The Deliverance Part 53

CHAPTER IV. In Which Mrs. Blake's Eyes are Opened

Before the beauty of Maria's high magnanimity Christopher had felt himself thrust further into the abas.e.m.e.nt of his self-contempt. Had she met his confession with reproach, with righteous aversion, with the horror he had half expected, it is possible that his heart might have recoiled into a last expression of defiance. But there had been none of these things.

In his memory her face shone moonlike from its cloud of dark hair, and he saw upon it only the look of a great and sorrowful pa.s.sion. His wretchedness had drawn her closer, not put her further away, and he had felt the quiet of her tolerance not less gratefully than he had felt the fervour of her love. Her forgiveness had been of the grandeur of her own nature, and its height and breadth had appealed, even apart from her emotion, to a mind that was accustomed to dwell daily on long reaches of unbroken s.p.a.ce. He had been bred on large things from his birth--large horizons, large stretches of field and sky, large impulses, and large powers of hating, and he found now that a woman's presence filled to overflowing the empty vastness of his moods.

Reaching the yard, he saw Tucker sitting placidly on his bench, and, crossing the long gra.s.s, he flung himself down beside him with a sigh of pleasure in the beauty of the scene.

"You're right, Uncle Tucker; it's all wonderful. I never saw such a sunset in my life."

"Ah, but you haven't seen it yet," said Tucker. "I've been looking at it since it first caught that pile of clouds, and it grows more splendid every instant. I'm not an overreligious body, I reckon, and I've always held that the best compliment you can pay G.o.d Almighty is to let Him go His own gait and quit advising Him; but, I declare, as I sat here just now I couldn't help being impertinent enough to pray that I might live to see another."

"Well, it's a first-rate one; that's so. It seems to shake a body out of the muck, somehow."

"I shouldn't wonder if it did; and that's what I told two young fools who were up here just now asking me to patch up their first married quarrel. 'For heaven's sake, stop playing with mud and sit down and watch that sunset,' I said to 'em, and if you'll believe it, the girl actually dropped her jaws and replied she had to hurry back to sh.e.l.l her beans while the light lasted.

Beans! Why, they'll make beans enough of their marriage, and so I told 'em."

Tapping his crutch gently on the ground, he paused and sat smiling broadly at the sunset.

For a time Christopher watched with him while the gold- and-crimson glory flamed beyond the twisted boughs of the old pine; then, turning his troubled face on Tucker's cheerful one, he asked deliberately:

"Do you sometimes regret that you never married, Uncle Tucker?"

"Regret?" repeated Tucker softly. "Why, no. I haven't time for it--there's too much else to think about. Regret is a dangerous thing, my boy; you let a little one no bigger than a mustard seed into your heart, and before you know it you've hatched out a whole brood. Why, if I began to regret that, heaven knows where I should stop. I'd regret my leg and arm next, the pictures I might have painted, and the four years' war which we might have won.

No, no. I'd change nothing, I tell you--not a day; not an hour; not a single sin nor a single virtue. They're all woven into the pattern of the whole, and I reckon the Lord knew the figure He had in mind."

"Well, I'd like to pull a thread or two out of it," returned Christopher moodily, squinting his eyes at the approaching form of Susan Spade, who came from the afterglow through the whitewashed gate. "Why, what's bringing her, I wonder?" he asked with evident displeasure.

To this inquiry Susan herself presently made answer as she walked with her determined tread across the little yard.

"I've a bit of news for you, Mr. Christopher, an' I reckon you'd ruther have it from my mouth than from Bill Fletcher's. His back's up agin, the Lord knows why, an' he's gone an' moved his pasture fence so as to take in yo' old field that lies beside it.

He swars it's his, too, but Tom's ready to match him with a bigger oath that it's yours an' always has been."

"Of course it's mine," said Christopher coolly. "The meadow brook marks the boundary, and the field is on this side. I can prove it by Tom or Jacob Weatherby tomorrow."

"Well, he's took it " rejoined Mrs. Spade flatly.

"He won't keep it long, I reckon, ma'am," said Tucker, in his pleasant manner; "and I must say it seems to me that Bill Fletcher is straining at a gnat. Why, he has near two thousand acres, hasn't he? And what under heaven does he want with that old field the sheep have nibbled bare? There's no sense in it."

"It ain't sense, it's nature," returned Mrs. Spade, sitting squarely down on the bench from which Christopher had risen; "an'

that's what I've had ag'in men folks from the start--thar's too much natur in 'em. You kin skeer it out of a woman, an' you kin beat it out of a dog, an' thar're times when you kin even spank it out of a baby, but if you oust it from a man thar ain't nothin' but skin an' bones left behind. An' natur's a ticklish thing to handle without gloves, bless yo' soul, suh. It's like a hive of bees: you give it a little poke to start it, an' the first thing you know it's swarmin' all over both yo' hands. It's a skeery thing, suh, an' Bill Fletcher's got his share of it, sho's you're born."

"It has its way with him pretty thoroughly, I think," responded Tucker, chuckling; "but if I were you, Christopher, I'd stick up for my rights in that old field. Bill Fletcher may need exercise, but there's no reason he should get it by trampling over you."

"Oh, I'll throw his fence down, never fear," answered Christopher indifferently. "He knew it, I dare say, when he put it up."

"It's a fuss he wants, suh, an' nothing else," declared Mrs.

Spade, smoothing down the starched fold of her gingham ap.r.o.n; "an' if he doesn't git it, po' creetur, he's goin' to be laid up in bed befo' the week is out. He's bilin' hot inside, I can see that in his face, an' if the steam don't work out one way it will another. When a man ain't got a wife or child to nag at he's mighty sho' to turn right round an' begin naggin' at his neighbours, an' that's why it's the bounden duty of every decent woman to marry an' save the peace. Why, if Tom hadn't had me to worry on, I reckon he'd be the biggest bl.u.s.terer in this county or the next."

Leaving her still talking, Christopher went from her into the house, where he lingered an instant with drawn breath before his mother's door. The old lady was sleeping tranquilly, and, treading softly in his heavy boots, he pa.s.sed out to the friendly faces of the horses and the cool dusk of the stable.

As the days went on, drawing gradually toward summer, Mrs.

Blake's life began peacefully to flicker out, like a candle that has burned into the socket. There were hours when her mind was quite clear, and at such times she would talk unceasingly in her old sprightly fas.h.i.+on, with her animated gestures and her arch and fascinating smile. But following these sanguine periods there would come whole days when she lay unconscious and barely taking breath, while her features grew sharp and wan under the pallid skin.

It was when she had just pa.s.sed through one of these states that Lila came out on a Sunday afternoon to find Christopher at the woodpile, and told him, with a burst of tears, that she thought the end had come.

"She's quite herself and wants us all," she said, sobbing. "And she's even asked for the house servants, every one--for Phyllis, and Tobias, and so many of them who have been away for years.

It's just as if she knew that she was dying and wanted to say good-by."

Throwing the axe hurriedly aside, Christopher followed her into the house, and then entering the old lady's room, stopped short beside the threshold in a grief that was not unmixed with wonder.

The suns.h.i.+ne fell straight through the window on the high white pillows, and among them Mrs. Blake was sitting rigidly, her blind eyes sparkling with the last fitful return of her intelligence.

She was speaking, as he entered, in a natural and lively tone, which brought back to him his earliest memories of her engaging brightness.

"Are the servants all there, Cynthia? Then let them come and stand inside the door--a few at a time."

"They are here, mother," replied Cynthia, choking; and Christopher, glancing round, saw several decrepit Negroes leaning against the wall--Uncle Boaz, Docia (pressing her weak heart), and blear-eyed Aunt Polly, already in her dotage.

"I wish to tell you good-by while my mind is clear," pursued the old lady in her high, sweet voice. "You have been good servants to me for a long time, and I hope you will live many years to serve my children as faithfully. Always remember, Christopher--is Christopher there?"

"I am here, dear mother."

"Always remember that a man's first duty is to his wife and children, and his second to his slaves. The Lord has placed them in your hands, and you must answer to Him how you fulfill the trust. And now, Boaz--where is Boaz?"

"I'm yer, ole miss; I'm right yer."

"You may shake my hand, Boaz, for it is a long good-by. I've always promised you your freedom, and I haven't forgotten it, though you asked for it almost fifty years ago. You did something that I praised you for--I can't quite remember what it was--and when I asked you what you would like as a reward, you answered: 'Don't give me nothin' now, ole miss, but let the gift grow and set me free when you come to die.' It is a long time, Boaz, fifty years, but I give you your freedom now, as I promised, though it is very foolish of you to want it, and I'm sure you'll find it nothing but a burden and a trouble. Christopher, will you remember that Boaz is free?"

Christopher crossed the room, and, catching her hands in his own, sought to force her back upon the pillows, but with an effort that showed in every tense line of her face she pushed him from her and sat erect and unsupported.

"Let me dismiss them first," she said with her stately manner.

"Good-by, Phyllis and Polly--and--and--all the rest of you. You may go now. I am a little tired, and I will lie down."

Cynthia put the weeping servants from the room, and, filling a gla.s.s with brandy, held it with a shaking hand to her mother's lips.

"Take this, dear, and lie down," she said.

Mrs. Blake sipped the brandy obediently, but as she felt her strength revive from the strong spirit the animation reawoke in her face, and, turning toward Christopher, she stretched out her hand with an appealing gesture.

"There is so much to say and I haven't the s.p.a.ce to say it in, my son. There is so much advice I want to give you, but the time is short."

"I understand, mother; I understand. Don't let it trouble you."

"I have had a fortunate life, my child," resumed the old lady, waving him to silence with a gesture in which there was still a feeble sprightliness, "and when one has lived happily far into the seventies one learns a great deal of wisdom, and there is much good advice that one ought to leave behind. You have been an affectionate son to me, Christopher, and I have not yet given up the hope that you may live to be a worthy husband to another woman. If you do marry--and G.o.d grant that you may--remember that the chief consideration should be family connection, and the next personal attractiveness. Wealth counts for very little beside good birth, and after this I regard a small foot and hand as most essential. They have always been a mark of our breeding, Christopher, and I should not like the family to lose through you one of its most distinguished characteristics."

"It is not likely I shall marry, mother. I was cut out for different ends."

"One never knows, my son, and at least I am only doing my duty in speaking to you thus. I am a very old woman, and I am not afraid to die, for I have never to my knowledge done anything that was unbecoming in a lady. Remember to be a gentleman, and you will find that that embraces all morality and a good deal of religion."

He kissed her hand, watching anxiously the mounting excitement in her face.