She thought of Harry Cresswell and the tale he told her in the swamp.
She thought of the flitting ghosts that awful night in Washington. She thought of Miss Wynn who had jilted Alwyn and given her herself a very bad quarter of an hour. What a world it was, and after all how far was this black boy wrong? Just then Colonel Cresswell rode up behind and greeted her.
She started almost guiltily, and again a sense of the awkwardness of her position reddened her face and neck. The Colonel dismounted, despite her protest, and walked beside her. They chatted along indifferently, of the crops, her brother"s new baby, the proposed mill.
"Mary," his voice abruptly struck a new note. "I don"t like the way you talk with that Alwyn n.i.g.g.e.r."
She was silent.
"Of course," he continued, "you"re Northern born and you have been a teacher in this school and feel differently from us in some ways; but mark what I say, a n.i.g.g.e.r will presume on the slightest pretext, and you must keep them in their place. Then, too, you are a Cresswell now--"
She smiled bitterly; he noticed it, but went on:
"You are a Cresswell, even if you have caught Harry up to some of his deviltry,"--she started,--"and got miffed about it. It"ll all come out right. You"re a Cresswell, and you must hold yourself too high to "Mister" a n.i.g.g.e.r or let him dream of any sort of equality."
He spoke pleasantly, but with a certain sharp insistence that struck a note of fear in Mary"s heart. For a moment she thought of writing Alwyn not to call. But, no; a note would be unwise. She and Colonel Cresswell lunched rather silently.
"Well, I must get to town," he finally announced. "The mill directors meet today. If Maxwell calls by about that lumber tell him I"ll see him in town." And away he went.
He had scarcely reached the highway and ridden a quarter of a mile or so when he spied Bles Alwyn hurrying across the field toward the Cresswell Oaks. He frowned and rode on. Then reining in his horse, he stopped in the shadow of the trees and watched Alwyn.
It was here that Zora saw him as she came up from her house. She, too, stopped, and soon saw whom he was watching. She had been planning to see Mr. Cresswell about the cut timber on her land. By legal right it was hers but she knew he would claim half, treating her like a mere tenant.
Seeing him watching Alwyn she paused in the shadow and waited, fearing trouble. She, too, had felt that the continued conversations of Alwyn and Mrs. Cresswell were indiscreet, but she hoped that they had attracted no one else"s attention. Now she feared the Colonel was suspicious and her heart sank. Alwyn went straight toward the house and disappeared in the oak avenue. Still Colonel Cresswell waited but Zora waited no longer. Alwyn must be warned. She must reach Cresswell"s mansion before Cresswell did and without him seeing her. This meant a long detour of the swamp to approach the Oaks from the west. She silently gathered up her skirts and walked quickly and carefully away.
She was a strong woman, lithe and vigorous, living in the open air and used to walking. Once out of hearing she threw away her hat and bending forward ran through the swamp. For a while she ran easily and swiftly.
Then for a moment she grew dizzy and it seemed as though she was standing still and the swamp in solemn grandeur marching past--in solemn mocking grandeur. She loosened her dress at the neck and flew on.
She sped at last through the oaks, up the terraces, and slowing down to an unsteady walk, staggered into the house. No one would wonder at her being there. She came up now and then and sorted the linen and piled the baskets for her girls. She entered a side door and listened. The Colonel"s voice sounded impatiently in the front hall.
"Mary! Mary?"
A pause, then an answer:
"Yes, father!"
He started up the front stairway and Zora hurried up the narrow back stairs, almost overturning a servant.
"I"m after the clothes," she explained. She reached the back landing just in time to see Colonel Cresswell"s head rising up the front staircase. With a quick bound she almost fell into the first room at the top of the stairs.
Bles Alwyn had hurried through his dinner duties and hastened to the Oaks. The questions, the doubts, the uncertainty within him were clamoring for utterance. How much had Mrs. Cresswell ever known of Zora?
What kind of a woman was Zora now? Mrs. Cresswell had seen her and had talked to her and watched her. What did she think? Thus he formulated his questions as he went, half timid, and fearful in putting them and yet determined to know.
Mrs. Cresswell, waiting for him, was almost panic-stricken. Probably he would beat round the bush seeking further encouragement; but at the slightest indication she must crush him ruthlessly and at the same time point the path of duty. He ought to marry some good girl--not Zora, but some one. Somehow Zora seemed too unusual and strange for him--too inhuman, as Mary Cresswell judged humanity. She glanced out from her seat on the upper verandah over the front porch and saw Alwyn coming.
Where should she receive him? On the porch and have Mr. Maxwell ride up?
In the parlor and have the servants astounded and talking? If she took him up to her own sitting-room the servants would think he was doing some work or fetching something for the school. She greeted him briefly and asked him in.
"Good-afternoon, Bles"--using his first name to show him his place, and then inwardly recoiling at its note of familiarity. She preceded him up-stairs to the sitting-room, where, leaving the door ajar, she seated herself on the opposite side of the room and waited.
He fidgeted, then spoke rapidly.
"Mrs. Cresswell--this is a personal affair." She reddened angrily. "A love affair"--she paled with something like fear--"and I"--she started to speak, but could not--"I want to know what you think about Zora?"
"About Zora!" she gasped weakly. The sudden reaction, the revulsion of her agitated feelings, left her breathless.
"About Zora. You know I loved her dearly as a boy--how dearly I have only just begun to realize: I"ve been wondering if I understood--if I wasn"t--"
Mrs. Cresswell got angrily to her feet.
"You have come here to speak to me of that--that--" she choked, and Bles thought his worst fears realized.
"Mary, Mary!" Colonel Cresswell"s voice broke suddenly in upon them.
With a start of fear Mrs. Cresswell rushed out into the hall and closed the door.
"Mary, has that Alwyn n.i.g.g.e.r been here this afternoon?" Mr. Cresswell was coming up-stairs, carrying his riding whip.
"Why, no!" she answered, lying instinctively before she quite realized what her lie meant. She hesitated. "That is, I haven"t seen him. I must have nodded over my book,"--looking toward the little verandah at the front of the upper hall, where her easy chair stood with her book. Then with an awful flash of enlightenment she realized what her lie might mean, and her heart paused.
Cresswell strode up.
"I saw him come up--he must have entered. He"s nowhere downstairs," he wavered and scowled. "Have you been in your sitting-room?" And then, not waiting for a reply, he strode to the door.
"But the d.a.m.ned scoundrel wouldn"t dare!"
He deliberately placed his hand in his right-hand hip-pocket and threw open the door.
Mary Cresswell stood frozen. The full horror of the thing burst upon her. Her own silly misapprehension, the infatuation of Alwyn for Zora, her thoughtless--no, vindictive--betrayal of him to something worse than death. She listened for the crack of doom. She heard a bird singing far down in the swamp; she heard the soft raising of a window and the closing of a door. And then--great G.o.d in heaven! must she live forever in this agony?--and then, she heard the door bang and Mr. Cresswell"s gruff voice--
"Well, where is he?--he isn"t in there!"
Mary Cresswell felt that something was giving way within. She swayed and would have crashed to the bottom of the staircase if just then she had not seen at the opposite end of the hall, near the back stairs, Zora and Alwyn emerge calmly from a room, carrying a basket full of clothes.
Colonel Cresswell stared at them, and Zora instinctively put up her hand and fastened her dress at the throat. The Colonel scowled, for it was all clear to him now.
"Look here," he angrily opened upon them, "if you n.i.g.g.e.rs want to meet around keep out of this house; hereafter I"ll send the clothes down. By G.o.d, if you want to make love go to the swamp!" He stamped down the stairs while an ashy paleness stole beneath the dark-red bronze of Zora"s face.
They walked silently down the road together--the old familiar road.
Alwyn was staring moodily ahead.
"We must get married--before Christmas, Zora," he presently avowed, not looking at her. He felt the basket pause and he glanced up. Her dark eyes were full upon him and he saw something in their depths that brought him to himself and made him realize his blunder.
"Zora!" he stammered, "forgive me! Will you marry me?"
She looked at him calmly with infinite compa.s.sion. But her reply was uttered unhesitantly; distinct, direct.
"No, Bles."
_Thirty-five_