The Purchase Price; Or, The Cause of Compromise

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER XXXI

  THE SPECTER IN THE HOUSE

  The travel-stained figures of Doctor Jamieson, Judge Clayton andthe Honorable William Jones met the Dunwody coach just as it wasleaving at the upper end of St. Genevieve's main street. They alsohad found fresh horses, and in the belief of Dunwody it was quiteas well that they rode horseback, in common with the followers ofHector, who presently came trooping after him. The interior of thecoach seemed to him more fittingly reserved for this lady andhimself. None the less, the Honorable William had abated none ofhis native curiosity. It was his head which presently intruded atthe coach window.

  "Ah, ha!" exclaimed he. "What? Again? This time there is noconcealment, Dunwody! Come, confess!"

  "I will confess now as much as I ever had to confess," retortedDunwody angrily. "If you do not know yet of this lady, I willintroduce you once more. She is the Countess St. Auban, formerlyof Europe, and now of any place that suits her. It is no businessof yours or of mine why she was once there, or cares to go thereagain; but she is going along with us out to Tallwoods."

  Judge Clayton made salutation .more in keeping with good courtesythan had his inquisitive friend. "I have been following thefortunes of this lady somewhat attentively of late," he said, atlength. "At least, she has not been idle!"

  "Precisely!" ventured Josephine, leaning out the window. "That iswhy I am coming to-night. I understand there has been trouble downhere,--that it came out of the work of our Colonization Society--"

  "Rather!" said Clayton grimly.

  "I was back of that. But, believe me, as I told Mr. Dunwody, I wasnot in the least responsible for the running off of negroes in thisneighborhood. I thought, if I should go out there and tell theseother gentlemen, that they would understand."

  "That's mighty nice of you," ventured the Honorable William Jones."But if we don't git there before midnight, they'll be so full ofwhisky and devilment that _I_ don't think they'll listen even toyou, Ma'am."

  "It is pretty bad, I'm afraid," said Judge Clayton. "What with onething and another, this country of ours has been in a literal stateof anarchy for the last year or two. What the end is going to be,I'm sure I don't see.

  "And the immediate cause of all this sort of thing, my dear Madam,"he continued, as he rode alongside, "why, it seems to be just thatgirl Lily, that we had all the trouble about last year. By theway, what's become of that girl? Too bad--she was more than halfwhite!"

  By the way, what's become of that girl?]

  "Yes, it is all about that girl Lily," said Josephine slowly,restraining in her own soul the impulse to cry out the truth tohim, to tell him why this girl was almost white, why she hadfeatures like his own. "That is the trouble, I am afraid,--thatgirl Lily, and her problem! If we could understand all of that,perhaps we could see the reason for this anarchy!"

  The group broke apart, as the exigencies of the road traveledrequired. Now and again some conversation passed between theoccupants of the carriage and the horsemen who loosely groupedabout it as they advanced. The great coach swayed its way on upthrough the woods into the hills, over a road never too good andnow worse than usual. They had thirty miles or more to drive, mostof it after dark. Could they make that distance in time?

  Dunwody, moody, silent, yet tense, keyed to the highest point, nowmade little comment. Even when left alone, he ventured upon nointimate theme with his companion in the coach; nor did she in turnspeak upon any subject which admitted argument. Once shecongratulated him upon his recovery from what had seemed sodangerous a hurt.

  "But that is nothing now," he said. "I got off better than I hadany right,--limp a little, maybe, but they say that even that ismostly a matter of habit now. Jamieson says his fiddle string mayhave slipped a little! And you?"

  "Oh, perfectly well," she answered. "I even think I may behappy--you know, I must start my French and English classes beforelong."

  Silent now in part as to matters present, wholly silent as tomatters past, these two went on into the night, neither loosing thetight rein on self. Swaying and jolting its way upward and outwardinto the wilder country, the coach at last had so far plunged intothe night that they were almost within touch of the valley in whichlay the Dunwody lands. Eleazar, the trapper, rode on the box withthe negro driver who had been impressed into service. It was theold trapper who at length called for a halt.

  "Listen!" said he. "What is that?"

  Dunwody heard him, and as the coach pulled up, thrust his head outof the window. The sound was repeated.

  "I hear it!" cried he. "Rifle firing! I'm afraid we're going tobe too late. Drive on, there, fast!"

  Finally they reached the point in the road just below the shut-in,where the hills fell back in the approach to the little circularvalley. Dunwody's gaze was bent eagerly out and ahead. "My God!"he exclaimed, at length. "We are too late! Look!"

  At the same moment there came excited cries from the horsemen whofollowed. Easily visible now against the black background of thenight, there showed a flower of light, rising and falling,strengthening.

  "Drive!" cried Dunwody; and now the sting of the lash urged on theweary team. They swung around the turn of the shut-in, and came atfull speed into the approach across the valley. Before them laythe great Tallwoods mansion house. It stood before them a pillarof fire, prophetic, it might be repeated, of a vast and cleansingcatastrophe soon to come to that state and this nation; acatastrophe which alone could lay the specter in our nation's house.

  They were in time to see the last of the disaster, but too late tooffer remedy. By the time the coach had pulled up at the head ofthe gravel way, before the yet more rapid horsemen had flungthemselves from their saddles, the end easily was to be guessed.The house had been fired in a half score places. At the rear, evennow, the long streaks of flame were reaching up to the cornice,casting all the front portion of the house, and the lawn which laybefore it, into deep shadow. The shrubbery and trees thus outlinedshowed black and grim.

  The men of the Tallwoods party dashed here and there among thecovering of trees back of the house. There were shots, hastilyexchanged, glimpses of forms slinking away across the fields. Butthe attacking party had done their work; and now, alarmed by thesudden appearance of a resistance stronger than they had expected,were making their escape. Once in a while there was heard a loudderisive shout, now and again the crack of a spiteful rifle,resounding in echoes against the hillsides.

  Dunwody was among the first to disappear, in search of thesebesiegers. For an instant Josephine was left alone, undecided,alarmed, in front of the great doors. Eleazar, to save theplunging team, had now wheeled the vehicle back, and was seeking aplace for it lower down the lawn. It was as she stood thushesitant that there approached her from some point in the bushes adisheveled figure. Turning, she recognized none other than oldSally, her former jailer and sometime friend.

  "Sally," she cried; "Sally! What is it? Who has done this? Whereare they? What is it all about? Can't anything be done?"

  But Sally, terrified beyond reason, could exclaim only one word:"Whah is he? Whah's Mr. Dunwody? Quick!" An instant later, shetoo was gone.

  At the same moment, Dunwody, weapon in hand, dashed around thecorner of the house and up on the front gallery. Apparently he wassearching for some one whom he did not find. Here he was soondiscovered by the old negro woman, who began an excited harangue,with wild gesticulations. To Josephine it seemed that Sallypointed toward the interior of the house, as though she beckoned,explained. She heard his deep-voiced cry.

  By this time the names had taken firm hold upon the entirestructure. Smoke tinged with red lines poured through the greatdouble doors of the mansion house. Yet even as she met the actwith an exclamation of horror, Josephine saw Dunwody fling away hisweapons, run to the great doors and crash through them, apparentlybent upon reaching some point deep in the interior.

  Others saw this, and joined in her cry of terror. The interior ofthe hall, thus disc
losed by the opening of the doors, seemed but amass of flames. An instant later, Dunwody staggered back, his armacross his face. His hair was smoking, the mustaches half burnedfrom his lips. He gasped for breath, but, revived by air, drew hiscoat across his mouth and once again dashed back. Josephine,standing with hands clasped, her eyes filled with terror, expectednever to see him emerge alive.

  He was scarcely more than alive when once more he came back,blinded and staggering. This time arms reached out to him,steadied him, dragged him from the gallery, through the enshroudingsmoke, to a place of safety.

  He bore something shielded, concealed in his arms--something, whichnow he carried tenderly and placed down away from the sight ofothers, behind the shade of a protecting clump of shrubbery. Hisbreath, labored, sobbing, showed his distress. They caught himagain when he staggered back, dragged him to a point somewhatremoved, upon the lawn. All the time he struggled, as though oncemore to dash back into the flames, or as though to find hisweapons. He was sobbing, half crazed, horribly burned, butseemingly unmindful of his hurts.

  The fire went on steadily with its work, the more rapidly now thatthe opening of the front doors had admitted air to the interior.The construction of the house, with a wide central hall, andstairways leading up almost to the roof, made an admirablearrangement for a conflagration. No living being, even thougharmed with the best of fire fighting apparatus, could have survivedin that blazing interior. All they could do, since even a bucketbrigade was out of the question here, was to stand and watch forthe end. Some called for ladders, but by accident or design, noladders were found where they should have been. Men ran about likeants. None knew anything of time's passing. No impressionremained on their minds save the fascinating picture of this tallpillar of the fire.

  Dunwody ceased to struggle with those who restrained him. Hewalked apart, near to the little clump of shrubs. He dropped tothe ground, his face in his hands.

  "What do you reckon that thah was he brung out in his arms, thattime?" demanded Mr. William Jones, after a time, of a neighbor whomet him a little apart. "Say, you reckon that was _folks_?Anybody _in_ there? Anybody over--thah? Was that a bed--folded uplike--'bout like a crib, say? I'm skeered to go look, somehow."

  "God knows!" was the reply. "This here house has had mightystrange goings on of late times. There was always somethingstrange about it,--something strange about Dunwody too! Thereain't no doubt about that. But I'm skeered, too--him a-settin'thah--"

  "But _who_ was she, or it, whatever it was? How come--in--inthere? How long has it been there? What kind of goings on do youthink there has been; in this here place, after all?" Mr. Joneswas not satisfied. They passed apart, muttering, exclaiming,wondering.

  An hour later, Tallwoods mansion house was no more. The last ofcornice and pillar and corner post and beam had fallen into asmoldering mass. In front of one long window a part of the heavybrick foundation remained. Some bent and warped iron bars appearedacross a window.

  Unable to do anything, these who had witnessed such scenes, scarcefound it possible to depart. They stood about, whispering, orremaining silent, some regarding the smouldering ruin. Once in awhile a head was turned over shoulder toward a bowed form which satclose under a sheltering tree upon the lawn.

  "He is taking it mighty hard," said this or that neighbor. "Lostnigh about everything he had in the world." But still his bowedform, stern in its sentinelship, guarded the something concealedbehind the shadows. And still they dared not go closer.

  So, while Dunwody was taking that which had come to him, as humanbeings must, the gray of the dawn crawled up, up over the easternedge of this little Ozark Valley. After a time the day would comeagain, would look with franker eyes upon this scene of horror. Asthe light grew stronger, though yet cold and gray, Dunwody,sighing, raised his head from his hands and turned. There was afigure seated close to him--a woman, who reached out a hand to takehis scarred and burned ones in her own,--a woman, moreover, whoasked him no questions.

  "Oh! Oh God!" he began, for the first time breaking silence, hisburned lips twitching. "And you,--why don't you go away? Whatmade you come?"

  She was silent for a time. "Am I not your friend?" she asked, atlength.

  Now he could look at her. "My friend!" said he bitterly. "As ifall the world had a friend for me! How could there be? But you sawthat,--this--?"

  She made no answer, but only drew a trifle nearer, seeing him forthe first time unnerved and unstrung. "I saw something, I couldnot tell what--when you came out. I supposed--"

  "Well, then," said he, with a supreme effort which demanded all hiscourage, as he turned toward her; "it all had to come out, somehow.It is the end, now."

  She had brought with her a cup of water. Now she handed it to himwithout comment. His hand trembled as he took it.

  "You saw that--?" He nodded toward the ruins. All she did was tonod, in silence. "Yes, I saw you come out--with--that--in yourarms."

  "Who--what--do you suppose it was?"

  "I don't know." Then, suddenly,--"Tell me. Tell me! _Was itshe_?"

  "Send them away!" he said to her after a time. She turned, andthose who stood about seemed to catch the wish upon her face. Theyfell back for a space, silent, or talking in low tones.

  "Come," he said.

  He led her a pace or so, about the scanty wall of shrubbery. Hepulled back a bit of old and faded silk, a woman's garment of yearsago, from the face of that something which lay there, on a tinycot, scarce larger than a child's bed.

  It was the face of a woman grown, yet of a strangely vague andchildlike look. The figure, never very large, was thin andshrunken unbelievably. The features, waxy-white, were mercifullyspared by the flames which had licked at the shielding hands andarms that had borne her hither. Yet they seemed even more thin,more wax-like, more unreal, than had their pallor come by mercifuldeath. Death? Ah, here was written death through years. Life,full, red-blooded, abounding, luxuriant, riotous, never hadanimated this pallid form, or else had long years since abandonedit. This was but the husk of a human being, clinging beyond itsappointed time to this world, so cruel and so kind.

  They stood and gazed, solemnly, for a time. The hands of JosephineSt. Auban were raised in the sign of her religion. Her lips movedin some swift prayer. She could hear the short, hard breathing ofthe man who stood near her, grimed, blistered, disfigured, in hiseffort to bring away into the light for a time at least thisspecter, so long set apart from all the usual ways of life.

  "She has been there for years," he said, at last, thickly. "Wekept her, I kept her, here for her sake. In this country it wouldbe a sort of disgrace for any--any--feeble--person, you know, to goto an institution. Those are our graves over yonder in the yard.You see them? Well, here was our asylum. We kept our secrets.

  "She was this way for more than ten years. She was hurt in anaccident--her spine. She withered away. Her mind was gone--shewas like a child. She had toys, like a child. She wept, she criedout like a child. Very often I was obliged to play--Ah! my God!My God!"

  "This was one of your family. It was that which we heard--which we_felt_--about the place--?" Her voice was very clear, though low.

  "My wife! Now you know." He dropped back, his face once morebetween his hands, and again she fell into silence.

  "How long--was this?" at length she asked quietly.

  He turned a scorched and half-blinded face toward her. "Ever sinceI was a boy, you might say," said he. "Even before my father andmother died. We kept our own counsel. We ran away, we twochildren. They counseled me against it. My people didn't like thematch, but I wouldn't listen. It came like some sort of judgment.Not long after we were married it came--the dreadful accident, witha run-away team--and we saw,--we knew--in a little while--that shesimply lived like a child--a plant--That was ten years ago, tencenturies!--ten thousand years of torture. But I kept her. Ishielded her the best I knew how. That was her place yonder, wherethe bars were-
-you see. Nobody knew any more. It's all alone,back in here. Some said there was a funeral, out here. Jamiesondidn't deny it, I did not deny it. But she lived--there! Sallytook care of her. Sometimes she or the others were careless. Youheard once or twice. Well, anyway, I couldn't tell you. It didn'tseem right--to her. And you were big enough not to ask. I thankyou! Now you know."

  Still she was silent. They dropped down, now weary, side by side,on the grass.

  "Now you see into one bit of a human heart, don't you?" said hebitterly. The gray dawn showed his distorted and wounded face,scarred, blackened, burned, as at length he tried to look at her.

  "I did the best I knew. I knew it wasn't right to feel as I didtoward you--to talk as I did--but I couldn't help it, I tell you, Ijust couldn't help it! I can't help it now. But I don't thinkit's wrong now, even--here. I was starved. When I saw you,--well,you know the rest. I have got nothing to say. It would be no usefor me to explain. I make no excuses for myself. I have got totake my medicine. Anyhow, part of it--part of it is wiped out."

  "It is wiped out," she repeated simply. "The walls that stoodthere--all of them--are gone. It is the act of fate, of God! Ihad not known how awful a thing is life. It is all--wiped away byfire. Those walls--"

  "But not my sins, not my selfishness, not the wrong I have done!Even all that has happened to me, or may happen to me, wouldn't bepunishment enough for that. Now you asked me if you were not myfriend? Of course you are not. How could you be?"

  "It would be easier now than ever before," she said. But he shookhis head from side to side, slowly, dully, monotonously.

  "No, no," he said, "it would not be right,--I would not allow it."

  "I remember now," she said slowly, "how you hesitated. It musthave been agony for you. I knew there was something, all the time.Of course, I could not tell what. But it must have been agony foryou to offer to tell me--of this."

  "Oh, I might have told you then. Perhaps it would have been braverif I had. I tried it a dozen times, but couldn't. I don't pretendto say whether it was selfishness or cowardice, or just kindnessto--her. If I ever loved her, it was so faint and far away--but itisn't right to say that, now."

  "No. Do not. Do not."

  "I don't know. There are a heap of things I don't know. But Iknew I loved you. It was for ever. That was what was meant to be.It seemed to me I owed debts on every hand--to the world--to you: Itried--tried to pay--to pay you fair, ache for ache, if I could,for the hurts I'd given you. And you wouldn't let me. You werewonderful. Before the throne of God--here--now, I'll say it: Ilove you! But now it's over."

  "It is easier now," she said again. "You must not give way. Youare strong. You must not be beaten. You must keep your courage."

  "Give me a moment," he said. "Give me a chance to get on my feetagain. I want to be game as I can."

  "You have courage--the large courage," she answered quietly."Haven't you been showing it, by your very silence? You will bebrave. You are just beginning. You have changed many things inyour life of late. You were silent. You did not boast to me.Sometimes things seem to be changed for us, without ourarrangement."

  "Isn't it true?" he exclaimed, turning to her quickly; "isn't itthe truth? Why, look at me. I met you a year ago. Here I sitnow. Two different men, eh? No chance, either time. No chance."

  "Maybe two different women," said she.

  "No, we are not different," he went on suddenly. "We are somethingjust the same,--for my part, at least, I have never changed verymuch in some ways."

  "You have suffered a great deal," she said simply "You have lostvery much. You are no longer a boy. You are a man, now. You'vechanged because you are a man. And it wasn't--well, it wasn't donefor--for any reward."

  "No, maybe not. In some ways I don't think just the way I used to.But the savage--the brute--in me is there just the same. I don'twant to do what is right. I don't want to know what is right. Ionly want to do what I want to do. What I covet, I covet. What Ilove, I love. What I want, I want. That is all. And yet, just aminute ago you were telling me you would be a friend! Not to a manlike that! It wouldn't be right."

  She made no answer. The faces of both were now turned toward thegray dawn beyond the hills. It was some moments before once morehe turned to her.

  "But you and I--just you and I, together, thinking the way we bothdo, seeing what we both see--the splendid sadness and the glory ofliving and loving--and being what we both are! Oh, it all comesback to me, I tell you; and I say I have not changed. I shallalways call your hair 'dark as the night of disunion andseparation'--isn't that what the oriental poet called it?--and yourface, to me, always, always, always, will be 'fair as the days ofunion and delight.' No you've not changed. You're still just atall flower, in the blades of grass--that are cut down. Butwasted! What is in my mind now, when maybe it ought not to behere, is just this: What couldn't you and I have done together?Ah! Nothing could have stopped us!"

  "What could we not have done?" she repeated slowly. "I've done solittle--in the world--alone."

  Something in her tone caught his ear, his senses, overstrung,vibrating in exquisite susceptibility, capable almost of hearingthought that dared not be thought. He turned his blackened face,bent toward her, looking into her face with an intensity whichalmost annihilated the human limitations of flesh and blood. Itwas as though his soul heard something in hers, and turned toanswer it, to demand its repetition.

  "Did you say, _could_ have done?" he demanded. "Tell me, did yousay that?"

  She did not answer, and he went on. "Listen!" he said in his old,imperious way. "What couldn't we do together an the world, for theworld--even now?"

  For a long time there was silence. At last, a light hand fell uponthe brown and blistered one which he had thrust out.

  "Do you think so?" he heard a gentle voice reply.