For the Major: A Novelette

He looked at her, still in silence. Then he rose. "I have told you all I know, Madam Carroll," he said, sadly, taking his hat from the chair beside him. "I had hoped that you would – I never dreamed that you could receive me or speak to me in the way you have. I have had the greatest regard for you; I have thought you my best friend."

Madam Carroll had also risen, with the air of wishing to close the interview. She dropped her eyes as he said these last words, and lifted her handkerchief to her mouth.

"I think as much of you as ever," she murmured. And then she began to cough, a cough with a long following breath that was almost like a sob.

The door opened, and Sara Carroll entered. She came straight to her mother, and put her arm round her as if to support her. "I knew you were not well, mamma. Mr. Owen will certainly excuse you now" And she looked at their guest with a glance which he felt to be dismissal.

Madam Carroll, exhausted by the cough, leaned against her daughter, her face covered by her handkerchief. Owen turned to go. But when he saw the daughter standing there so near him, when he thought of what he knew of her interest in this man, and of the mother's recent tone about him, his heart failed him. He could not go – go and leave her without one word of warning, one effort to save her, to show her what he felt.

"I came to warn Madam Carroll against Louis Dupont," he said, abruptly. "Madam Carroll has not credited what I have said, or, rather, she is not impressed by it. Yet it is all true. And probably there is much more. He is not a person with whom you should have intimate acquaintance, or, indeed, any acquaintance. As Madam Carroll will not do so, will you let me warn you?"

Miss Carroll started slightly as he said this. Then she recovered herself. "Surely it is nothing to me," she said, indifferently, with a slight emphasis on the "me."

Owen watched the indifferent expression. "She is acting," he thought. "She does it well!" Then aloud, "On the contrary, I suppose it to be a great deal to you," he answered, his eyes, intent and sorrowful, fixed full upon her over the little mother's head.

Madam Carroll took down her handkerchief, and the two women faced him with startled gaze. Sara was calm; but Madam Carroll's eyes, at first only startled, were now growing frightened. She turned her small face towards her daughter dumbly, as if for help.

The girl drew her mother more closely to her side. "And what right have you to suppose anything?" she said to Owen, with composure. "Are you our guardian?"

"Would that I were!" answered Owen, with deepest feeling in his tone. "I don't 'suppose' anything, Miss Carroll – I know. I have been unfortunate enough to see you with this man, or going to meet him, and it has made me wretched. But do not be troubled – no one else has seen it, and with me you are perfectly safe; I would guard you with my life. I had intended to expose him; I am in possession of some facts which tell heavily against him (Madam Carroll knows what they are); but now how can I, when I fear that he – when I know that you – " he paused; his voice was trembling a little, and he wished to control the tremor.

"And if I should tell you that there was no occasion for either your fears or your advice?" said Sara Carroll, after a moment's silence. She raised her eyes again, and met his gaze steadily. "If I should tell you that Mr. Dupont – to whom you object so strongly – had the right to be with me as much as he pleased, and that I had given him this right, surely you would then understand that your warning came quite too late, and that both your opinion and your advice were superfluous? And you would, perhaps, spare us further conversation on a matter that concerns only ourselves."

"Am I to believe this?" said Owen.

"You have it from me directly – I don't know what better authority you would have. I tell you in order to show you, decisively, that further interference on your part will be unnecessary. It is a secret as yet, and, for the present, we wish it to remain one; we trust to you not to betray it. And I think you will now keep to yourself, will you not, what you know, or fancy you know, against him?" She looked at him inquiringly.

"If I could only have seen your father!" said Owen, with bitterest regret.

Her face changed, her arm dropped from her mother's shoulders; she turned abruptly from him.

Left alone, Madam Carroll straightened herself, as if trying to resume her usual manner. She looked after Sara, who had crossed the broad room to a window opposite. Then she looked at Owen. She came closer to him. "I am sure it will not last, this – this engagement of hers," she said, in a whisper, shielding her lips with her hand as if to make her tone still lower. "It is only a little fancy of the moment, you know, a fancy founded upon his genius, his musical genius, and his lovely voice. But it will pass, Mr. Owen; I am sure it will pass. And in the meantime our course – yours and mine – should be just silence. Everything must go on as usual, and you must say nothing against him to any one; that is the most important of all. No one has suspected it but you. She has been rather incautious; but I will see that that is mended, so that no one else shall suspect. If we are careful and silent, Mr. Owen, you and I – the only ones who know – and if we simply have patience and wait, all will yet be well; I assure you all will yet be well." She smiled, and looked up anxiously into his face with her soft blue eyes; she was quite her gentle self again.

"She is protecting her husband's daughter to the extent of her power," thought the young man, who was listening; "that has been the secret of her enigmatical manner from the beginning." But while he thought this, he was frowning with the pain her words had given him – a "fancy of the moment" – Louis Dupont!

"Promise me to say nothing against him," continued Madam Carroll, in the same earnest whisper, still smiling anxiously, and looking up in his face.

"Of course I shall say nothing. How could I do otherwise now?" answered Owen. "But my trouble is as great as ever, and my fear. You do not comprehend him, Madam Carroll. You do not see what he really is."

"Oh, I comprehend him – I comprehend him," said Madam Carroll, in a strained though still whispering tone. "I do my best, Mr. Owen," she added, in a broken voice – "my very best."

These last words were uttered aloud. Sara Carroll left the window and came back to her mother; she took her hands in hers. "Kindly excuse us now," she said to the clergyman, with quiet dignity.

He bowed, and left the room, his face still full of trouble and pain. They heard him close the front door behind him.

"I think he will say nothing," said Sara.

Madam Carroll had drawn her hands away; she stood motionless, looking at the carpet.

"Yes, it is safe now; don't you think so?" Sara continued, musingly.

Her step-mother raised her eyes. There was a flash in them. "I bore it because I had to. But it was the hardest thing of all to bear. You despise him, you know you do. You always have. You have been pitiless, suspicious, cruel."

"Not lately, mamma," said the girl. She put her arms round the little figure, and, with infinite pity, drew it towards her. Madam Carroll at first resisted; then the tense muscles relaxed, and she let her head rest against her daughter's breast. The lashes fell over her bright, dry eyes.

"You will never be able to keep it up," she murmured, after a moment, her eyes still closed.

"Yes, I shall, mamma."

"Never, never."

"I could do a great deal more for my dear father's sake," answered the girl, after a short hesitation.

Madam Carroll began to sob. "I have been a good wife to him, Sara," she murmured, appealingly, piteously.

"Indeed you have, mamma. You are all his happiness, all his life; he could not live without you. But you ought to rest; let me go with you up-stairs."

"I must go alone," answered Madam Carroll. She had repressed her sobs, but her breath still came and went unevenly. "It is not that I am angry, Sara; do not think that. I was – but it has passed; I am quite reasonable now – as you see. But, for a little while, I must be alone, quite alone."

She left the room with her usual quick, light step. After she had gone, Sara stood for a few moments with her hands clasped over her eyes. Then she went to the library.

Scar was playing dominoes, Roland against Bayard; and the Major was watching the game. His daughter bent her head, and kissed his forehead; then she sat down beside him, holding his hand in hers, and stroking it tenderly.

"Well, my daughter, you seem to think a good deal of me to-day," said the old man, smiling.

"Not only to-day, but always, papa – always," answered the girl, with emotion.

"Roland is very dull this morning," said the Major, explaining the situation. "He has lost three games, and is going to lose a fourth."

CHAPTER VI

FAR EDGERLEY was deprived of its rector. Mr. Owen had gone to the coast to attend the Diocesan Convention. But as he had started more than a week before the time of its opening, and had remained a week after its sessions were ended, Mrs. General Hibbard was of the opinion that he was attending to other things as well. She had, indeed, heard a rumor before he came that there was some one (some one in whom he felt an interest) elsewhere. Now it is well known that there is nothing more depressing for a parish than a rector with an interest, large or small, "elsewhere." St. John in the Wilderness was therefore much relieved when its rector returned, with no signs of having left any portion of himself or his interest behind him. And Mrs. General Hibbard lost ground.

Mr. Owen had started eastward on the day after his interview with the two ladies of Carroll Farms; he had started westward on the day after the arrival of a letter from his junior warden. This letter, written in a clear, old-fashioned hand, decorated with much underscoring, was a mixture of the formal phraseology of the warden's youth and that too-modern lightness which he had learned in his later years, and of which Miss Honoria so justly disapproved. He was supposed to be writing about church business. Having finished that (in six lines), he added an epitome of the news of the whole village, from the slippers which Miss Sophy Greer, at the north end of Edgerley Street, was working for him (the rector) – ecclesiastical borders, with the motto "Vestigia nulla retrorsum" – down to the last new duck in the duck-pond at Chapultepec, the south end of it. Among the items was this: "That amusing fellow Dupont is, I am sorry to say, ill, and I suspect seriously. It is a return of the fever he had in New York, I am told. He is at the Cove, and the Walleys are taking care of him. It has leaked out" ("leaked out" – oh, poor Miss Honoria!) "that he has no money, not even enough to pay for his medicines – those musicians are always an improvident lot, you know. But our lovely Madam Carroll, ministering angel that she is, pitying lady of the manor, has supplied everything that has been necessary. I have just heard, as I write these lines, that the poor fellow is no better."

The rector, upon his return, busied himself in attending to the many duties which had accumulated during his absence. He did not go to the Farms immediately; but as he was making no calls for the present – owing to the accumulation – the omission was not noticed. The musician was very ill, and every one was sorry. His poverty was now generally known; but Madam Carroll was doing all that was needful, and the poor wanderer lacked nothing. That was what they called him now – the "poor wanderer;" it was a delicate way of phrasing the fact that he was without means. Far Edgerley people were as far as possible from being mercenary; they had no intention of turning their backs upon Dupont because he was poor. They were poor themselves, and, besides, that had never been the Southern way. They would gladly have helped him now, had there been opportunity, and they looked forward to helping him as far as they were able so soon as he should have recovered his health. But at present Madam Carroll was doing the whole, and the whole was only – could be only – a doctor and medicines.

In all this there was nothing of Sara; that secret, the rector perceived, had been carefully kept. There was nothing, too, of the recent evil story concerning the musician, which he had related to Madam Carroll. But he had been aware that if he himself should be silent, it was probable that nothing of it would reach Far Edgerley, at least for some time. For the mission station was remote, and the mountain people were very proud in their way, proud and reticent. They had, too, an opinion of Far Edgerley which was not unlike the opinion Far Edgerley had of the lower town. Pride in these mountains seemed a matter of altitudes. Owen knew that he was glad that these two hidden things had remained undiscovered; that, at least, was clear in the conflicting feelings that haunted his troubled heart.

He had returned on Monday evening; the week passed and Sunday dawned without his having seen any of the Carrolls. They came to church as usual; that is, the Major came, with his wife and little Scar; Miss Carroll was absent. After service the Major waited. The Major always waited. He waited to speak to his rector; it was a little attention he always paid. Owen knew that he was waiting, knew that he was standing there at the head of the aisle in his military attitude, with his prayer-book under his arm; yet, although he knew it, it was some minutes before he came forth. When at length he did appear, the Major advanced, shook hands with him, and asked how he was. The rector replied that he was quite well.

"Mr. Owen is probably the better for his journey," said Madam Carroll, joining her husband in the open space at the foot of the chancel steps, where the two men were standing. "A journey is always so pleasant, and especially a journey to the coast."

"Ah, yes," said the Major; "your journey. I hope you enjoyed it?"

"The coast is considered so beneficial," continued Madam Carroll. "For my own part, however, I prefer our mountain air; it seems to me more bracing. And the Major thinks so too."

"Certainly," said the Major; "I have often made the observation." He said a few words more, shook hands with the rector a second time, bowed, and then offered his arm to his wife. She took it, with a farewell smile to the rector, and they went down the aisle together through the empty church towards the open door. And Owen, who had been looking forward with eagerness, yet at the same time with dread, to his first meeting with Miss Carroll or her mother, found himself almost able to smile over the contrast between his own inward trouble and pain and the smiling self-possession of the little lady of the Farms. There rose before him her strange manner during the beginning of that last morning interview in her drawing-room; and then her frightened face turned towards her daughter; and then her effort to excuse to him that daughter's avowal. But in thinking of all this, he soon lost himself in thoughts of the daughter alone. This was not a new experience; he forced his mind to turn from the haunting subject, in active preparations for the duties of the afternoon.

In the meantime the Major and his wife had reached the porch. Scar was waiting for them outside, sitting on a little tombstone in the sunshine, and a number of Far Edgerley people were standing about the gate. The Major bowed to these with much courtesy, and Madam Carroll with much grace; they entered their carriage, Inches folded up the steps, climbed to his perch, the mules started, and "the equipage" rolled away.

They reached home; but, in getting out, the bearing of the Major was not quite so military as it had been at the church door. Inches came to his assistance, and he took his wife's arm, and kept it until he was in his own easy-chair again in the library. There he sat all the afternoon. His wife – for she did not leave him – read aloud to Scar, and heard him recite his little Sunday lessons. Then she took him on her lap and told him Bible stories, speaking in a low tone, as the Major was now asleep. They were close beside him, mother and little son. The child's face was a curious mixture of her delicate rose-tinted prettiness and the bold outlines of his father.

The sun, which had been journeying down the western sky, now touched the top of Lonely Mountain, and immediately all its side was robed in purple velvet, and its long summit tipped with gold. Still farther sank the monarch; and now he was out of sight. Then rose such a splendor of color in the west that it flooded even this quiet room across the valley, turning the old paper on the walls into cloth of gold, and Scar's flaxen hair into a little halo. The Major was now awake; he moved his easy-chair to the open window in order to see the sunset. Scar got another chair, climbed up, and sat down beside him. "I think, papa," he said, after some moments of silence, during which he had meditatively watched the glow – "I think it very probable that the little children who have to die young live over in that particular part of heaven. For those beautiful colors would amuse them, you know; and they must be very lonely up in the sky, without their fathers and mothers."

"Fathers and mothers die too, sometimes, my boy," answered the Major, his eyes turning misty. He took Scar's little hand, and held it in his own.

His wife came up behind him and laid her hand on his shoulder. The old Major looked up at her as she stood by his chair, with a great trust and affection in his dim glance. For of late the Major had been growing older rapidly; his eyes were losing their clearness of vision; there were now many sounds he could not hear. But he always heard every intonation of her voice; always saw the hue of her dress, and any little change in its arrangement. Where she was concerned, his dulled senses were young again.

"My sister Sara is coming," announced Scar. "I can see her. I can see the top of her bonnet above the hedge, because she is so tall." And soon the girl's figure appeared in sight. She opened the gate, and came up the path towards the front door. Scar leaned forward and waved his hand. She returned his greeting, looking at the group of three in the window – father, mother, and child.

The Major could not see his daughter, but he turned his face in the direction of the path and gave a little bow and smile. "She has been gone a long time," he said to his wife; "almost all day."

His wife did not reply; she had left the room. She met Sara in the hall. "I have come back for you, mamma," whispered the girl. "I think the time has come."

"I will go immediately," said Madam Carroll, walking quickly towards the stairs. Then she stopped. "But how can I? You would have to go with me. And at this hour the Major would notice it. He would notice it if we should both leave him. It would trouble him." She looked at Sara as she stood uttering these sentences. Though her voice was quiet, the suffering in her eyes was pitiable to see.

"Go, mamma. For this one time do not mind that. Judith will be here."

"No," answered Madam Carroll, with the same measured utterance; "the Major must not be troubled, his comfort must always be first. But as he is generally tired on Sunday evenings, perhaps he will go to bed early. I must wait, in any case, until he is asleep."

"Mamma, you cannot bear it," urged Sara, following her.

"Instead of saying that, you should tell me if there is hope – hope that I may not be too late," said Madam Carroll almost sternly, putting aside the girl's outstretched hands.

"I think he may not – they said he would not – Mrs. Walley said, 'He will pass at dawn,'" answered Sara, using the mountain phrase.

"I may then be in time," said Madam Carroll, in the same calm voice. She turned the handle of the door. "You had better join us soon. Your father has been asking for you." She went in, closing the door behind her.

When Sara entered, fifteen minutes later, she found her singing the evening hymn to the Major. The Major liked to have her sing that hymn on Sunday evenings, and Scar liked it too, because he could join in with his soft little alto.

 
"The day is past and gone,
The evening shades appear;
O may we all remember well
The night of death draws near,"
 

sang the wife, in her sweet voice, sitting close to her husband's chair, so that he could hear the words.

Not long afterwards the Major said he was tired; it was not often that he was tired so early in the evening, but to-night, for some reason, he felt quite weary; he thought he would go to bed. It was half-past eight; at nine he and Scar were both asleep, and the two women left the house together. Walley's Cove was not far from the Farms, but it was farther up the mountain, where there was no road, only paths; they could not, therefore, go in the carriage; they could have taken Caleb Inches with them, but in that peaceful neighborhood escort for mere safety's sake was not necessary, and they preferred to be alone.

"Take my arm, mamma," said Sara, as they began to ascend.

But Madam Carroll would not. She walked on unaided. Her step was firm. She did not once speak.

In the small room under the roof, which he had occupied since his return, lay the young man who was now dying; for it needed but one glance to show that the summons had come: he was passing away. The farmer's wife, much affected, knelt beside him; the doctor had gone, she said, but a short time before; there was nothing more that he could do, and he was needed elsewhere. The farmer himself was fanning the unconscious face. Madam Carroll took the fan.

"Let me do that," she said. "I know you feel as if your children were needing you down-stairs."

For the three little children had been left alone in the room below, and, disturbed by the absence of father and mother, were not asleep; one of them had begun to cry a little at intervals. The farmer went down, his clumsy boots making no sound on the uncarpeted stairway, so careful was his tread. Madam Carroll sat down on the edge of the poor bed, and fanned the sleeping face; the eyes were closed, the long, dark lashes lay on the thin cheeks, the breath came slowly through the slightly parted lips. The farmer's wife began to pray in a low voice; she was a devout Baptist, and she had had her pastor there in the afternoon, and had fancied that the dying man was conscious for a time, and that he had listened and responded. She had grown fond of the poor musician in taking care of him, and the tears rolled down her sunburned cheeks as she prayed. Madam Carroll remained calm; she moved the fan with even sweep to and fro. She had taken off her bonnet, as the night was warm, and with her golden curls, her pink-tinted complexion, and the same pretty dress she had worn to church in the morning, she was a contrast to the rough, bare room, to the farmer's wife, in her coarse homespun gown, and even to her own daughter, who, in her plain black dress, her face pale and sad, was standing near.

An hour passed. The child's wail below had now in it the unmistakable sound of suffering. "Pray go down," said Madam Carroll; "I am sure your baby needs you."

"But I don't like to leave you, Madam Carroll; it doesn't seem right," the woman answered, yet listening, too, at the same time, to the baby's wail below.

"You need have no hesitation. I have had experience of this kind before; and besides, I do not easily lose my self-possession."

"Yes, you hev got a strong hold on yersel," said the farmer's wife admiringly. They spoke in low tones, though sounds of earth could no longer penetrate to that gray, still border-land which the sleeper's soul was crossing. "I know you keer for the poor young man; you keer for him as much as I do. For yer see he ain't got no mother to be sorry for him, poor fellow," she continued, laying her rough hand tenderly on his head; "and you and me knows, Madam Carroll, how his mother'd feel. There ain't nothing like the way a mother keers for her boy."

Sara came forward. "I am sure your child needs you, Mrs. Walley," she said; "please go down at once. I promise to call you if anything should be needed."

The child was crying again, and the mother went. Sara softly closed the door. It had not been closed until then.

A little before midnight, Dupont, who had been for six hours in a lethargic sleep, stirred and woke. Madam Carroll bent over him. He knew her; he turned his head towards her and lay looking at her, his large eyes strangely solemn in their unmoving gaze. Sara came and stood on the other side of the bed, fanning him with the fan which her mother had relinquished. Thus he remained, looking at Madam Carroll, with his slow, partially comprehending stare. Then gradually the stare grew conscious and intelligent. And then it grew full of expression. It was wonderful to see the mind come back and look once more from the windows of its deserted house of clay – the last look on earth. Madam Carroll, bending towards him, returned his gaze; she had laid one hand on his forehead, the other on his breast; her fair hair touched his shoulder. She said nothing; she did not move; but all her being was concentrated in her eyes. The dying man also was silent: probably he had passed beyond the power of speech. Thus, motionless, they continued to look at each other for a number of minutes. Then consciousness faded, the light left the windows; a few seconds more and the soul was gone. Madam Carroll, still in silence, laid her hand upon the heart and temples; all was still. Then she gently closed the eyes.

Sara, weeping, came to her side. "Do not, Sara; some one might come in," said her mother. Her hands rested on the closed lids. Then, her task done, she stood for a moment beside the couch, silently, looking at the still face on the pillow. "You must go down and tell them," she said, in a composed tone. "Farmer Walley must go immediately for Sabrina Barnes and her sister. You can say that the funeral will be from this house, and that they had better ask their own minister – the one who was here this afternoon – to officiate."

"Oh, mamma, do not try to think of everything; it is not necessary now," said Sara, beseechingly.

"Do as I tell you, Sara," answered Madam Carroll. And Sara obeyed her.

When she returned, Madam Carroll was arranging the pillows and straightening the coarse sheet. She had folded the musician's thin hands over his breast and smoothed his disordered hair.

"The child has been in pain all this time," said the daughter, "and they are frightened; Farmer Walley will go for Sabrina Barnes and for the doctor at the same time. I told Mrs. Walley that she need not come up, that we would stay. In any case she could hardly leave her baby now. But oh, mamma, do not try to do that; do not try to do anything more."

"Yes, we will stay," said Madam Carroll. She took a chair, placed it beside the bed, so that it faced the figure lying there, and sat down; she put her feet on a footstool and folded her hands.

"Dear mamma, do not sit there looking like that; do not try to be so quiet. No one will be here for half an hour: cry, mamma; let yourself cry. You have this little time, and – and it will be your last."

"I will not cry," answered Madam Carroll; "I have not cried at all; tears I can keep back. But I should like to kiss him, Sara, if you will keep watch. He would like to have his mother kiss him once before he goes away." And bending forward as she sat, she kissed tenderly the forehead and the closed eyes. The touch overcame her; she did not weep, but, putting her arms round him, she sat looking at him piteously. "He was such a dear little baby!" she murmured. "I was so proud of him! He was always so handsome and so brave – such a sturdy little fellow! When he was only six years old he said, 'I want to grow up quick and be big, so that I can take care of you, mamma.'" She stroked back his dark hair. "You meant no harm; none of it was your fault, Julian. Do not think your mother has any blame for you, my darling boy. But now you know that I have not." She passed her hands softly over his wasted cheeks. "May I put him in our – in your – lot in the church-yard, Sara? It will only take a little space, and the lot is so large; there isn't any other place where I should like to have him lying. People would think it was our kindness; in that way it could be done. And do not put me too far from him, when my time comes; not too far. For you know he was, Sara, my dear boy, my darling first-born son." She murmured this over and over, her arms round him. Then, "He is not lying quite straight," she said. And she tried to move his head a little. But already it had the strange heaviness of death, it was like a weight of stone in her small hands. As she realized this, her face became convulsed for the first time; her whole frame was shaken by her grief.

Footsteps were now audible coming up the mountain path outside. "Mamma, they are here," said Sara, from her post at the window.

But Madam Carroll had already controlled herself. She rose, pressed one long, last kiss on the still face; then she went to the door and opened it. When Sabrina Barnes and her sister, the two old women who in that rural neighborhood filled the office of watching by the dead, came up the stairs, she was waiting for them. In a clear, low voice she gave them her directions: the expenses of the funeral she should herself assume. Then she passed down the stairs with Sara on her way home, stopping to speak to the mother of the sick child in the lower room, and suggest some new remedy.

Mrs. Walley was distressed at the idea of their going home alone; but her husband had not yet returned, and the ladies did not wish to wait. The path was safe enough; it was only the loneliness of it. But the ladies said that they did not mind the loneliness. They went down the mountain by the light of the stars, reaching the Farms a little after two o'clock. Dupont had died at midnight.