Читать книгу The Long Lane's Turning - Hallie Erminie Rives - Страница 12

At Midfields that evening the late moonlight poured a flood of radiance on the wide columned porch with its climbing roses where Echo sat on the step, chin in hand, absorbed in her own thought. She was alone. Nancy had slipped off to bed, her mother had retired to her room and her father to the quiet of the library and his reading.

From the kitchens she could hear the muffled clash of table-silver and the strident voice of Aunt Emily the cook, grumbling at Nelson: "Yo'-all hurry erlong wid dem ar fawks, now! Speck ah's gwine wait heah all night, yo' triflin' trash, yo'? Yo' heah me—yo' ain' blind! What yo' 'spose Marse Bev'ly pay yo' fo', anyhow?" From far down the road, beyond the gates, she could hear the faint twang of a guitar and the refrain of strolling, darky voices:

"Reign! Reign! Reign-a mah Lawd!

Reign, Marse Jesus, reign!

Reign salvation in-a mah soul,

Reign, Marse Jesus, reign!"

These died away with the sharp, eager bark of a dog. Then at length distinguishable sounds faded and there was only the deep, somnolent peace of the southern night, with the scent of the roses wreathing the garden with their intense, mystical odour—only the faint stirring of little leaves playing hide-and-seek with their shadows, and the thin, fairy tone-carpet woven by the myriad looms of night insects for near whispers to tread on.

Since that homeward ride she had had no time to ponder upon the event of the day. At dinner the trial had been touched upon but casually. Now that she was alone, however, it had rushed uppermost in her thought. It was not that Harry Sevier had lost the verdict: but his speech had seemed to her, in the tension of the crisis, with a man's honour and liberty at stake, inconsequential and almost flippant. And in the measure of her disappointment she had realised anew the depth of her regard for him. Again and again she pictured the scene in the courtroom but each time her thought returned upon itself, baffled and puzzled.

At length, with a long breath that was almost a sigh, she stirred, and rising, passed into the library where the Judge sat in the arm-chair by his reading lamp. "You're a disgraceful night-owl," she said, "and I refuse to keep you in countenance any longer."

He smiled at her. "That's right, Sorrel-Top! It's time for beauty-sleep if you and Nancy are off to ride in the morning. Just give me my eye-shade, will you, before you go?"

She brought the green crescent and snapped it on his forehead. "There! You haven't told me how you like my dress to-night. It's a new one."

He looked. "It's beautiful."

She turned about before him. "I do choose well sometimes, don't I?"

"You do everything well, my dear." In his tone now was a quaint and curious humility which always touched her when she discerned it—something of utter fondness and dependance—and she smoothed his iron-grey hair, one of her characteristic endearments, as she kissed him good night.

Upstairs Echo opened the door of her room softly. It was hung in blue—that shade which one sees in a Gainsborough ribbon, a Romney sash or a Reynolds sky—and its furniture was of simple white, with large pink dahlias trailing over the chintz window-curtains and chair-cushions. In the dim night-light the triple mirror of the dresser reflected the carven four-post bed, in one of whose pillows Nancy's dark head was already buried.

"Is that you, Echo?"

"Yes, it's I. Were you asleep already?"

"Almost," yawned Nancy. "I shall be in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Has Chilly come home yet?"

"No, not yet."

"Do you think he's really at the club, Echo?"

"Of course I do."

"Men are so queer!" sighed Nancy, drowsily. "We had such a lovely evening—all except Chilly's not being there."

Echo slipped off her gown and drew out the pins from her hair, letting it fall in a shimmering cloud to her waist. Then in the moon-light she drew a deep chair before the open window and began to brush out that wonderful mass of stirring gold that curled and waved about her bare, round shoulders. Below her the garden lay, a mass of olive shadows, wound in cloudy golds and misty greens, sprinkled with moon-dust and drenched with the dizzying scent of roses and honeysuckle. All was lapped in the utter quiet of the night—only the swift wing of a night-bird shook the darker clump of ivy that marked the sun-dial. A long time she sat there, the brush parting and smoothing the bronze mesh with long sweeping movements, gazing into the whisper-haunted gloom and listening to the measured breathing of the girl behind her that seemed to form a rhythmical current for her own thoughts.

All at once in the hush there came the clashing of the gate at the foot of the drive and jovial "good-byes," mingled with a hilarious voice asseverating that its owner had had "the time of his young life."

She bit her lip. "It's Chilly!" she whispered, with a frowning look over her shoulder.

She listened intently. There was the crunch of an uncertain step on the gravel, the sound of a stumble from the porch—then the slamming of the front door.

The dulled sound reverberated through the old house. It roused Nancy and she sat upright in the drift of silken coverlets, her eyes heavy with sleep. "Is it Chilly?"

"Yes. He has just come in."

"Is he—?"

"I'm afraid so, dear."

The younger girl caught her breath. "Oh, I hope your father has gone to bed. He's so hard on him!"

Echo turned. "How can he be otherwise?" she said, sadly. "It's so often and often it happens, nowadays. Won't you try and influence him? He cares for you, darling!"

Nancy's hands were clasped tight about her knees. She stirred uneasily. "How can I, Echo? A boy has to have a little bit of a good time once in awhile. I wouldn't want him to be a molly-coddle! He won't be any the worse for it when he gets older and settled down."

"The worse for it!" The words fell sadly. "Don't you think he is the worse for it already? He's making no progress with his law-study and he's been two years out of college, now. There's nothing to blame but his drinking—and the company he keeps. What will be the end of it? Oh, Nancy, you have a responsibility. Every woman has with some one man. If women only wouldn't countenance it as they do!"

"But, Echo—you talk as if Chilly was—as if you thought he was doing something disgraceful. Why, he's a gentleman; he couldn't be anything but that, no matter what he did!"

Echo came to the bed and sat down beside the other. In her filmy night-gown, wound in the mist of her loosened gold shadowed hair she looked like some ethereal thing in the moonlight.

"Ah, that's just what so many say! That a gentleman is a gentleman whether he is drunk or sober! It's not so with other things. Is a gentleman a gentleman whether he lies, or cheats at cards, or not? Isn't there to be any standard, really? Don't you see that there never will be any penalty—as far as drinking is concerned—until women make it? Listen, Nancy. The year I came out, I went to a dance—my first big one. There was a boy there who followed me about all over the floor. He wanted me to dance with him, and he was—he could hardly walk. At first I was frightened, but at last I grew angry. I asked a lady why he was not asked to leave the floor. She seemed quite astonished and indignant. 'But,' she said, 'don't you know who he is? That's the son of General Moultrie!' It was Cale Moultrie. You know what became of him, don't you?"

"Yes." Nancy's voice was muffled. "But Chilly—"

"Oh, my dear, there was a time when Cale drank no more than the others, and everybody liked him—as they do Chilly. It's coming to be the same with him, I'm afraid. There's no penalty for him yet because he's Chisholm Allen—because he's father's son!"

She stopped, caught by the sound of a sob. In another moment her arms were around the frail little body and the flower-like face was pressed hard against her breast.

"I don't care if he is d-d-dissipated," said Nancy passionately. "I'd rather have him come to me d-d-drunk than any other man sober! He's just Ch-Ch-Chilly, all the same!"