The Bishop of Cottontown Part 85

She wondered, but her cheeks now burned so that all her thoughts began to flow back upon herself as a tide, flowing inland, and forgetting the sea of things. Her heart beat faster--she felt guilty--of what, she could not say.

Perhaps the guilt of the sea for being found on the land.

The common mill girls--were they not all looking at her, were they not all wondering, did they not all despise her, her who by birth and breeding should be above them? Her lips tightened at the thought--she who was above them--now--now--they to be above her--poor-born and common as they were--if--if--he betrayed her.

He handed her quietly--reverently even, into the buggy, and the trotters whirled her away; but not before she thought she saw the mill girls peeping at her through the windows, and nodding their heads at each other, and some of them smiling disdainfully. And yet when she looked closely there was no one at the windows.

The wind blew cool. Travis glanced at her dress, her poorly protected shoulders.

"I am afraid you will be too cold after coming from a warm mill and going with the speed we go."

He reached under the seat and drew out a light overcoat. He threw it gently over her shoulders, driving, in his masterful way, with the reins in one hand.

He did not speak again until he reached Millwood.

The gate was down, bits of strewn paper, straw and all the debris of things having been moved, were there. The house was dark and empty, and Helen uttered a surprised cry:

"Why, what does all this mean? Oh, has anything happened to them?"

She clung in pallor to Travis's arm.

"Be calm," he said, "I will explain. They are all safe. They have moved. Let us go in, a moment."

He drew the mares under a shed and hitched them, throwing blankets over them and unchecking their heads. Then he lifted her out. How strong he was, and how like a limp lily she felt in the grasp of his hands.

The moon flashed out now and then from clouds scurrying fast, adding a ghostliness to the fading light, in which the deserted house stood out amid shadowy trees and weeds tall and dried. The rotten steps and balcony, even the broken bottles and pieces of crockery shone bright in the fading light. Tears started to her eyes:

"Nothing is here--nothing!"

Travis caught her hand in the dark and she clung to him. A hound stepped out from under the steps and licked her other hand. She jumped and gave a little shriek. Then, when she understood, she stroked the poor thing's head, its eyes staring hungrily in the dim light.

She followed Travis up the steps. Within, he struck a match, and she saw the emptiness of it all--the broken plastering and the paper torn off in spots, a dirty, littered floor, and an old sofa and a few other things left, too worthless to be moved.

She held up bravely, but tears were running down her cheeks. Travis struck another match to light a lamp which had been forgotten and left on the mantel. He attempted to light it, but something huge and black swept by and extinguished it. Helen shrieked again, and coming up timidly seized his arm in the dark. He could feel her heart beating excitedly against it.

He struck another match.

"Don't be uneasy, it is nothing but an owl."

The light was turned up and showed an owl sitting on the top of an old tester that had formerly been the canopy of her grandmother's bed.

The owl stared stupidly at them--turning its head solemnly.

Helen laughed hysterically.

"Now, sit down on the old sofa," he said. "There is much to say to you. We are now on the verge of a tragedy or a farce, or--"

"Sometimes plays end well, where all are happy, do they not?" she asked, smiling hysterically and sitting by him, but looking at the uncanny owl beyond. She was silent, then:

"Oh, I--I--don't you think I am ent.i.tled now--to have something end happily--now--once--in my life?"

He pitied her and was silent.

"Tell me," she said after a while, "you have moved father and Lily to--to--one of the Cottontown cottages?"

He arose: "In a little while I will tell you, but now we must have something to eat first--you see I had this lunch fixed for our journey." He went out, over to his lap-robe and cus.h.i.+on, and brought a basket and placed it on an old table.

"You may begin now and be my housekeeper," he smiled. "Isn't it time you were learning? I daresay I'll not find you a novice, though."

She flushed and smiled. She arose gracefully, and her pretty hands soon had the lunch spread, Travis helping her awkwardly.

It was a pretty picture, he thought--her flushed girlish face, yet matronly ways. He watched her slyly, with a sad joyousness in his eyes, drinking it in, as one who had hungered long for contentment and peace, such as this.

She had forgotten everything else in the housekeeping. She even laughed some at his awkwardness and scolded him playfully, for, man-like, forgetting a knife and fork. It was growing chilly, and while she set the lunch he went out and brought in some wood. Soon a fine oak fire burned in the fireplace.

They sat at the old table at last, side by side, and ate the delightful lunch. Under the influence of the bottle of claret, from The Gaffs cellar, her courage came and her animation was beautiful to him--something that seemed more of girlhood than womanhood. He drank it all in--hungry--heart-hungry for comfort and love; and she saw and understood.

Never had he enjoyed a lunch so much. Never had he seen so beautiful a picture!

When it was over he lit a cigar, and the fine odor filled the old room.

Then very quietly he told her the story of Mammy Maria's return, of the little home she had prepared for them; of her coming that day to the mill and taking Lily, and that even now, doubtless, she was there looking for the elder sister.

She did not show any surprise--only tears came slowly: "Do you know that I felt that something of this kind would happen? Dear Mammy--dear, dear Mammy Maria! She will care for Lily and father."

She could stand it no longer. She burst into childish tears and, kneeling, she put her beautiful head on Travis's lap as innocently as if it were her old nurse's, and she, a child, seeking consolation.

He stroked her hair, her cheek, gently. He felt his lids grow moist and a tenderness he never had known came over him.

"I have told you this for a purpose," he whispered in her ear--"I will take you to them, now."

She raised her wet eyes--flushed. He watched her closely to see signs of any battle there. And then his heart gave a great leap and surged madly as she said calmly: "No--no--it is too late--too late--now.

I--could--never explain. I will go with you, Richard Travis, to the end of the world."

He sat very still and looked at her kneeling there as a child would, both hands clasped around his knee, and looking into his eyes with hers, gray-brown and gloriously bright. They were calm--so calm, and determined and innocent. They thrilled him with their trust and the royal beauty of her faith. There came to him an upliftedness that shook him.

"To the end of the world," he said--"ah, you have said so much--so much more than I could ever deserve."

"I have stood it all as long as I could. My father's drunkenness, I could stand that, and Mammy's forsaking us, as I thought--that, too.

When the glory of work, of earning my own living opened itself to me,--Oh, I grasped it and was happy to think that I could support them! That's why your temptation--why--I--"

He winced and was silent.

"They were nothing," she went on, "but to be forgotten, forsaken by--by--"

"Clay?" he helped her say.

"Oh," she flushed--"yes,--that was part of it, and then to see--to see--you so different--with this strange look on you--something which says so plainly to me that--that--oh, forgive me, but do you know I seem to see you dying--dying all the time, and now you are so changed--indeed--oh please understand me--I feel differently toward you--as I would toward one dying for sympathy and love."