Joel shrugged his shoulders and took a deep breath. "You don"t understand yet," he said, with a low groan. "She is excited--so excited that she can"t sleep, but it is not the kind of excitement you think it is. She"s heard the report that John Trott is still alive and she is afraid that it may not--by some chance--be true. I don"t mean that she"d ever live with him again--now that she is--is a mother, or that she"d hold it against me for marrying her as I did; but to know that no harm came to him will make her happier than she"s been for many a day. That is a thing I"ve got to face. She is the mother of my children, but she has never given me her whole heart and soul. She gave them to John Trott. She has never blamed him for any step he took. She thought that he left here for her sake, _and died for her sake_. Do you think I don"t know that when she hears that he himself has never married in all these years--do you think that she will then love him less than she did? She always looked on him as the most wronged man alive. Do you suppose that she herself will turn against him now? In the name of G.o.d, what excuse would she have, and him still loving her as Mr. Cavanaugh thinks he does?"
"I never looked at it that way," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "You are getting me all mixed up. Does Mrs. Trott-- Have any of the reports got to her?"
"No, not yet; but Tilly will want to tell her, now that there is no doubt as to the truth. I must tell my wife what I have just learned. It is my duty to tell her. Yes, yes, I must tell her. I"m honor-bound at once to give her all the joy in my power."
It was as if both Cavanaugh and his wife could think of nothing in the way of comfort for Eperson, and, taking his reins into a better grasp and touching his hat politely, he mounted his wagon and drove away.
CHAPTER VIII
The loose planks on Joel"s wagon rattled over the rain-washed and little-used road running from the main highway to the farm he was renting. The house was a log cabin of only three rooms, situated on a bleak, treeless hillside. Adjoining it was a diminutive corn-crib made of pine poles with the bark still on them, and a lean-to shed which was roofed with long shingles sawn and split from red oak.
As he drove his clattering wagon up the slope his two children, little Joel and Tilly, ran out to meet him. The boy held his sister"s hand to keep her from falling, and was gleefully shouting to his father to stop and take them into the wagon. Eperson checked his horse and got down and made places for them on his coat.
"Where"s your mother?" he inquired, his dull eyes on the cabin.
"In the house," answered little Joel. "Supper is nearly ready."
"Hold your sister," Eperson ordered, as he started the horse and walked along by the wagon; "she might fall."
Tilly came to the front door and stood watching them as they drew nearer. The sun was going down, and its last slanting rays made a living picture of her in the crude frame of logs. She looked older than the average woman of her age, and yet there was a rounded mellowness to her features, a suave, spiritual radiance from her skin, eyes, and hair, which always caught and held the attention of an observer. The same quality seemed to pervade her voice. It had always been musical; it was even more so now. Her husband saw that she was all aglow and smiling as she stepped down to the wagon and held out her arms for the little girl.
"Not a long ride, was it, pet?" she said, as the child put its arms around her neck and kissed her cheek.
Taking up the parcel, Joel handed it to his wife. "Mrs. Cavanaugh sent it," he explained. "It is the waists."
"Mrs. Cavanaugh?" Tilly said, in groping surprise. "Where did you see her?"
"I sold Cavanaugh the wood." Joel felt the heat flow into his cheeks.
"He ordered it a week ago."
"Was he--was he at home?" Tilly held the child"s face to hers, and Joel noted a tense ripple of expectation in her voice.
"Yes, he was there." Joel lowered his head to take up the reins he had dropped, preparatory to driving around to the wagon-shed. From the corner of his eyes he saw that Tilly stood rigid at his side, and he thought he knew why she lingered thus. He was starting his horse, when she said, suddenly:
"Well, come right in. Your supper is ready."
As he put his horse into its stall and fed it with fodder and corn, he almost wished that he could prolong the task, for how was he to pa.s.s through the coming ordeal, which was like death to him?
He went into the house, bathed his face in a pan of water, brushed his long thin hair, carefully adjusted his collar, and put on his coat. As a rule, farmers did not wear their coats in the house in warm weather, but Joel had never sat at the table with his wife without having his on. It was an observance of respect to women which had been handed down to Joel from conventional forebears, and from which he could not have departed.
Tilly and the children were at the table. It had grown dark within the almost windowless cabin, and an oil-lamp furnished the light, the yellow rays of which fell over the food, which consisted of boiled vegetables, cornbread, b.u.t.ter, and mush and milk for the children.
Out of respect to Tilly, who always did it in his absence, Joel, when at home, said grace at the table, and the upturned plates to-night mutely reminded him of that duty.
It had always been the same simple formula which, also, had descended to Joel, and over his folded hands to-night he uttered it. Moistening his dry lips as if to render them pliant, Eperson sent his prayer out into the sentient mystery which was so relentlessly wrapping him about.
"Loving Father," he prayed, "we thank Thee, this night, for all the evidence of Thy loving tenderness and care. Bless this food to our needs. Render us kind and merciful to our neighbors, and, when our earthly service to Thee is ended, receive us into the grace and peace of Thy eternal kingdom. Amen."
Eperson forced himself to eat. Under the stress of his emotions his appet.i.te had departed, and yet he pretended to be enjoying his food.
Tilly was eating with more relish, it seemed to him, than usual, and he thought he knew the psychological reason for it. He had never seen her look so buoyantly ethereal as she did to-night. To have described the change upon her would have been beyond the power of man. She was like an older sister to her children. Her love for them seemed to issue from her like some supernal blending of light and music as she bent to adjust the bib of the younger one, or sweetly to admonish the older in regard to his too rapid eating of his mush and milk.
"Don"t--don"t hurry, Joie darling!" her lilting voice produced. "You don"t want to be like a little piggy at his trough, do you, my sweet boy?"
When supper was over, Tilly washed the dishes and Eperson put the children to bed, removing their moist clothing, bathing their bare, dusty feet and legs, and putting on their nightgowns. What a holy service of resignation it was to-night! Why was he so depressed with a sense of his vast paternal unworthiness? Why, unless he was thinking of John Trott"s success? He told himself that his whole life had been a failure. Many of his personal debts were unpaid and unpayable. There were men he dreaded meeting because they always asked for the money due them, or showed by their faces that they were thinking of his delinquency. And there were others harder to meet who showed by their faces and the matters they spoke about that they had no thought of ever being paid. Ah! then there were still other men--men from whom he could not bring himself to borrow. They were the few, like Cavanaugh, who wanted to help him, but did not know how to broach so delicate a subject with so sensitive a man.
The children tucked away in the general sleeping-room, Eperson went outside to the chairs that stood by the door-step and sat waiting for Tilly. Would she come to him as promptly as usual? he wondered, his stare on the blinking stars beyond the hilltops. Perhaps not so readily, for an ineffable veil seemed to have been lowered between him and her since her talk with the neighbors in regard to her first husband"s survival. He listened for the clatter of dishes and pans in the kitchen. It had ceased. That work was over. Now, nothing would detain her, he told himself, and he tried to brace his courage for the performance before him.
But she did not come at once. He heard her voice, with its indescribable gurgle of maternal sweetness, teaching the children to say their prayers.
"G.o.d bless mother," was repeated after her, "G.o.d bless father--G.o.d bless Grandmother Trott, and all the good people in the world. Amen."
"_Grandmother Trott!_" Joel"s whole weary being throbbed with the mental utterance of the words. Then he heard Tilly singing a quaint lullaby sung by the negroes. He wondered if she were purposely delaying her usual after-supper chat with him. After all, what was there to tell her?
She had evidently heard the main facts of the matter--that was plain from that irrepressible elation of hers.
She extinguished the light and came out to him, taking the chair he stood holding for her. The starlight gleamed on his bare brow. It was like a well-wrought piece of granite. He brushed his hair back with an unsteady hand as he sat down.
"I was talking with Cavanaugh," he began, and paused to clear the huskiness from his throat.
"I know," Tilly said. "I"ve heard everything."
"You have?" Joel said, tremulously.
"Yes, the Creswells told me yesterday. You see, Tom Creswell works in the post-office, and the postmaster showed him and the other clerks a letter that Mr. Cavanaugh was sending to John since he got back from New York. Then the postmaster showed him one answering it. The postmaster met Mr. Cavanaugh and asked him about it, and Mr. Cavanaugh told him that it was all a mistake about John and Dora being killed. He says John is doing well and looks well. Oh, I"m so glad--so glad! Ever since the report of that wreck it has been on my mind like a horrible dream. Night and day it would come up to haunt me. Don"t you see, I thought-- I felt that if--if I had not gone away that day with my father John would have been alive. So now, you see, I haven"t _that_ to think about. G.o.d spared him and Dora, and Mattie Creswell says they are both happily married."
"Both?" Joel exclaimed. "You haven"t got it right, Tilly. Dora married and left him all alone. Cavanaugh says John never married."
"Never married?" Tilly"s sweet lips hung quivering. "But Mattie Creswell says her brother told her that Cavanaugh said that John was married to a wealthy girl in high society."
"It is my duty to tell you the truth," Eperson said, the look of death deepening on him. "He never married. He has been leading a strange, lonely life. I think I know why. You can guess."
"_I_ can guess?" Tilly was pale and trembling as she leaned toward him.
"Well, no, perhaps you can"t," Joel corrected, "but I know why."
"You know why?" Tilly"s voice broke on the last word, and she stared at him eagerly, her sweet mouth drooping.
"Yes, because no man who was once your husband even for the few days that you were his could ever marry any other woman."
"You--you rate me too highly," Tilly faltered, putting her hands over her face. "Why, why, I"ve always thought that till his death he hated me for deserting him as I did when all the rest of the world was down on him."
"He is no fool, and he was not even then, boy though he was. He knew why you went away so suddenly. Do you hear me? He simply acted as I would have done in his place. He endeavored to set you free from certain unbearable conditions, and that is what I would have done. In setting you free he rescued another girl from a life of degradation and despair, but that is neither here nor there. John Trott deserves credit, and I shall give it to him. Dead though you thought he was, he has always had your heart. I"ve seen that in a thousand things you have done and said.
Your love for his mother was due to that, and G.o.d knows you"ve had your reward there, for you awakened an immortal soul and have earned its eternal grat.i.tude and love. Don"t think I am complaining, Tilly. I knew when you came to me that your heart was not mine. I"ve never been able to win it and I never shall."
"Why, you don"t think--you don"t think--" stammered Tilly. "Surely you don"t think that I still--still--" She suddenly stopped and stared at her husband in a bewildered way. "You don"t suppose, Joel, that I could believe that he--that all these years John--"