"Oh, oh--"
She knelt back on her heels.
"It was a dreadful thing to say, wasn"t it? That"s why I ran away. I couldn"t stand it. I knew it was a thing no man--could--forgive--"
I smoothed her hair and rocked her back and forth while she cried. It was strange how much of a child she seemed to me. And I was only the wife of a country grocer and lived over the store, and she was the wife of a man whose name was known from east to west, and all around the world. But you see she hadn"t learned to live. Neither have I, really.
But Billy has taught me a lot.
I think it was a comfort for her to feel that she had confided in me.
But she made me promise that whatever happened I wouldn"t let him know.
"Unless I--die," she said, and she was as white as a lily, "unless I die, and then you can--set him--free--"
Billy was sorry that I had promised. "Somehow I feel responsible, sweetheart, and I"ll bet her poor husband is almost crazy."
"Would you be, Billy?"
He caught me to him so quickly that he almost shook the breath out of me. "Don"t ask a thing like that," he said, and his voice didn"t sound like his own. "If anything should happen to you--if anything should happen--I should--I should--oh, why will women ask things like that--?"
In the days that followed, Billy didn"t want me out of his sight. He even hated to have me go up to the Davenant house with William Watters.
"Take care of her, William," he would say, and stand looking after us.
William and I got to be very good friends. He was a wise old darky, and he was devoted to Lady Crusoe. He usually served tea for us out under the trees, unless it was a rainy day, and then we had it in the library.
It was on a rainy day that Lady Crusoe said: "I wonder what has become of William. I haven"t seen him since you came. I have hunted and called, and I can"t find him."
He appeared at tea time, however, with a plate of hot waffles with powdered sugar between. When his mistress asked him about his mysterious disappearance, he said that he had cleaned the attic.
"But, William, on such a day?"
"I kain"t wuk out in the rain, Miss Lily, so I wuks in--"
That was all he would say about it, and after we had had our tea, she said to me, "There are a lot of interesting things in the attic. Let"s go up and see what Willie has been doing--"
The dim old place was as shining as soap and water could make it, and there was the damp smell of suds. There was the beat of the rain on the roof, and the splash of it against the round east window. Through the west window came a pale green light, and there was a view over the hills. As we became accustomed to the dimness our eyes picked out the various objects--an old loom like a huge spider under a peaked gable, a chest of drawers which would have set a collector crazy, Chippendale chairs with the seats out, Windsor chairs with the backs broken, gilt mirror frames with no gla.s.s in them--boxes--books--bottles--all the flotsam and jetsam of such old establishments. Most of the things had been set back against the wall, but right in the middle of the floor was an object which I took at first for a small trunk.
Lady Crusoe reached it first, and knelt beside it. She gave a little cry. "My dear, come here!" and I went to her, and in another moment, I, too, was on my knees. For the dark object was a cradle--a lovely hooded thing of mahogany, in which the Davenants had been rocked for generations.
"William got it out," Lady Crusoe said, "ready to be carried down. Oh, my good old man Friday! Do you mind if I cry a little, you very dear?"
It rained a great deal that summer, and it was hot and humid. Billy and I longed for the cold winds that sweep across the sea on the North Sh.o.r.e, but we didn"t complain, for we had each other, and I wouldn"t exchange Billy for any breeze that blows.
Lady Crusoe suffered less than I, for she was on her native heath, and in the afternoon when we sewed together William Watters made lemonade, and in the evening when Billy came up for me we sat out under the stars until whispers of wind stirred the trees, and then we went away and left our dear lady alone.
As the time went on we hated more and more to leave her, but she was very brave about it. "I have my good man Friday," she told us, "to protect me, and my grandfather"s revolver."
So the summer pa.s.sed, and the fall came, and the busy robin and all of her red-breasted family started for the South, and there was rain and more rain, so that when October rolled around the roads were perfect rivers of red mud, and the swollen streams swept under the bridges in raging torrents of terra-cotta, and the sheep on the hills were pinker than ever. There was no lack of color in those gray days, for the trees burst through the curtain of mist in great splashes of red and green and gold. But now I did not go abroad with William Watters behind his old gray mule, for things had happened which kept me at home.
It was on a rainy November night that I came down to the store to call Billy to supper. I had brought a saucer for old Tid, the store cat, and when he had finished Billy had cut him a bit of cheese and he was begging for it. We had taught Tid to sit up and ask, and he looked so funny, for he is fat and black and he hates to beg, but he loves cheese.
We were laughing at him when a great flash of light seemed to sweep through the store, and a motor stopped.
Billy went forward at once. The front door opened, and a man in a rain-coat was blown in by the storm.
"Jove, it"s a wet night!" I heard him say, and I knew it wasn"t any of Billy"s customers from around that part of the country. This was no drawling Virginia voice. It was crisp and clear-cut and commanding.
He took off his hat, and even at that distance I could see his shining blond head. He towered above Billy, and Billy isn"t short. "I wonder if you could help me," he began, and then he hesitated, "it is a rather personal matter."
"If you"ll come up-stairs," Billy told him, "there"ll be only my wife and me, and I can shut up the store for the night."
"Good!" he said, and I went ahead of them with old Tid following, and presently the men arrived and Billy presented the stranger to me.
He told us at once what he wanted. "I thought that as you kept the store, you might hear the neighborhood news. I have lost--my wife--"
"Dead?" Billy inquired solicitously.
"No. Several months ago we motored down into this part of the country.
Some miles from here I had trouble with my engine, and I had to walk to town for help. When I came back my wife was gone--"
I pinched Billy under the table. "Gone?" I echoed.
"Yes. She left a note. She said that she could catch a train at the station and that she would take it. Some one evidently gave her a lift, for she had her traveling bag with her. She said that she would sail at once for France, and that I must not try to follow her. Of course I did follow her, and I searched through Europe, but I found no trace, and then it occurred to me that after all she might still be in this part of the country--"
I held on to Billy. "Had you quarreled or anything?"
He ran his fingers through his hair. "Things had gone wrong somehow,"
he said, uncertainly, "I don"t know why. I love her."
If you could have heard him say it! If _she_ could have heard him! There was a silence out of which I said: "Did you ask her to warm your slippers?"
He stared at me, then he reached out his hands across the table and caught hold of mine in such a strong grip that it hurt. "You"ve seen her," he said, "_you"ve seen her_--?"
Then I remembered. "I can"t say any more. You see--I"ve promised--"
"That you wouldn"t tell me?"
"Yes."
He threw back his head and laughed. "If she"s in this part of the country, I"ll find her." And I knew that he would. He was the kind of man you felt wouldn"t know there were obstacles in the way when he went after the thing he wanted.
I made him stay to supper. It was a drizzly cold night and he looked very tired.
"Jove," he said, "you"re comfortable here, with your fire and your p.u.s.s.y-cat, and your teakettle on the hearth! This is the sort of thing I like--"
"You wouldn"t like living over a grocery store," I told him.
"Why not?"
"Oh, n.o.body around here ever has, and they are all descended from signers of the Declaration of Independence and back of that from William the Conqueror, and they stick their noses in the air."