but I turned and spoke to them rather sharply. The next time I looked up, her strange, smiling eyes were fixed full on my face. I glanced away quickly, with a nervous shiver, and moved a little farther off. As I did so, Silvy, regarding me in that same dreamily contemplative manner, walked toward me a step or two, and as I continued to move away, she walked slowly after me.
My acquaintance with the unconfined insane had not been extensive enough to allow me to regard her motions with that mingled amusement and curiosity, which was the only sentiment expressed on the countenances of the Wallencampers who stood watching us; but I concluded that it was better to face about, and meet my pursuer with an air of fearlessness. I did so, and held out my hand to her as she came up.
"How do you do, Silvy?" I said.
"Oh, no!" said Silvy, thrusting her hands behind her, laughing softly, and shaking her head. "Not with the queen of heaven! Not with the queen of heaven!"
I thought I detected Emily's derisive influence in this poor, simple creature's words. Silvy was so perfectly mild and harmless in appearance, however, that I began to feel reassured.
"I've heard about you, Silvy," I continued, cheerfully. "I'm the teacher, you know. You've heard them speak of the teacher?"
"So glad," continued Silvy, in the same low, cooing tone; "so glad to meet the queen of heaven."
"Hush!" said I then. "You mustn't say that again. Draw your shawl up tighter." For in spite of the bonfire, the wind was blowing cold on the hill.
While I spoke Silvy had become absorbed in watching the fire again. I would have walked quietly away, but as I turned to go she thrust her head toward me quickly and whispered:—
"Wait! don't—you—ever—tell!"
Silvy put her hand to her lips.
"No," said I, smiling.
"Silvy never told," she went on; "except to you. You've got a key. Silvy's got a key. She keeps things all locked up, Silvy does. Emily don't have any key. She talks—she talks all over—don't you tell—but Silvy lives with Emily—so bad," said Silvy, heaving a gentle sigh and speaking in a tone of the deepest confidence; "so bad not to have any key."
"That's true, I think," said I, beginning to find my strange companion rather interesting.
"Yes." Silvy nodded her head several times as though we understood, we two, and she was delighted to have discovered the fact.
Then her eyes wandered again to the fire, and she resumed her happy, smiling conversation with herself.
I thought she had forgotten me, or concluded not to unlock anything with her key, when she turned slowly and looked at me, and seemed to gather up the lost train of her ideas in my face.
"Silvy watched the fishermen at Emily's," she went on. "They said, 'Poor Silvy!' 'See you again next time, Silvy!' They are very p'lite, thank you, and they laugh once. 'Ha! ha!' But David Rollin, he laughs twice. 'Ha! ha!' and behind his sleeve, too. Such things are damnable!"
Silvy's dulcet tones ran over that hard word with the mildest and softest of accents.
"And they bring wine," she continued. "Silvy cl'ared off the table one night. She heard 'em sing, and they says to him, 'What about pretty Beck?' and he says 'We must have a little fun, you know, ha! ha!' and then, 'ha! ha!' behind his sleeve. Now if Silvy could keep it all together, you'd straighten it out maybe. Silvy can't straighten it out. Where did she hear so much, I wonder! She hears too much, Silvy does." She knitted her brows in pitiful perplexity.
"You were talking about the fishermen," said I.
"No," said Silvy, shaking her head; "about Beck. She never says, 'Crazy Silvy! There she goes! Look at Silvy!' She says, 'Come and see me, Silvy,' so. So soft spoken. Silvy loves her."
"I love her, too," I said, gently; for Silvy had paused again, and was knitting her brows in that painful manner, as though the effort to think gave her actual physical suffering.
"Silvy knows! Silvy knows!" She exclaimed suddenly, her face all smooth and softly smiling now. "Never—you—trust a neat man," impressively. "Never you trust 'em—for why? They wasn't made so. God made 'em. God made 'em to clutter. And there was that Dave Rollin. He was always a' hangin' things up. He was always foldin' of 'em. He was always a hangin' 'em up in his room. Silvy knows. But there was a piece of writin' got over behind the bury. And it didn't fall. But it stuck. Silvy knows. She reads writin'. She reads it over and over. He didn't love Beck any more. But he's afraid. And he'll give money. 'Oh, go anywhere! Only keep still, Beck. For Heaven's sake, keep still.' Why, she wouldn't hurt him! Beck wouldn't hurt him," said Silvy, in a slow tone full of wonder.
"He needn't be afraid. But Silvy won't tell him so. Why not? Oh, she likes to be amused. Silvy likes to be amused!
"Silvy knows! Silvy knows!" She continued, after another terrible pause. "She set eyes on you, standin' there. That's the one, she says, and she says it a long time. That's the queen of Heaven. She wouldn't hurt Silvy, poor Silvy! She's got a key. So she'll straighten it out maybe. Silvy can't, she's so tired. When Silvy got up in the mornin', it was early. Oh, so still! And a bird was flyin' up—up. Silvy couldn't see—so far to heaven. It made Silvy cry. So strange not to be any tired in the mornin'."
Silvy made a last painful effort to collect her thoughts, before her face resumed its habitual, far away, half smiling expression.
Then she said, "Silvy comes up the hill all alone. Not the way them others, and she see the fire burnin'. But it was dark in the bush. Silvy heard 'em talkin' terribly. It was Beck and George Olver. 'I'll make an honest home for you, Beck.' And she says, terribly, she no deserve. And he says, she better than him, and won't she come? And she cries so, 'My heart is broke!' And how good to live with him she knows, now—so honest and true—but she no fit, and, oh, 'My heart is broke! my heart is broke!'"
The scene, the vividness of these words had not yet faded in the least from Silvy's memory.
"Then," said she; "they keep on talkin', terribly. But Silvy—she hears so much—poor Silvy! She goes 'round very still, 'nother way. Silvy's tired."
And, as unceremoniously as she had approached me, she turned and walked slowly back to her old position before the fire. She did not look at me. She seemed to have become utterly unconscious of my presence. The scant, thin shawl had fallen back from her head. She shivered as she stood gazing into the flames, but the dreamy expression was ever in her eyes and the soft laugh on her lips, as she continued murmuring to herself.
The Wallencampers were not content to let the fire go out after the first grand illumination. They were bringing up more brush from the landward side of the hill, amid a confusion of wild shouts and excited laughter.
I found Rebecca among a group of girls.
"When you go home to-night," I said; "I want you to step in and see me. Come up to my room."
"Yes," said Rebecca, and I noticed how pale she turned in the fire-light. I did not say any more to her, then.
After hearing Silvy's story, I believed that Mr. Rollin had acted a heartless and unmanly part towards Rebecca, made love to her which he could not doubt the poor girl took in earnest, and even promises which he knew he should lightly break sometime, and then, for his own purposes, he begged her to keep silence. I thought I understood, and resolved to instruct Rebecca to forget the red-haired fisherman; to be "sensible," and "marry good, honest George Olver," who loved her so devotedly.
Lute Cradlebow had come home, and was one among the many figures at this brilliant fête. Indeed, the bonfire had been deferred until later than usual in the season, by reason of his absence, and now he was noticeably the lion of the evening, in a brave dark blue cravat that was borne outward by the wind, or fluttered becomingly under his chin, to the envy and despair of all the Wallencamp youth. He exchanged a pleasant greeting with every one, and brought the largest young tree of all up the hill on his broad shoulders.
When, at length, the Wallencampers had permitted the fire to burn low, they joined hands in a ring around the embers, and sang the saddest and sweetest songs in the Hymnal. I sat on a rock near by, engaged as I had been much of the time since my arrival in Wallencamp, in trying to realize the situation—the awful gloom of the night, the river now invisible, below, the sound of the surf farther off, that made my heart sick, and with it the strange mingling of those religious songs, the lonely hill, the smouldering fire, the fantastic group gathered around.
When I got back to the Ark, I found Rebecca waiting for me. She followed me up to my room, and I closed the door.
"You see I waited long enough for you to come of your own accord," I said, laughing. Then I drew a chair in front of her. She sat at the foot of the bed, and I addressed her gravely:—
"Now, Becky, something is the matter. You are not the merry, light-hearted girl you were when I first knew you. And I can help you, perhaps. I will help you. Tell me what the trouble is!"
I thought I should see the tears gathering in Rebecca's eyes, but she looked, instead, so stonily disconsolate, that I was rather dismayed.
"I'm going to tell you," said she; "but you can't help me. They'll all know before long, I guess. I don't care. You talk good, but you don't say much about God. I guess you don't believe there is none. I don't, I can't understand. I'm like I'd got lost, somehow, and when they found me, they'd stone me—I don't care. I've felt enough. I don't feel no more. I've cried so much, I guess I can't cry no more. If I could it 'ud be now, tellin' you.
"When Miss Waite came here to teach, I hadn't ever had no friend except the girls here, and they wasn't bad, but we was always runnin' wild around in the lots, and down to shore, and always laughin' and plaguin' the teacher in school. And when Miss Waite came, she wasn't like you, nor she didn't have such clothes, nor such ways as yours. I didn't love her very much, but she used to talk to me, and wanted me to be a Christian. And she didn't tell me all it was to be a Christian like you have, or I wouldn't 'a' been such a fool to think I could be; but she talked like it wasn't anything to understand, only to want Christ in your heart, and try to be good, and, first, I didn't pretend to mind much what she said, and used to tell the girls, and they'd tell me, too, and we'd laugh. Only one time, she was talkin' to me, and it seemed as though I couldn't hold out no longer, and I cried and cried, and when I got up I felt happy. Just as though He was there. Seemed as though He was all around everywhere, and goin' down the lane, there was a whip-poor-will singin', and it sounded like it never had before—so strange and happy—and I always loved 'em after that—but I never shall again.
"And I tried to be good, and quieter, and have the other girls and the children at home; and when father was drunk and noisy, and some of the folks laughed, I wouldn't give up—quite. Oh, I didn't feel like I was bad then! I didn't! You might remember that. I hadn't much manners, but I never thought anything bad. Some time you might remember that.
"Then Mr. Rollin came, and he might 'a' killed me, and it 'ud been a kindness; but he hadn't no such kind heart as that. He used to make excuses for meetin' me. He wouldn't look at any of the other girls. He said he couldn't see no beauty in anybody else. He said I was the only one on earth he loved. He said he wouldn't care what became of him if I wasn't good to him.
"I thought George never talked to me so much as that, and I trusted him every word. It was all so different. I thought I loved him, too. He talked about how he should take me to Providence, and I said I hadn't much manners or education, and they'd laugh at me. He said there wasn't another such a face there, and if he was suited, they might laugh. And he used to talk about how I'd look all dressed up in his house, down there—and I don't see! I don't see! I trusted every word.
"It wouldn't have been no different, anyway. I loved you when you came. When he went with you, I tried to hate you. I hated him, but I never hated you! In my heart, teacher, I never hated you. You might think of that, some time——"
"Well, my dear little girl," I interrupted her; "it seems we have both been deceived in the fisherman, but, doubtless, we shall recover in time. You don't like him, neither do I. We'll dismiss the subject from our minds, forever. There's a good, honest boy here in Wallencamp that a girl I know ought to busy her head about. Why trouble ourselves with disagreeable things?"
"You might think, some time," Rebecca went on, with the same hopeless expression, and in the same tense voice; "I never knew that about not trustin' anybody till you told me. I hadn't never be'n away from here. I wasn't brought up like you, and I wasn't so strong as you—you might think, some time—but not now. I don't ask to have you now—you don't see. I knew you wouldn't—you can forget—you're so happy—think of that, sometime, how happy you was, sittin' there—but I never can forget any more. I say it 'ud be'n better if I'd a died. It's the sin and the shame. I've nothin' but to bear 'em, now, as long as I live. Oh, you might think what it was not to have no hope anywheres!"
"What do you mean?" I cried, as it rushed over me in that instant what I had been too heedless and slow to comprehend, the possible wretched meaning of her words. "What do you mean?" rising and standing over her, with a terrible sense of power to convict.
"Oh, Becky, you didn't mean that—worst?"
"Yes," said she, with no visible change on her poor, set face—"yes—I do."
"I wish you would go out of my room, and leave me!" I exclaimed, then; "I am not used to such people as you! Do you suppose I would have been with you all these weeks if I had known? Don't you see how you have wronged me? I never want to see you again, never! Go! go! and leave me alone!"
I shall never forget the look with which Rebecca rose wearily, and went to the door—not an angry look, not a look of terror nor even of pleading reproach; but it was as if her soul, sinful, crushed and bleeding though it was, in that one moment, rose above my soul and condemned it with sorrowful, clear eyes.
I listened to her step going down the stairs. I did not call her back. I heard her latch the outer door of the Ark. No thought of pity for her wrong, or commiseration for her desolation moved me. I thought only in my proud selfish passion, how miserably, how bitterly I had been deceived.
I sought out the fisherman's letter before retiring, and the one I had begun in answer, and tore them both into shreds, believing that I should as easily rid my mind of the whole miserable affair with which I had been unwittingly complicated.