“Roger nodded. ‘Then you must stay with your husband, my child,’ Mrs. Kent said, very gravely. ‘And may God punish you through your children, Roger Fleming,’ she said, ‘for what you have done to mine. Go tear the buds from those rose trees,’ she said, pointing to the garden, ‘go strip the new green fruit from your trees—and you will harvest what you must harvest now! Your little boys there, playing in the drive, are better fitted for life than she is!’ And she turned to Moses, the coloured butler we had then. ‘Moses, put my bags in the carriage,’ she said.
“Nobody spoke as she went away. Cecily lay on the floor, moaning, Roger on one knee beside her, talking naturally and kindly. She never saw her mother, or her father, or her brother again. I heard long afterward that the pretty, cheerful mother had died and the father married again. They—they would be your people, Gabrielle. You could easily trace them.
“Cecily had been three days a wife, but she had lost her husband then! She never knew it—but I did, and I—God forgive me, I was glad. When she clung to her mother and screamed that she hated him, a look came into Roger Fleming’s face that only I could understand. It was as if she had said, ‘I am seventeen and he is forty! I knew nothing—he knew everything. My only loves were a daughter’s love—a sister’s love. He demanded more of me, and—if I had it!—I would loathe myself for giving it! He has robbed me of my mother, and my father, and my body, and my soul!’
“She cried all that night—would not come downstairs, or eat, or look at him, or talk to him. She cried for many days, and Roger used all his patience and all his kindness trying to console her. But he never gave her love again—he never had it to give, after that day! She had cut him to the very heart, and the Flemings are all proud, and none of them ever prouder than he!
“After a while she began to slip about the house like a shadow; she had never been pretty—except for her eyes that were like Gabrielle’s, here—and she grew so thin and so white that she seemed all eyes. She would have no company, no entertaining, she seemed even to dread talking to Roger, and was fondest of you children and poor Lily. It was never any definite illness at first, just the doctor for one pain or another, and Roger taking her in for consultations and advice. They all gave the same advice, she needed amusement and relief from mental strain. But that was one thing he couldn’t buy her! She used to lie out there in the garden telling Lily about her mother and father——”
Flora’s voice stopped abruptly, with the effect of an interruption.
“I hated her,” she said, simply, after a moment, and was still.
“Ah, yes, I did, David!” she added, suddenly, her eyes always closed, and as if David had protested. “I hated her. I managed her house, I answered the inquiries of anybody who came to call, I talked about her with Roger when he was anxious—and I hated her.
“She made him—miserable. She was a mixture of a child and a nun. She hated life, hated marriage. Lily and I were ready enough for it, watching our friends marry, and be widowed, and marry again! But this girl loathed her wifehood, her position, her husband—and her husband was Roger Fleming! He couldn’t kiss her but what she would shut those dark, sad eyes of hers and offer her cheek like a child!”
“I remember her, shutting her eyes and turning her face away when we would kiss her,” Tom said, clearing his throat.