At Fault (4 page)

As she finished speaking, Joçint put on his battered felt hat, and
strode out the back door; his gun on his shoulder and a yellow cur
following close at his heels.

Thérèse remained a while longer with the old man, hearing
sympathetically the long drawn story of his troubles, and cheering him
as no one else in the world was able to do, then she went away.

Joçint was not the only one who had seen Beauregard fastened at
Morico's door. Hosmer was making a tour of inspection that afternoon
through the woods, and when he came suddenly upon Thérèse some moments
after she had quitted the cabin, the meeting was not so wholly
accidental as that lady fancied it was.

If there could be a situation in which Hosmer felt more than in
another at ease in Thérèse's company, it was the one in which he found
himself. There was no need to seek occupation for his hands, those
members being sufficiently engaged with the management of his horse.
His eyes found legitimate direction in following the various details
which a rider is presumed to observe; and his manner freed from the
necessity of self direction took upon itself an ease which was
occasional enough to mark it as noteworthy.

She told him of her visit. At mention of Joçint's name he reddened:
then followed the acknowledgment that the youth in question had caused
him to lose his temper and forget his dignity during the afternoon.

"In what way?" asked Thérèse. "It would be better to dismiss him than
to rail at him. He takes reproof badly and is extremely treacherous."

"Mill hands are not plentiful, or I should send him off at once. Oh,
he is an unbearable fellow. The men told me of a habit he has of
letting the logs roll off the carriage, causing a good deal of
annoyance and delay in replacing them. I was willing enough to believe
it might be accidental, until I caught him today in the very act. I am
thankful not to have knocked him down."

Hosmer felt exhilarated. The excitement of his encounter with Joçint
had not yet died away; this softly delicious atmosphere; the subtle
aroma of the pines; his unlooked for meeting with Thérèse—all
combined to stir him with unusual emotions.

"What a splendid creature Beauregard is," he said, smoothing the
animal's glossy mane with the end of his riding whip. The horses were
walking slowly in step, and close together.

"Of course he is," said Thérèse proudly, patting the arched neck of
her favorite. "Beauregard is a blooded animal, remember. He quite
throws poor Nelson in the shade," looking pityingly at Hosmer's
heavily built iron-grey.

"Don't cast any slurs on Nelson, Mrs. Lafirme. He's done me service
that's worthy of praise—worthy of better treatment than he gets."

"I know. He deserves the best, poor fellow. When you go away you
should turn him out to pasture, and forbid any one to use him."

"It would be a good idea; but—I'm not so certain about going away."

"Oh I beg your pardon. I fancied your movements were directed by some
unchangeable laws."

"Like the planets in their orbits? No, there is no absolute need of my
going; the business which would have called me away can be done as
readily by letter. If I heed my inclination it certainly holds me
here."

"I don't understand that. It's natural enough that I should be fond of
the country; but you—I don't believe you've been away for three
months, have you? and city life certainly has its attractions."

"It's beastly," he answered decidedly. "I greatly prefer the
country—this country; though I can imagine a condition under which it
would be less agreeable; insupportable, in fact."

He was looking fixedly at Thérèse, who let her eyes rest for an
instant in the unaccustomed light of his, while she asked "and the
condition?"

"If you were to go away. Oh! it would take the soul out of my life."

It was now her turn to look in all directions save the one in which
his glance invited her. At a slight and imperceptible motion of the
bridle, well understood by Beauregard, the horse sprang forward into a
quick canter, leaving Nelson and his rider to follow as they could.

Hosmer overtook her when she stopped to let her horse drink at the
side of the hill where the sparkling spring water came trickling from
the moist rocks, and emptied into the long out-scooped trunk of a
cypress, that served as trough. The two horses plunged their heads
deep in the clear water; the proud Beauregard quivering with
satisfaction, as arching his neck and shaking off the clinging
moisture, he waited for his more deliberate companion.

"Doesn't it give one a sympathetic pleasure," said Thérèse, "to see
the relish with which they drink?"

"I never thought of it," replied Hosmer, cynically. His face was
unusually flushed, and diffidence was plainly seizing him again.

Thérèse was now completely mistress of herself, and during the
remainder of the ride she talked incessantly, giving him no chance for
more than the briefest answers.

"David Hosmer, you are the most supremely unsatisfactory man
existing."

Hosmer had come in from his ride, and seating himself in the large
wicker chair that stood in the center of the room, became at once
absorbed in reflections. Being addressed, he looked up at his sister,
who sat sidewards on the edge of a table slightly removed, swaying a
dainty slippered foot to and fro in evident impatience.

"What crime have I committed now, Melicent, against your code?" he
asked, not fully aroused from his reverie.

"You've committed nothing; your sin is one of omission. I absolutely
believe you go through the world with your eyes, to all practical
purposes, closed. Don't you notice anything; any change?"

"To be sure I do," said Hosmer, relying on a knowledge lent him by
previous similar experiences, and taking in the clinging artistic
drapery that enfolded her tall spare figure, "you've a new gown on. I
didn't think to mention it, but I noticed it all the same."

This admission of a discernment that he had failed to make evident,
aroused Melicent's uncontrolled mirth.

"A new gown!" and she laughed heartily. "A threadbare remnant! A thing
that holds by shreds and tatters."

She went behind her brother's chair, taking his face between her
hands, and turning it upward, kissed him on the forehead. With his
head in such position, he could not fail to observe the brilliant
folds of muslin that were arranged across the ceiling to simulate the
canopy of a tent. Still holding his face, she moved it sidewards, so
that his eyes, knowing now what oflice was expected of them, followed
the line of decorations about the room.

"It's immense, Mel; perfectly immense. When did you do it all?"

"This afternoon, with Grégoire's help," she answered, looking proudly
at her work. "And my poor hands are in such condition! But really,
Dave," she continued, seating herself on the side of his chair, with
an arm about his neck, and he leaning his head back on the improvised
cushion, "I wonder that you ever got on in business, observing things
as little as you do."

"Oh, that's different."

"Well, I don't believe you see half that you ought to," adding
naively, "How did you and Mrs. Lafirme happen to come home together
this evening?"

The bright lamp-light made the flush quite evident that arose to his
face under her near gaze.

"We met in the woods; she was coming from Morico's."

"David, do you know that woman is an angel. She's simply the most
perfect creature I ever knew."

Melicent's emphasis of speech was a thing so recurrent, so singularly
her own, as to startle an unaccustomed hearer.

"That opinion might carry some weight, Mel, if I hadn't heard it
scores of times from you, and of as many different women."

"Indeed you have not. Mrs. Lafirme is exceptional. Really, when she
stands at the end of the veranda, giving orders to those darkies, her
face a little flushed, she's positively a queen."

"As far as queenliness may be compatible with the angelic state,"
replied Hosmer, but not ill pleased with Melicent's exaggerated praise
of Thérèse.

Neither had heard a noiseless step approaching, and they only became
aware of an added human presence, when Mandy's small voice was heard
to issue from Mandy's small body which stood in the mingled light and
shadow of the door-way.

"Aunt B'lindy 'low supper on de table gittin' cole."

"Come here, Mandy," cried Melicent, springing after the child. But
Mandy was flying back through the darkness. She was afraid of
Melicent.

Laughing heartily, the girl disappeared into her bedroom, to make some
needed additions to her toilet; and Hosmer, waiting for her, returned
to his interrupted reflections. The words which he had spoken during a
moment of emotion to Thérèse, out in the piny woods, had served a
double purpose with him. They had shown him more plainly than he had
quite been certain of, the depth of his feeling for her; and also had
they settled his determination. He was not versed in the reading of a
woman's nature, and he found himself at a loss to interpret Thérèse's
actions. He recalled how she had looked away from him when he had
spoken the few tender words that were yet whirling in his memory; how
she had impetuously ridden ahead,—leaving him to follow alone; and
her incessant speech that had forced him into silence. All of which
might or might not be symptoms in his favor. He remembered her kind
solicitude for his comfort and happiness during the past year; but he
as readily recalled that he had not been the only recipient of such
favors. His reflections led to no certainty, except that he loved her
and meant to tell her so.

Thérèse's door being closed, and moreover locked, Aunt Belindy, the
stout negress who had superintended the laying of supper, felt free to
give low speech to her wrath as she went back and forth between
dining-room and kitchen.

"Suppa gittin' dat cole 'tain' gwine be fittin' fu' de dogs te' tech.
Believe half de time w'ite folks ain't got no feelin's, no how. If dey
speck I'se gwine stan' up heah on my two feet all night, dey's foolin'
dey sef. I ain't gwine do it. Git out dat doo' you Mandy! you want me
dash dis heah coffee pot at you—blockin' up de doo's dat away? W'ar
dat good fu' nuttin Betsy? Look yonda, how she done flung dem dere
knife an forks on de table. Jis let Miss T'rèse kotch'er. Good God
A'mighty, Miss T'rèse mus' done gone asleep. G'long dar an' see."

There was no one on the plantation who would have felt at liberty to
enter Thérèse's bedroom without permission, the door being closed; yet
she had taken the needless precaution of bringing lock and bolt to the
double security of her moment of solitude. The first announcement of
supper had found her still in her riding habit, with head thrown back
upon the cushion of her lounging chair, and her mind steeped in a
semi-stupor that it would be injustice to her brighter moments to call
reflection.

Thérèse was a warm-hearted woman, and a woman of clear mental vision;
a combination not found so often together as to make it ordinary.
Being a woman of warm heart, she had loved her husband with the
devotion which good husbands deserve; but being a clear-headed woman,
she was not disposed to rebel against the changes which Time brings,
when so disposed, to the human sensibilities. She was not steeped in
that agony of remorse which many might consider becoming in a widow of
five years' standing at the discovery that her heart which had fitted
well the holding of a treasure, was not narrowed to the holding of a
memory,—the treasure being gone.

Mandy's feeble knock at the door was answered by her mistress in
person who had now banished all traces of her ride and its resultant
cogitations.

The two women, with Hosmer and Grégoire, sat out on the veranda after
supper as their custom was during these warm summer evenings. There
was no attempt at sustained conversation; they talked by snatches to
and at one another, of the day's small events; Melicent and Grégoire
having by far the most to say. The girl was half reclining in the
hammock which she kept in a slow, unceasing motion by the impetus of
her slender foot; he sitting some distance removed on the steps.
Hosmer was noticeably silent; even Joçint as a theme failing to rouse
him to more than a few words of dismissal. His will and tenacity were
controlling him to one bent. He had made up his mind that he had
something to say to Mrs. Lafirme, and he was impatient at any enforced
delay in the telling.

Grégoire slept now in the office of the mill, as a measure of
precaution. To-night, Hosmer had received certain late telegrams that
necessitated a return to the mill, and his iron-grey was standing
outside in the lane with Grégoire's horse, awaiting the pleasure of
his rider. When Grégoire quitted the group to go and throw the saddles
across the patient animals, Melicent, who contemplated an additional
hour's chat with Thérèse, crossed over to the cottage to procure a
light wrap for her sensitive shoulders against the chill night air.
Hosmer, who had started to the assistance of Grégoire, seeing that
Thérèse had remained alone, standing at the top of the stairs,
approached her. Remaining a few steps below her, and looking up into
her face, he held out his hand to say good-night, which was an unusual
proceeding, for they had not shaken hands since his return to
Place-du-Bois three months before. She gave him her soft hand to hold
and as the warm, moist palm met his, it acted like a charged electric
battery turning its subtle force upon his sensitive nerves.

"Will you let me talk to you to-morrow?" he asked.

"Yes, perhaps; if I have time."

"Oh, you will make the time. I can't let the day go by without telling
you many things that you ought to have known long ago." The battery
was still doing its work. "And I can't let the night go by without
telling you that I love you."