MY THEODOSIA (45 page)

Had I one human being on whose unswerving loyalty I could count, as he could on you, I would call myself blessed. I feel this now, who never did before. I have always gloried in my internal solitude. Even you have never touched it.

And now I am lonely. I am thirty-five, yet I feel old and finished. I do not say this to arouse your pity—God forbid! I am trying to explain to you and myself why I must sec you. It is a yearning of the spirit. Our love has never reached fruition; it has been tainted time and again, by desire, by anger, by the sordid, and even the grotesque.

And yet it has been love. We were, I believe, meant by Heaven or destiny or what you will to be together. That we have never been is the result of the strange compulsions of the human heart. You had—you will always have—a greater love than I. I, too, had other loyalties.

I think that somewhere and sometime there will be a state where these different loves will not conflict. It is one of the things I wish to tell you of. I cannot write them.

I have lain under the stars. I have listened to the voice of the waters—the rivers that you love. The wilderness has taught me. I think I can make you understand, too.

MERNE

Theo sat quietly, the letter in her hand. He who had never needed her, who had repudiated her love the last time they were together, he needed her now. He was in trouble and lonely. How gladly would she see him! They might meet now, at last, untroubled by passion, unclouded by obscure resentments.

'Mid-October,' he had written. He had already started, then. He would be here in a few days. They could be together, not only for a few hours, but he must stay at the Oaks. Joseph would be pleased to entertain the Governor, and Joseph knew nothing of their association. In any event he could have no objection. She and Merne had no relationship to which a husband could object. That was finished.

She discounted Merne's premonition of death. That was a morbidity she had not expected from him. It was born of loneliness, and perhaps illness. The fever gave one fancies like that. How often she had seen it!

She read the letter again, then, leaning over the fire, put it on the embers, where it flared up brightly and was gone.

The Sioux was standing where she had left him, on the porch. She approached him smiling. 'Governor Lewis says you are his trusted friend. I thank you for bringing me the message. Come in and I will give you food and drink. You must stay here as long as you like and rest.'

The Indian's calm eyes surveyed her. 'I will eat, then I go.'

'Not at once. I will give you a room. You must rest some days.'

' No, I cat, then I go. Back to my own people. I like it not here.'

Theo could do nothing with him, except order the mutinous servants to provide him with food. They sidled past him warily. Cato flung the dishes of rice and roast meat at him, as though he were tending a crouching panther. They had worked up a pleasurable fear of being tomahawked, and they resented the dark-skinned visitor's acceptance at the buckra dining-table.

A faint amusement flickered in Wabasha's face, but he said nothing at all. Theo sat down beside him and tried to draw him out. Gampy, more than ever fascinated with this interesting break in his monotonous life on the Waccamaw, hovered beside her.

'Governor Lewis is on his way East,' said Theodosia. 'By what route is he coming?'

'Boat down Great River to Chickasaw. Then trail.'

'You mean he will follow the Natchez Trace?'

Wabasha grunted.

' Do you think he has reached the Alleghenies yet?'

The Indian did not answer. He speared himself half a wild duck, picked the bleeding flesh neatly off with his fingers. The rice, which he had never seen before, he did not touch.

' Has the Governor been ill—sick?' she asked, trying again.

For a moment she thought there would be no answer to this either. Wabasha consumed his duck in silence. She sighed, when suddenly he raised his head and looked at her.

'Sick in body—no. His spirit is sick. The Bird of Death has touched him.'

' The Bird of Death?' she repeated blankly. 'What do you mean by that?'

Wabasha shrugged. 'Great white bird from the North. When it touches with its wings, we die. My people know. Governor know too.'

Can it be that Merne has really let himself become infected with this heathen folly? she thought, dismayed. It is as bad as the negroes'.

'How can this be if he is not sick?' She spoke with matter-of-fact briskness, suddenly conscious of Gampy's sharpened interest.

'All trails lead to death,' said Wabasha. 'It matters not which one he travels. White bird comes for all. For him it will be soon.'

Theo rose abruptly, with a gesture of impatience, but Gampy, his small serious face pillowed on his hands, stared at the Indian across the table. 'Is it ugly—the bird?' he asked. 'Does it scare you?'

Wabasha pushed back his plate and wiped his mouth. 'Not ugly, little one. His feathers are deep—soft.'

Gampy considered this, and nodded. 'Where does he fly to?' What morbid tarradiddles arc these? thought Theo. I must stop it. Gampy should not think of such things. And yet she waited for the Indian's answer.

'He flics to the land beyond the cold. A good place.'

The boy accepted this with the same unchildish quiet. 'I wouldn't be afraid,' he said.

Theodosia saw a change in the Indian's face. A ripple that vanished at once, not pity or sympathy, but a softening. A shiver ran through her.

'That's enough, Gampy,' she said sharply. 'Don't bother our guest with foolish questions.'

'But I want to ask him some more about the good place where the bird goes.'

'You don't know what you're talking about, darling. What does he know of such matters?' She was careless whether she affronted the Indian or not. It was necessary to efface that unnatural old look from the child's face. 'If you want to ask these questions, save them for the Sabbath; the rector will explain to you.'

'But he doesn't, Mama. I can't understand what he says. He uses long words. I don't like him. I like Wabasha——'

They both turned at a soft sound. The Sioux Chief had risen. There was quiet force in his tall figure. 'I go,' he said, with simple dignity. He raised his hands shoulder-high, palms upward. 'May the Great Spirit be ever near you'. He added strange and yet musical syllables: invocation or farewell? Theo could not tell, though she felt their message, and they had beauty.

Gampy struggled to run forward, crying, ' Please don't go, Wabasha'. Theo put a gentle arm around the boy and held him back.

The Indian, with quick soundless step, disappeared through the door.

At once Eleanore, who had been hovering nervously in the hall outside, burst in on them. 'Ciel!' she cried. 'He is gone, then, le sauvage! He vanish into the forest like a shadow. What did he want with you, Madame? Is he dangerous?'

Theo smiled faintly. 'No, he was not dangerous. He brought me a message from the West.'

'And he told me about the Bird of Death,' added Gampy softly.

Eleanore
i
tared. 'Bird of Death! Qu'est-ce que e'est que ça? Death—la Mort——' She made the sign of the cross, her voice rose: 'But then he will attack us! He has his men hidden in the forest, he goes to get them. We shall be massacred yet, Madame. You will see.'

'That's silly, Eleanore,' cried Gampy. 'Wabasha was a good man, wasn't he, Mama?'

'Yes'. Theodosia tightened her arm around his thin little body. 'But he said many foolish things. He is not a Christian, you know. He is very superstitious, like—well, like our blacks here. You know how they believe in conjuh?'

Gampy shook his head stubbornly. 'It's not the same. And, anyway, conjuh does work sometimes. Old Maum Chloe can make it rain, and she can make cows sick, and——'

' Oh, Gampy, darling, that is just coincidence. It just happens that way. Now you know there isn't any big white bird. And no one can foretell another's death, or his own. I want you to forget all that folly.'

She kissed the troubled face. 'We are expecting a guest,' she added, with a change of tone. 'We must make ready the blue room. Eleanore, see to the linen and have the floors polished. Gampy, you may help me pick flowers to put in the vases.'

' Who's coming, Mama?'

She hesitated, startled at the uprush of joy in her throat. 'Meriwether Lewis, Governor of the North Louisiana Territory, an old friend of mine.'

She had forgotten Eleanore, whose anxiety about the Indian was removed by this interesting disclosure. 'Ah, ça, Madame!' she gasped. 'Encore ce jeune homme!' What remarkable people, these Americans! They have une affaire,
they part, and do not meet for years. They send messages by red Indians, they come to stay in the husband's home. But it will do Madame good. She has had so much trouble, so much worry with her father, and Monsieur Alston, too, avec cette sale négresse. Eleanore, of course, had come to know about Venus.

'Madame will want some new clothes,' she suggested, with an expression which could only be described as a respectful leer. 'She has nothing pretty enough—assez'séduisant—for the reception of a—a Governor.'

Theo frowned. 'You don't understand. It is not like that now. All that you arc thinking, c'est fini. Governor Lewis is an old acquaintance who finds it convenient to stop off here on his way to Washington. C'cst tout.'

'Certainement, Madame'. Eleanore was unconvinced. More than ever unconvinced, as Theo, after all, sent one of the servants to Charleston by boat with the rice, with instructions to bring back five yards of embroidered India muslin, two yards of gold ribbon, and the latest fashion papers. She noted sympathetically also that Madame spent much more time than usual before the mirror.

She came into Theo's room one morning with the cut pattern of the new dress, for trying on, and found her mistress at the dressing-table peering anxiously into the greenish glass.

'Soyez tranquille, Madame, vous êtes toujours belle'. She took up the brush and began brushing the long curling hair with soothing strokes.

'I found some gray hairs,' said Theo. 'I pulled them out, but more will come. And I am sallow.'

'This terrible climate. It ages one. But he will not notice. He will still think you lovely.'

This time her allusion went unreproved. It was true: she still wanted him to think her lovely. Each day since the
receipt of his message, her longing had grown. She awoke to think—Will it be today?—and retired each night with an ever-mounting weight of disappointment.

Everything was ready. Flowers were renewed each day in the blue room, the fire laid on the hearth. Cupid or one of the other pickaninnies kept constant watch at the gate. They had orders to scamper to the house with warning at the first sign of a horseman on the river road. She was sure that he would come on horseback. Merne had ever disdained a lumbering coach.

But no one came. No one but William Algernon and Polly Alston to pay a brief call. Theo was in a fever of impatience while they sat languidly sipping rum punch and making civil conversation on the porch. Suppose this should be the moment of Meme's arrival, now, with this critical brother and sister-in-law to witness their meeting! They would have to pretend again, she and Merne, as they had so often been forced to pretend, that they did not know each other well, make formal greeting, guard their eyes from each other. They must meet as strangers, or the family tongues would be yapping.

She controlled her desire to be rid of these two, forced her tongue to civil inquiry—'How is little Eliza?' and, 'Are you indeed going to Charleston so early this season?' and, 'How is Colonel William's health now? Joseph and I were much distressed to hear that he had had a touch of ague.'

And as she talked, her glance slid past them down the drive, her fingers pleated a fold of her skirt.

'And when will Joseph be back from Columbia, this time?' asked William Algernon.

She caught sight of Cupid scampering toward them, and her heart hammered. She rose abruptly, sank back again. Cupid turned off toward the quarters.

I'm sorry,' she said to their surprised faces, 'I thought someone was coming. Why—I don't know when Joseph will be back. Perhaps next week.'

'Joseph is becoming of great political importance,' remarked William Algernon, helping himself to more punch.

'You must be proud of him,' added Polly amiably. 'Very like he will be Governor of the State yet.'

'Perhaps he will,' said Theo. Would they never go? Just now, as dusk was gathering under the hanging moss and the porch was shadowed, he would be most likely to come—at the end of a day's ride.

But when the Alstons had gone, trundling away in their chaise for the hour's drive to Rose Hill, he had not come. She lit all the tapers downstairs, so that the house might blaze with welcoming light. It was not yet too late to hope. Though most horsemen would not brave strange roads in the dark, Meme was different. How many strange dark roads he had traveled! She thought of the expedition. How little she knew of the other part of his life! She had asked him nothing of the great and successful adventure during their brief unhappy interview in Richmond. It would be different now. They would have leisure to talk. Just to talk, she thought. He is my friend: no longer lover. I don't want that, nor does he. Now that he has acknowledged his injustice—I can talk to him about Father. He will help me, tell me what to do now. The joy of speaking of Aaron to Merne! Of receiving sympathy and help, where there had once been bitter hostility. She clasped her hands hard against her chest. Oh, why doesn't he come!

She sat down to write to Aaron, but tonight words crept slowly. She dared not write, yet, of the matter which was consuming her heart. After Meme had come, she would tell Aaron, make him understand that Merne had changed; she
would at last melt bitterness from between those two. But tonight she could not write.

She had made a map, a rough, inaccurate sketch, worked out from such maps as she could find, of his probable journey. If only she knew more details! If he had left St. Louis, then—he must be here now, or here. She made tiny marks on the paper. Wabasha had said he would follow the Natchez Trace into Tennessee, then Nashville, and down through the northeast corner of Georgia into Carolina. She could not be sure of the route, and there might be any number of hazards to cause delay. Her own journey West had taught her that.