At Fault Part 21

"If you never saw a fish out of water, Mrs. Laferm, do take a peep at Mr. Worthington astride that horse; it's enough to make a cat expire!"

Mrs. Worthington was on the whole rather inclined to take her husband seriously. As often as he might excite her disapproval, it was seldom that he aroused her mirth. So it may be gathered that his appearance in this unfamiliar role of horseman was of the most mirth-provoking.

He and Hosmer were dismounting at the cottage, which decided Mrs.

Worthington to go and look after them; f.a.n.n.y for the time being--in her opinion--not having "the gumption to look after a sick kitten."

"This is what I call solid comfort," she said looking around the well appointed sitting-room, before quitting it.

"You ought to be a mighty happy woman, Mrs. Laferm; only I'd think you'd die of lonesomeness, sometimes."

Therese laughed, and told her not to forget that she expected them all over in the evening.

"You can depend on me; and I'll do my best to drag f.a.n.n.y over; so-long."

When left alone, Therese at once relapsed into the gloomy train of reflections that had occupied her since the day she had seen with her bodily eyes something of the wretched life that she had brought upon the man she loved. And yet that wretchedness in its refinement of cruelty and immorality she could not guess and was never to know.

Still, she had seen enough to cause her to ask herself with a shudder "was I right--was I right?"

She had always thought this lesson of right and wrong a very plain one. So easy of interpretation that the simplest minded might solve it if they would. And here had come for the first time in her life a staggering doubt as to its nature. She did not suspect that she was submitting one of those knotty problems to her unpracticed judgment that philosophers and theologians delight in disagreeing upon, and her inability to unravel it staggered her. She tried to convince herself that a very insistent sting of remorse which she felt, came from selfishness--from the pain that her own heart suffered in the knowledge of Hosmer's unhappiness. She was not callous enough to quiet her soul with the balm of having intended the best. She continued to ask herself only "was I right?" and it was by the answer to that question that she would abide, whether in the stony content of accomplished righteousness, or in an enduring remorse that pointed to a goal in whose labyrinthine possibilities her soul lost itself and fainted away.

Lucilla went out to get a breath of fresh air as her mother had commanded, but she did not go far to seek it. Not further than the end of the back veranda, where she stood for some time motionless, before beginning to occupy herself in a way which Aunt Belindy, who was watching her from the kitchen window, considered highly problematical.

The negress was wiping a dish and giving it a fine polish in her absence of mind. When her curiosity could no longer contain itself she called out:

"W'ats dat you'se doin' dah, you li'le gal? Come heah an' le' me see."

Lucilla turned with the startled look which seemed to be usual with her when addressed.

"Le' me see," repeated Aunt Belindy pleasantly.

Lucilla approached the window and handed the woman a small square of stiff writing paper which was stuck with myriad tiny pin-holes; some of which she had been making when interrupted by Aunt Belindy.

"W'at in G.o.d A'Mighty's name you call dat 'ar?" the darkey asked examining the paper critically, as though expecting the riddle would solve itself before her eyes.

"Those are my acts I've been counting," the girl replied a little gingerly.

"Yo' ax? I don' see nuttin' 'cep' a piece o' papah plum fill up wid holes. W'at you call ax?"

"Acts--acts. Don't you know what acts are?"

"How you want me know? I neva ben to no school whar you larn all dat."

"Why, an act is something you do that you don't want to do--or something you don't want to do, that you do--I mean that you don't do.

Or if you want to eat something and don't. Or an aspiration; that's an act, too."

"Go long! W'ats dat--aspiration?"

"Why, to say any kind of little prayer; or if you invoke our Lord, or our Blessed Lady, or one of the saints, that's an aspiration. You can make them just as quick as you can think--you can make hundreds and hundreds in a day."

"My Lan'! Dat's w'at you'se studyin' 'bout w'en you'se steppin' 'roun'

heah like a droopy pullet? An' I t'ought you was studyin' 'bout dat beau you lef' yonda to Sent Lous."

"You mustn't say such things to me; I'm going to be a religious."

"How dat gwine henda you have a beau ef you'se religious?"

"The religious never get married," turning very red, "and don't live in the world like others."

"Look heah, chile, you t'inks I'se fool? Religion--no religion, whar you gwine live ef you don' live in de word? Gwine live up in de moon?"

"You're a very ignorant person," replied Lucilla, highly offended. "A religious devotes her life to G.o.d, and lives in the convent."

"Den w'y you neva said 'convent'? I knows all 'bout convent. W'at you gwine do wid dem ax w'en de papah done all fill up?" handing the singular tablet back to her.

"Oh," replied Lucilla, "when I have thousands and thousands I gain twenty-five years' indulgence."

"Is dat so?"

"Yes," said the girl; and divining that Aunt Belindy had not understood, "twenty-five years that I don't have to go to purgatory.

You see most people have to spend years and years in purgatory, before they can get to Heaven."

"How you know dat?"

If Aunt Belindy had asked Lucilla how she knew that the sun shone, she could not have answered with more a.s.surance "because I know" as she turned and walked rather scornfully away.

"W'at dat kine o' fool talk dey larns gals up yonda tu Sent Lous? An'

huh ma a putty woman; yas, bless me; all dress up fittin' to kill.

Don' 'pear like she studyin' 'bout ax."

XI

A Social Evening.

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Duplan with their little daughter Ninette, who had been invited to Place-du-Bois for supper, as well as for the evening, were seated with Therese in the parlor, awaiting the arrival of the cottage guests. They had left their rather distant plantation, Les Chenieres, early in the afternoon, wis.h.i.+ng as usual to make the most of these visits, which, though infrequent, were always so much enjoyed.

The room was somewhat altered since that summer day when Therese had sat in its cool shadows, hearing the story of David Hosmer's life.

Only with such difference, however, as the change of season called for; imparting to it a rich warmth that invited to sociability and friendly confidences. In the depths of the great chimney glowed with a steady and dignified heat, the huge back-log, whose disposal Uncle Hiram had superintended in person; and the leaping flames from the dry hickories that surrounded it, lent a very genial light to the grim-visaged Lafirmes who looked down from their elevation on the interesting group gathered about the hearth.

Conversation had never once flagged with these good friends; for, aside from much neighborhood gossip to be told and listened to, there was the always fertile topic of "crops" to be discussed in all its bearings, that touched, in its local and restricted sense, the labor question, cultivation, freight rates, and the city merchant.

With Mrs. Duplan there was a good deal to be said about the unusual mortality among "Plymouth-Rocks" owing to an alarming prevalence of "pip," which malady, however, that lady found to be gradually yielding to a heroic treatment introduced into her _ba.s.se-cour_ by one Coulon, a piney wood sage of some repute as a mystic healer.

This was a delicate refined little woman, somewhat old-fas.h.i.+oned and stranded in her incapability to keep pace with the modern conduct of life; but giving her views with a pretty self-confidence, that showed her a ruler in her peculiar realm.

The young Ninette had extended herself in an easy chair, in an att.i.tude of graceful abandonment, the earnest brown eyes looking eagerly out from under a tangle of auburn hair, and resting with absorbed admiration upon her father, whose words and movements she followed with unflagging attentiveness. The fastidious little miss was clad in a dainty gown that reached scarcely below the knees; revealing the shapely limbs that were crossed and extended to let the well shod feet rest upon the polished bra.s.s fender.

Therese had given what information lay within her range, concerning the company which was expected. But her confidences had plainly been insufficient to prepare Mrs. Duplan for the startling effect produced by Mrs. Worthington on that little woman in her black silk of a by-gone fas.h.i.+on; so splendid was Mrs. Worthington's erect and imposing figure, so blonde her blonde hair, so bright her striking color and so comprehensive the sweep of her blue and scintillating gown. Yet was Mrs. Worthington not at ease, as might be noticed in the unnatural quaver of her high-pitched voice and the restless motion of her hands, as she seated herself with an arm studiedly resting upon the table near by.