The next morning Creed was plainly set back in his progress toward sound rationality, though there seemed little physical change. He recognised no one, and was much as he had been on those first days. While this condition of affairs held, and it lasted nearly a week, there was no need for Jephthah to repeat his caution. But one morning when Judith went in to relieve her uncle, Creed smiled at her again with eyes that knew.
As soon as they were alone together, he asked her to come and sit by him, and told her with tolerable clearness how he had followed Blatch Turrentine onto the train at Garyville, how he had fainted there, and only recovered consciousness when they were halfway to the next station.
"I was too bad off for them to leave me anywhere, and they carried me plumb to Atlanta. I was in the hospital there a long while. Looks like I might have written to you--but I thought the best I could do was to let you alone--I"d made you trouble enough," he ended with a wistful, half-hopeful glance at her face.
Judith, taught by bitter experience, tried to meet this with the gentle, rea.s.suring cheerfulness of the nurse. It was all right. He mustn"t talk too much. He was here now. They didn"t need any letter. But strive as she might she could not keep out of her voice a certain alien tone; and afterward the bitter thought dogged her that he had told her nothing definite. She knew nothing, after all, about his relations with Huldah; the girl might even, as Blatch declared, have been on the train, and gone to Atlanta with him, and he have held back this information.
Perhaps, considering her temperament, Judith did as well as could have been expected in the three days that followed--days in which Creed seemed to make fair physical gain, but to grow worse and worse mentally. Never once did she put into words the query that ate into her very soul, quite innocent of the fact that it spoke in every tone of her voice, in every movement of her head or hand, and kept the ailing mind to which she ministered at tremble with the strain to answer.
On the fourth day, fretted past endurance by the situation, Judith permitted herself some oblique hints and suggestions, on the heels of which she left to prepare his breakfast. Returning to the sick-room with the bowl of broth, she met the strange, unexpected, unsolicited reply to all these withheld demands. Creed greeted her with a half-terrified smile.
"Did you meet her goin" out?" he asked.
"Did I meet who, Creed?" inquired Judith, setting the bowl down on a splint-bottomed chair, spreading a clean towel across the quilts, and preparing for his breakfast. "Has there been somebody in here to see you a"ready?"
"It was only Huldah," deprecated Creed. "You said--you asked--and she just slipped in a minute after you went out."
Judith straightened up with so sudden a movement that the chair rocked and the contents of the bowl slopped dangerously.
"Which way did she go?" came the sharp challenge.
"Out that door," indicating with an air of childlike alarm the front way which led directly into the yard.
Judith ran and flung it open. n.o.body was in sight. Heedless of the sharp wintry air that blew in upon the patient, she stood searching the way over toward Jim Cal"s cabin.
"I don"t see her," she called across her shoulder. "Mebbe she"s in the house yet."
She closed the door reluctantly and came back to the bedside.
"No," said Creed plaintively, lifting a doubtful hand to his confused head, "she ain"t here. She allowed you-all were mad at her, and I reckon she"ll keep out of sight."
"But she had to come to see you--her wedded husband," accused Judith sternly.
He nodded mutely with a motion of a.s.sent. He seemed to hope that the admission would please Judith. The broth stood untouched, cooling on the chair.
"Is she stayin" down at Jim Cal"s?" came Judith"s next question.
"She never named it to me where she was stayin"," returned Creed wearily.
As before, Judith"s ill-concealed anger and hostility was as a sword of destruction to him; yet now he had more strength to endure with. "She just come--and now she"s gone." He closed his eyes, and leaned his head back among his pillows. The white face looked so sunken that Judith"s heart misgave her.
"Won"t you eat your breakfast now, Mr. Bonbright?" she said stiffly.
"I don"t want any breakfast, thank you. I can"t eat," returned Creed very low.
Judith pressed her lips hard together to refrain from mentioning Huldah again. She knew that she had injured Creed, yet for the life of her she could not get out one word of kindness. Finally she took her mending and sat down within sight of the bed, deceiving herself into the belief that he slept.
The next day an almost identical scene pushed Judith"s strained nerves to the verge of hysteria. In the afternoon when the old man came to relieve her he returned almost immediately from the sick-room, called her downstairs once more, and complained of Creed"s progress.
"What"s the matter?" he asked. "Look like somethin" has went wrong here right lately. Ever sence you got that fool notion in yo" head that Creed and Huldy was man and wife, he"s been goin" down in his mind about as fast as his stren"th come up. The best thing you can do is to put it out of yo" head."
"Well, they _air_ wedded," returned Judith pa.s.sionately. "They ain"t no use to fergit it, "caze she"s done been here--she"s down at Jim Cal"s right now; and when we-all are out of the room he says she slips in to visit him."
The girl stood trembling; her rounded cheeks that used to blush with such glowing crimson were white; she was a figure to move any one who loved her to pity; but the old man regarded her with strong contempt.
"Good Lord--is _that_ what"s ailin" ye?" he burst out. "You might at least have had the sense you was born with, and asked somebody is Huldy here. You know in reason it shows that Creed"s out of his head--when he tells you a tale like that. The Lord knows there"s no fool in the world like a jealous woman. Do ye want to kill the boy?--or run him crazy?"
Judith struggled with her tears.
"Uncle Jep," she finally choked out without actually sobbing. "I won"t say another word--now that I know. I ain"t got nothin" agin" Creed Bonbright, nor his wife--why should I have?"
Some ruth came into the scornful glance those old black eyes bent on her.
"You"re a good gal, Jude," Jephthah said softly, "ef ye air somethin"
unusual of a fool in this business. But I reckon I got to take this boy out o" yo" hands someway. I"m obliged to leave Creed with ye for one short while--an" agin" my grain it goes to do it--an" go fetch him a nurse that won"t take these tantrums. But mind, gal, it"s Creed"s reason I"m leavin" with you; mebbe his life--but sartain sh.o.r.e his reason. I won"t be gone to exceed two days. Ye can hold out that long, cain"t ye?"
"I"ll do the best I can, Uncle Jep," said Judith with unexpected mildness. "An" ef Huldy "s here----"
"My Lord!" broke in Jephthah. "Why don"t ye go to Iley an" set yo" mind at rest about Huldy?"
"Hit is at rest," returned Judith darkly. "When Creed come here, Iley was at me every day to ask him whar was Huldy; but I take notice that sence that day he named Huldy visitin" him Iley ain"t been a-nigh the place."
The old man heaved a heavy sigh.
"Well, ye say ye"ll do yo" best? Hit"s apt to be a good best, Jude. In two days, ef I live, I"ll be back here, an" I"ll bring he"p."
Chapter XXV
A Perilous Pa.s.sage
It was a strange thing to Judith to be left alone in the house, in charge of it and the sick man. Old Dilsey did the cooking and all the domestic labour. Had Wade been at home, and the patient any other than Creed Bonbright, she would have had a capable a.s.sistant at the nursing. Andy and Jeff tried to be as kind as they could. But they were an untamed, untrained pair, helpless and hapless at such matters, and their approaching wedding kept them often over at the Lusk place. From Iley Judith held savagely aloof.
It was on the second morning of her uncle"s absence that Dilsey Rust brought again that message from Blatch, and Judith caught at it. She had done her best; she had refrained from any questions; but the night before Creed told her without asking that Huldah had been in to see him twice again. As her patient"s physical strength notably increased, his appeal to her tender forbearance of course lessened, and the raw insult of the situation began to come home to her.
She put a shawl over her head and ran swiftly down through the chill November weather to the draw-bars, where in the big road outside Turrentine slouched against a post waiting for her. The man spoke over his shoulder.
"Howdy, Jude--you did come at last."
"Ef yo" goin" to say anything to me, you"ll have to be mighty quick, Blatch," she notified him, shivering. "I got to get right back."
"They"s somebody new--and yet not so new--a-visitin" in the Turkey Tracks that you"d like to know of," he prompted coolly. "Ain"t that so?"
"Huldy," she gasped, her dark eyes fixed upon his grey ones.
He nodded.