“It is only because Bertie loves Fleecy, and she loves him,” said the little creature, answering the unspoken thought which she had read in Mrs. Bryan’s eyes.
As the latter passed through the outer room, where Mauma was sitting at the window running the narrow ribbons in and out of the eyelet holes in Mrs. Leith’s dainty French underclothes, she stopped and looked at the old woman inquiringly.
“She bin tell you all ’bout it, has she?” said Mauma, looking up over the top of her brass-rimmed spectacles. “I knowed how it gwine be, soon ez I see you done tech her heart, by nussing o’ that black varmint.” (It always seemed to give Mauma great satisfaction to apply the word “black” to Fleecy’s creamy whiteness.) “I’m glad you kin mek out to show some likin’ fur de dirty thing, en to please Missy I’d do it myself, ef I could. De Lord knows ef anythin’ kin please her, I want her to have it, but it’s more’n I got sense to do, to ack like I love dem two darlin’s o’ hern.”
“Then you don’t like Mr. Leith, either?” said Mrs. Bryan, tentatively.
“Like him? Nor’m, I don’t like him, I don’ like him for nuthin’—a good-for nuthin’, low-life raskill, as ain’t worthy to tech Missy’s feet! Thar ain’ but one thing in the worl’ I won’ do for Missy, en that’s it! I ain’ gwine say I like him, kus I pintedly don’t, en I’d wring he neck same ez a chicken’s, ef I had de chance. Lor’, mistiss, you don’ know. You don’ know nuthin’! De sights he is tuk dat air little angel-chile through is enough to tun yer hyar right white. ’Tain’ no kine o’ shame en meanness he ain’ bin heap up on her—a puppus to mek her git de divoce. En you think she’d do it? Nor’m, she wouldn’! She bin quoil wid ev’ry fr’en’ she got in de worl’ ’long o’ that! She ain’ ’low nobody to say nuthin’ gin’ him. All she say is, ‘When you love, you kin furgive anything.’ He mought ’a’ kep’ on, twel jedgmen’-day, en he mought ’a’ drug her through de streets by de hyar o’ her hade, en she wouldn’ nuver ’a’ uttered a complaint. De warn’ but one way he could ’a’ got her to git dat divoce, en he jis dat mean en sneakin’ dat he bin foun’ dat way out. He come to her at las’ wid all he impident, sweet ways, en he jiss coax en beg for it. I knowed den ’twas all up. She ain’ nuver been able to say no to him in her life, en she couldn’t say it den. So she tell him. Yes, she do it fur de sake o’ makin’ him happy en pleased wid her. She sont right off fur de lawyer, en made all de ’rangements. I hear him tell her myself dat ’twas easy ’nough to do. Yes, Lord! I reckon ’twas easy, wid dem scan’lous doin’s o’ his! Lor’, honey, you don’ know,” and the old woman ended, shaking her head with an air of deep mystery.
The ice once broken between Mrs. Bryan and her boarder, frequent confidences followed, but it was always the same thing, with more or less detail, as to the charm, superiority and lovableness of the husband she had renounced, or was now making it her business in life to renounce. It was evident to Mrs. Bryan that the days passed all too quickly for Mr. Manning’s client, and that she clung desperately to the mere form that retained him as her husband.
In the monotonous regularity of her life at Belton she began to improve in health and looks. Mauma attributed it to the fact that she no longer had the torment of discussions and protest from her relatives and friends, who had one and all abandoned her to her own devices. So indomitable a will in so slight a body, it was certainly strange to find. After the promise to her husband she had never faltered, though the idea of the divorce was evidently terrible to her beyond words. She told Mrs. Bryan that she was twenty years of age, but it was hard to believe it. She looked a mere slip of a girl, and was made with such exquisite perfection, that that fact seemed to make her look smaller than she really was. Every one who saw her was fascinated by her beauty, but she was cold to all overtures of friendship, and seemed to have exhausted on her husband and Fleecy all her capacity for affection. She still cared scrupulously for her toilet, though she wore only the one or two dark dresses in which she had appeared on first coming to Belton. Her mother had been a Creole, and from this source she had got her little French name, Mimi, which she told Mrs. Bryan her husband usually abbreviated into “Mim.” There was also a trace of her French origin in her utterance—a certain peculiarity of the r—that gave her a sort of unusualness which added to her charm.
One day, the morning of which had passed in the usual uneventful way, Mrs. Leith was sitting with Mrs. Bryan in the latter’s sitting-room, when a telegram was brought in. Mrs. Bryan took it, and then handed it to her companion, to whom it was addressed. As she read it she sprang to her feet and uttered a cry—unmistakably a cry of joy.
“Read it—he is coming!” she said.
Mrs. Bryan put on her glasses and read these words: