The Cup of Trembling and Other Stories Part 4

Here Jack was wasting life in idleness, in self-banishment, in inordinate affections and deceits of the flesh. The brother who loved him too well to be lenient to his weakness turned away with a groan of such indignant heartbreak as only the young can know. Only the young and the pure in heart can have such faith in anything human as Jack's brother had had in Jack.

Esmee, rea.s.sured by the long-continued silence, had ventured out, and now stepped cautiously forward into the broad, low light in the middle of the room. The fires.h.i.+ne touched her upraised chin, her parted lips, and a spark floated in each of her large, dark, startled eyes. Tip had been watching as breathless and as motionless as his companion, but now at sight of Esmee he bounded against the sash, and squealed his impatience to be let in. Esmee shrank back with a cry; her hands went up to her breast and clasped themselves. She had seen the face at the window. Her att.i.tude was the instinctive expression of her convicted presence in that house. And the excluded pair who watched her were her natural judges: Fidelity that she had outraged, and Family Affection that she had wronged.

Tip made further demonstrations at the window, but Esmee had dragged herself away out of sight into her own room.

The steps of the knocker were heard, a few minutes later, wandering irresolutely up and down the trench. For the last time they paused at the door.

"Shall we knock once more, Tip? Shall we give her one more chance? She has seen that I am no ruffian; she knows that you are a friend. Now if she is an honest woman let her show herself! For the last time, then!"

A terrific peal of knocking shocked the silence. Esmee could have screamed, there was an accent so scornfully accusative in this last ironical summons. No answer was possible. The footsteps turned away from the door, and did not come back.

II

The snow that had began to fall softly and quietly about the middle of the afternoon had steadily increased until now in the thickening dusk it spread a white blindness everywhere. From her bedroom window Esmee looked out, and though she could not see the sky, there were signs enough to tell her what the coming night would be. Fresh snow lay piled in the trench, and snow was whirling in. The blast outside wailed in the chimney, and shook the house, and sifted snow in beneath the outer door.

Esmee was not surprised that Jack, when he came home, should be as dismal and quiet as she was herself; but it did surprise her that he should not at once perceive that something had happened in his absence.

At first there was supper to cook, and she could not talk to him then.

Later, when they were seated together at the table, she tried to speak of that ghostly knocking; but Jack seemed preoccupied and not inclined to talk, and she was glad of an excuse to postpone a subject that had for her a peculiar terror in its suggestions.

It was nine o'clock before all the little house tasks were done, and they drew up to the fire, seeking in each other's eyes the a.s.surance that both were in need of, that nothing of their dear-bought treasure of companions.h.i.+p had altered since they had sat that way before. But it was not quite the same Esmee, nor the same Jack. They were not thinking exclusively of each other.

"Why don't you read your letters, dear?"

"I can't read them," said Esmee. "They were not written to me--the woman I am now."

These were the home letters, telling of her sister's coming wedding festivities, that Esmee could not read, especially that one from Lilla--her last letter as a girl to the sister who had been a bride herself, and would know what a girl's feelings at such a time must be.

"I have tried to write to mama," said Esmee; "but it's impossible.

Anything I could say by way of defense sounds as if I were trying to lay the blame on some one else; and if I say nothing, but just state the facts, it is harsh, as if I were brazening it out. And she has never seen you, Jack. You are my only real defense. By what you are, by what you will be to me, I am willing to be judged."

"Dearest, you make me ashamed, but I can say the same of you. Still, to a mother, I'm afraid it will make little difference whether it's 'Launcelot or another.'"

"It certainly made little difference to her when she made her choice of a husband for me," said Esmee, bitterly. One by one she dropped the sheets of her letters in the fire, and watched them burn to ashes.

"When they know--if they ever write to me after that, I will read those letters. These have no meaning." They had too much meaning, was what Esmee should have said.

After a silence Jack spoke somewhat hoa.r.s.ely: "It's a beastly long time since I have written to any of my people. It's a pity I didn't write and tell them something; it might have saved trouble. But how can a fellow write? I got a letter to-day from my brother Sid. Says he's thinking of coming out here."

"Heaven save us!" cried Esmee. "Do write at once--anything--say anything you like."

Jack smiled drearily. "I'm afraid it's too late. In fact, the letter was written the day before he was to start, and it's dated January 25.

There's a rumor that some one is in town, now, looking for me. I shouldn't be surprised if it were Sid."

"What if it were?" asked Esmee. "What could you do?"

"I don't know, indeed," said Jack. "I'm awfully cut up about it. The worst of it is, I asked him to come."

"You asked him!"

"Some time ago, dearest, when everything was different. I thought I must make the fight for both our sakes, and I sent for Sid, thinking it might help to have him here with me."

"Did you indeed," said Esmee, coldly. "What a pity he did not come before it was too late; he might have saved us both. How long ago was it, please?"

"Esmee, don't speak to me like that."

"But do you realize what you are saying?"

"You should not mind what I say. Think--what shall we do if it should be Sid? It rests with you, Esmee. Could you bear to meet him?"

"What is he like?" said Esmee, trembling.

"Oh, he's a lovely fellow. There's n.o.body like Sid."

"What does he look like?"

"He's good-looking, of course, being my brother," said Jack, with a wretched attempt at pleasantry, which met with no response. Esmee was staring at him, a strange terror in her eyes. "But there is more to his looks, somehow, than to most pretty boys. People who are up in such things say he's like the Saint George, or Saint Somebody, by Donatello.

He's blond, you know; he's as fresh as a girl, but he has an uncommonly set look at times, when he's serious or a bit disgusted about something.

He has a set in his temper, too. I should not care to have Sid hear our story--not till after he had seen you, Esmee. Perhaps even then he could not understand. He has never loved a woman, except his mother. He doesn't know what a man's full-grown pa.s.sion means. At least, I don't think he knows. He was rather fiercely moral on some points when I talked to him last; a little bit inhuman--what is it, Esmee?"

"There is that dog again!"

Jack looked at her in surprise at her shocked expression. Every trace of color had left her face. Her eyes were fixed upon the door.

"What dog? Why, it's Tip."

A creature as white as the storm sprang into the room as he opened the door, threw himself upon Jack, and whimpered and groaned and s.h.i.+vered, and seemed to weep with joy. Jack hugged him, laughing, and then threw him off, and dusted the snow from his clothing.

Tip shook himself, and came back excitedly for more recognition from his master. He took no notice at all of Esmee.

"Speak to him, won't you, dear? It's only manners, even if you don't care for him," Jack prompted gently. But Tip refused to accept Esmee's sad, perfunctory greeting; his countenance changed, he held aloof, glancing at her with an unpleasant gleam in his bloodshot eyes.

He had satisfied the cravings of affection, and now made it plain that his visit was on business that demanded his master's attention outside of the house. Jack knew the creature's intelligent ways so well that speech was hardly needed between them. "What's the racket, Tip? What's wrong out there? No, sir; I don't go back to town with you to-night, sir. Not much. Lie down! Be quiet, idiot!"

But Tip stood at the door, and began to whine, fixing his eyes on his master's face. As nothing came of this, he went back and stood in front of him, wagging his tail heavily and slowly; troubled wrinkles stood out over his beseeching eyes.

"What under heaven's the matter with you, dog? You're a regular funeral procession." Jack shoved the creature from him, and again he took up his station at the door. Jack rose, and opened it, and playfully tried to push him out. Tip stood his ground, always with his eyes on his master's face, and whimpered under his breath with almost tearful meaning.

"He's on duty to-night," said Jack. "He's got something on his mind, and he wants me to help him out with it. I say, old chap, we don't keep a life-saving station up here. Get out with your nonsense."

"There was some one with him when he was here this afternoon," Esmee forced herself to say.

"Has Tip been here before?"

"Yes, Jack. But a man was with him--a young, strange man. It was about four o'clock, perhaps five; it was getting dusk. I had been asleep, and I was so frightened. He knocked and knocked. I thought he would never stop knocking. He came to my window, and tried to get in, but the sash was frozen fast." Esmee paused, and caught her breath. "And I heard a dog scratching and whining."

"Did you not see the man?"