At Fault (14 page)

As Hosmer rode up at a rapid pace, he swung himself from his horse
almost before the animal came to a full stop. He removed his hat,
mopped his forehead, stamped about a little to relax his limbs and
turned to answer the enquiry with which Thérèse met him.

"Left her at Morico's. I'll have to send the buggy back for her."

"I can't forgive myself for such a blunder," said Thérèse regretfully,
"indeed I had no idea of that miserable beast's character. I never was
on him you know—only the little darkies, and they never complained:
they'd as well ride cows as not."

"Oh, it's mainly from her being unaccustomed to riding, I believe."

This was the first time that Hosmer and Thérèse had met alone since
his return from St. Louis. They looked at each other with full
consciousness of what lay in the other's mind. Thérèse felt that
however adroitly another woman might have managed the situation, for
herself, it would have been a piece of affectation to completely
ignore it at this moment.

"Mr. Hosmer, perhaps I ought to have said something before this, to
you—about what you've done."

"Oh, yes, congratulated me—complimented me," he replied with a
pretense at a laugh.

"Well, the latter, perhaps. I think we all like to have our good and
right actions recognized for their worth."

He flushed, looked at her with a smile, then laughed out-right—this
time it was no pretense.

"So I've been a good boy; have done as my mistress bade me and now I'm
to receive a condescending little pat on the head—and of course must
say thank you. Do you know, Mrs. Lafirme—and I don't see why a woman
like you oughtn't to know it—it's one of those things to drive a man
mad, the sweet complaisance with which women accept situations, or
inflict situations that it takes the utmost of a man's strength to
endure."

"Well, Mr. Hosmer," said Thérèse plainly discomposed, "you must
concede you decided it was the right thing to do."

"I didn't do it because I thought it was right, but because you
thought it was right. But that makes no difference."

"Then remember your wife is going to do the right thing herself—she
admitted as much to me."

"Don't you fool yourself, as Melicent says, about what Mrs. Hosmer
means to do. I take no account of it. But you take it so easily; so as
a matter of course. That's what exasperates me. That you, you, you,
shouldn't have a suspicion of the torture of it; the loathsomeness of
it. But how could you—how could any woman understand it? Oh forgive
me, Thérèse—I wouldn't want you to. There's no brute so brutal as a
man," he cried, seeing the pain in her face and knowing he had caused
it. "But you know you promised to help me—oh I'm talking like an
idiot."

"And I do," returned Thérèse, "that is, I want to, I mean to."

"Then don't tell me again that I have done right. Only look at me
sometimes a little differently than you do at Hiram or the gate post.
Let me once in a while see a look in your face that tells me that you
understand—if it's only a little bit."

Thérèse thought it best to interrupt the situation; so, pale and
silently she prepared to mount her horse. He came to her assistance of
course, and when she was seated she drew off her loose riding glove
and held out her hand to him. He pressed it gratefully, then touched
it with his lips; then turned it and kissed the half open palm.

She did not leave him this time, but rode at his side in silence with
a frown and little line of thought between her blue eyes.

As they were nearing the store she said diffidently: "Mr. Hosmer, I
wonder if it wouldn't be best for you to put the mill in some one
else's charge—and go away from Place-du-Bois."

"I believe you always speak with a purpose, Mrs. Lafirme: you have
somebody's ultimate good in view, when you say that. Is it your own,
or mine or whose is it?"

"Oh! not mine."

"I will leave Place-du-Bois, certainly, if you wish it."

As she looked at him she was forced to admit that she had never seen
him look as he did now. His face, usually serious, had a whole
unwritten tragedy in it. And she felt altogether sore and puzzled and
exasperated over man's problematic nature.

"I don't think it should be left entirely to me to say. Doesn't your
own reason suggest a proper course in the matter?"

"My reason is utterly unable to determine anything in which you are
concerned. Mrs. Lafirme," he said checking his horse and laying a
restraining hand on her bridle, "let me speak to you one moment. I
know you are a woman to whom one may speak the truth. Of course, you
remember that you prevailed upon me to go back to my wife. To you it
seemed the right thing—to me it seemed certainly hard—but no more
nor less than taking up the old unhappy routine of life, where I had
left it when I quitted her. I reasoned much like a stupid child who
thinks the colors in his kaleidoscope may fall twice into the same
design. In place of the old, I found an entirely new situation—horrid,
sickening, requiring such a strain upon my energies to live through
it, that I believe it's an absurdity to waste so much moral force for
so poor an aim—there would be more dignity in putting an end to my
life. It doesn't make it any the more bearable to feel that the cause
of this unlooked for change lies within myself—my altered feelings.
But it seems to me that I have the right to ask you not to take
yourself out of my life; your moral support; your bodily atmosphere. I
hope not to give way to the weakness of speaking of these things
again: but before you leave me, tell me, do you understand a little
better why I need you?"

"Yes, I understand now; and I thank you for talking so openly to me.
Don't go away from Place-du-Bois: it would make me very wretched."

She said no more and he was glad of it, for her last words held almost
the force of action for him; as though she had let him feel for an
instant her heart beat against his own with an echoing pain.

Their ways now diverged. She went in the direction of the house and he
to the store where he found Grégoire, whom he sent for his wife.

"Grégoire was right: do you know those nasty creatures have gone and
left every speck of the supper dishes unwashed? I've got half a mind
to give them both warning to-morrow morning."

Fanny had come in from the kitchen to the sitting-room, and the above
homily was addressed to her husband who stood lighting his cigar. He
had lately taken to smoking.

"You'd better do nothing of the kind; you wouldn't find it easy to
replace them. Put up a little with their vagaries: this sort of thing
only happens once a year."

"How do you know it won't be something else just as ridiculous
to-morrow? And that idiot of a Minervy; what do you suppose she told
me when I insisted on her staying to wash up things? She says, last
whatever you call it, her husband wanted to act hard-headed and staid
out after dark, and when he was crossing the bayou, the spirits jerked
him off his horse and dragged him up and down in the water, till he
was nearly drowned. I don't see what you're laughing at; I guess you'd
like to make out that they're in the right."

Hosmer was perfectly aware that Fanny had had a drink, and he rightly
guessed that Morico had given it to her. But he was at a loss to
account for the increasing symptoms of intoxication that she showed.
He tried to persuade her to go to bed; but his efforts to that end
remained unheeded, till she had eased her mind of an accumulation of
grievances, mostly fancied. He had much difficulty in preventing her
from going over to give Melicent a piece of her mind about her lofty
airs and arrogance in thinking herself better than other people. And
she was very eager to tell Thérèse that she meant to do as she liked,
and would stand no poking of noses in her business. It was a good
while before she fell into a heavy sleep, after shedding a few maudlin
tears over the conviction that he intended to leave her again, and
clinging to his neck with beseeching enquiry whether he loved her.

He went out on the veranda feeling much as if he had been wrestling
with a strong adversary who had mastered him, and whom he was glad to
be freed of, even at the cost of coming inglorious from the conflict.
The night was so dark, so hushed, that if ever the dead had wished to
step from their graves and take a stroll above ground, they could not
have found a more fitting hour. Hosmer walked very long in the
soothing quiet. He would have liked to walk the night through. The
last three hours had been like an acute physical pain, that was over
for the moment, and that being over, left his mind free to return to
the delicious consciousness, that he had needed to be reminded of,
that Thérèse loved him after all. When his measured tread upon the
veranda finally ceased to mark the passing hours, a quiet that was
almost pulseless fell upon the plantation. Place-du-Bois slept.
Perhaps the only night in the year that some or other of the negroes
did not lurk in fence corners, or make exchange of nocturnal visits.

But out in the hills there was no such unearthly stillness reigning.
Those restless wood-dwellers, that never sleep, were sending startling
gruesome calls to each other. Bats were flapping and whirling and
darting hither and thither; the gliding serpent making quick rustle
amid the dry, crisp leaves, and over all sounded the murmur of the
great pine trees, telling their mystic secrets to the night.

A human creature was there too, feeling a close fellowship with these
spirits of night and darkness; with no more fear in his heart than the
unheeded serpent crossing his path. Every inch of the ground he knew.
He wanted no daylight to guide him. Had his eyes been blinded he would
no doubt have bent his body close to earth and scented his way along
like the human hound that he was. Over his shoulder hung the polished
rifle that sent dull and sudden gleamings into the dark. A large tin
pail swung from his hand. He was very careful of this pail—or its
contents, for he feared to lose a drop. And when he accidentally
struck an intervening tree and spilled some upon the ground, he
muttered a curse against his own awkwardness.

Twice since leaving his cabin up in the clearing, he had turned to
drive back his yellow skulking dog that followed him. Each time the
brute had fled in abject terror, only to come creeping again into his
master's footsteps, when he thought himself forgotten. Here was a
companion whom neither Joçint nor his mission required. Exasperated,
he seated himself on a fallen tree and whistled softly. The dog, who
had been holding back, dashed to his side, trembling with eagerness,
and striving to twist his head around to lick the hand that patted
him. Joçint's other hand glided quickly into his pocket, from which he
drew forth a coil of thin rope that he flung deftly over the animal's
head, drawing it close and tight about the homely, shaggy throat. So
quickly was the action done, that no sound was uttered, and Joçint
continued his way untroubled by his old and faithful friend, whom he
left hanging to the limb of a tree.

He was following the same path that he traversed daily to and from the
mill, and which soon brought him out into the level with its soft
tufted grass and clumps of squat thorn trees. There was no longer the
protecting wood to screen him; but of such there was no need, for the
darkness hung about him like the magic mantle of story. Nearing the
mill he grew cautious, creeping along with the tread of a stealthy
beast, and halting at intervals to listen for sounds that he wished
not to hear. He knew there was no one on guard tonight. A movement in
the bushes near by, made him fall quick and sprawling to earth. It was
only Grégoire's horse munching the soft grass. Joçint drew near and
laid his hand on the horse's back. It was hot and reeking with sweat.
Here was a fact to make him more wary. Horses were not found in such
condition from quietly grazing of a cool autumn night. He seated
himself upon the ground, with his hands clasped about his knees, all
doubled up in a little heap, and waited there with the patience of the
savage, letting an hour go by, whilst he made no movement.

The hour past, he stole towards the mill, and began his work of
sprinkling the contents of his pail here and there along the dry
timbers at well calculated distances, with care that no drop should be
lost. Then, he drew together a great heap of crisp shavings and
slathers, plentifully besprinkling it with what remained in the can.
When he had struck a match against his rough trousers and placed it
carefully in the midst of this small pyramid, he found that he had
done his work but too surely. The quick flame sprang into life,
seizing at once all it could reach. Leaping over intervals; effacing
the darkness that had shrouded him; seeming to mock him as a fool and
point him out as a target for heaven and earth to hurl destruction at
if they would. Where should he hide himself? He only thought now of
how he might have done the deed differently, and with safety to
himself. He stood with great beams and loose planks surrounding him;
quaking with a premonition of evil. He wanted to fly in one direction;
then thought it best to follow the opposite; but a force outside of
himself seemed to hold him fast to one spot. When turning suddenly
about, he knew it was too late, he felt that all was lost, for there
was Grégoire, not twenty paces away—covering him with the muzzle of a
pistol and—cursed luck—his own rifle along with the empty pail in
the raging fire.

Thérèse was passing a restless night. She had lain long awake,
dwelling on the insistent thoughts that the day's happenings had given
rise to. The sleep which finally came to her was troubled by
dreams—demoniac—grotesque. Hosmer was in a danger from which she was
striving with physical effort to rescue him, and when she dragged him
painfully from the peril that menaced him, she turned to see that it
was Fanny whom she had saved—laughing at her derisively, and Hosmer
had been left to perish. The dream was agonizing; like an appalling
nightmare. She awoke in a fever of distress, and raised herself in bed
to shake off the unnatural impression which such a dream can leave.
The curtains were drawn aside from the window that faced her bed, and
looking out she saw a long tongue of flame, reaching far up into the
sky—away over the tree tops and the whole Southern horizon a glow.
She knew at once that the mill was burning, and it was the affair of a
moment with her to spring from her bed and don slippers and wrapper.
She knocked on Melicent's door to acquaint her with the startling
news; then hurried out into the back yard and rang the plantation
bell.