At Fault (20 page)

"Rather onpleasant ez I take it. I hain't a makin' no misstatement to
persume thet Grégor Sanchun was your nephew?"

"Yes, yes," responded Thérèse, now thoroughly alarmed, and approaching
as close to Mr. Rufe Jimson as the dividing rail would permit, "What
of him, please?"

He turned again to discharge an accumulation of tobacco juice into a
thick border of violets, and resumed.

"You see a hot-blooded young feller, ez wouldn't take no more 'an give
no odds, stranger or no stranger in the town, he couldn't ixpect civil
treatment; leastways not from Colonel Bill Klayton. Ez I said to
Tozier—"

"Please tell me as quickly as possible what has happened," demanded
Thérèse with trembling eagerness; steadying herself with both hands on
the railing before her.

"You see it all riz out o' a little altercation 'twixt him and Colonel
Klayton in the colonel's store. Some says he'd ben drinkin'; others
denies it. Howsomever they did hev words risin' out o' the colonel
addressing your nephew under the title o' 'Frenchy'; which most takes
ez a insufficient cause for rilin'."

"He's dead?" gasped Thérèse, looking at the dispassionate Texan with
horrified eyes.

"Wall, yes," an admission which he seemed not yet willing to leave
unqualified; for he went on "It don't do to alluz speak out open an'
above boards, leastways not thar in Cornstalk. But I'll 'low to you,
it's my opinion the colonel acted hasty. It's true 'nough, the young
feller hed drawed, but ez I said to Tozier, thet's no reason to
persume it was his intention to use his gun."

So Grégoire was dead. She understood it all now. The manner of his
death was plain to her as if she had seen it, out there in some
disorderly settlement. Killed by the hand of a stranger with whom
perhaps the taking of a man's life counted as little as it had once
counted with his victim. This flood of sudden and painful intelligence
staggered her, and leaning against the column she covered her eyes
with both hands, for a while forgetting the presence of the man who
had brought the sad tidings.

But he had never ceased his monotonous unwinding. "Thar hain't no
manner o' doubt, marm," he was saying, "thet he did hev the sympathy
o' the intire community—ez far ez they was free to express
it—barrin' a few. Fur he was a likely young chap, that warn't no two
opinions o' that. Free with his money—alluz ready to set up fur a
friend. Here's a bit o' writin' thet'll larn you more o' the
pertic'lars," drawing a letter from his pocket, "writ by the Catholic
priest, by name of O'Dowd. He 'lowed you mought want proyer meetin's
and sich."

"Masses," corrected Thérèse, holding out her hand for the letter. With
the other hand she was wiping away the tears that had gathered thick
in her eyes.

"Thar's a couple more little tricks thet he sont," continued Rufe
Jimson, apparently dislocating his joints to reach the depths of his
trouser pocket, from which he drew a battered pocket book wrapped
around with an infinity of string. From the grimy folds of this
receptacle he took a small paper parcel which he placed in her hand.
It was partly unfastened, and as she opened it fully, the pent-up
tears came blindingly—for before her lay a few curling rings of soft
brown hair, and a pair of scapulars, one of which was pierced by a
tell-tale bullet hole.

"Won't you dismount?" she presently asked again, this time a little
more kindly.

"No, marm," said the Texan, jerking his hitherto patient pony by the
bridle till it performed feats of which an impartial observer could
scarcely have suspected it.

"Don't reckon I could make Colfax before dark, do you?"

"Hardly," she said, turning away, "I'm much obliged to you, Mr.
Jimson, for having taken this trouble—if the flat is on the other
side, you need only call for it."

"Wall, good day, marm—I wish you luck," he added, with a touch of
gallantry which her tears and sweet feminine presence had inspired.
Then turning, he loped his horse rapidly forward, leaning well back in
the saddle and his elbows sawing the air.

It was talked about and wept about at Place-du-Bois, that Grégoire
should be dead. It seemed to them all so unbelievable. Yet, whatever
hesitancy they had in accepting the fact of his death, was perforce
removed by the convincing proof of Father O'Dowd's letter.

None could remember but sweetness and kindness of him. Even Nathan,
who had been one day felled to earth by a crowbar in Grégoire's hand,
had come himself to look at that deed as not altogether blamable in
light of the provocation that had called it forth.

Fanny remembered those bouquets which had been daily offered to her
forlornness at her arrival; and the conversations in which they had
understood each other so well. The conviction that he was gone away
beyond the possibility of knowing him further, moved her to tears.
Hosmer, too, was grieved and shocked, without being able to view the
event in the light of a calamity.

No one was left unmoved by the tidings which brought a lowering cloud
even upon the brow of Aunt Belindy, to rest there the whole day. Deep
were the mutterings she hurled at a fate that could have been so
short-sighted as to remove from earth so bright an ornament as
Grégoire. Her grief further spent much of itself upon the inoffensive
Betsy, who, for some inscrutable reason was for twenty-four hours
debarred entrance to the kitchen.

Thérèse seated at her desk, devoted a morning to the writing of
letters, acquainting various members of the family with the unhappy
intelligence. She wrote first to Madame Santien, living now her lazy
life in Paris, with eyes closed to the duties that lay before her and
heart choked up with an egoism that withered even the mother
instincts. It was very difficult to withhold the reproach which she
felt inclined to deal her; hard to refrain from upbraiding a
selfishness which for a life-time had appeared to Thérèse as criminal.

It was a matter less nice, less difficult, to write to the
brothers—one up on the Red River plantation living as best he could;
the other idling on the New Orleans streets. But it was after all a
short and simple story to tell. There was no lingering illness to
describe; no moment even of consciousness in which harrowing last
words were to be gathered and recorded. Only a hot senseless quarrel
to be told about; the speeding of a bullet with very sure aim,
and—quick death.

Of course, masses must be said. Father O'Dowd was properly instructed.
Père Antoine in Centerville was addressed on the subject. The Bishop
of Natchitoches, respectfully asked to perform this last sad office
for the departed soul. And the good old priest and friend at the New
Orleans Cathedral, was informed of her desires. Not that Thérèse held
very strongly to this saying of masses for the dead; but it had been a
custom holding for generations in the family and which she was not
disposed to abandon now, even if she had thought of it.

The last letter was sent to Melicent. Thérèse made it purposely short
and pointed, with a bare statement of facts—a dry, unemotional
telling, that sounded heartless when she read it over; but she let it
go.

Melicent was standing in her small, quaint sitting-room, her back to
the fire, and her hands clasped behind her. How handsome was this
Melicent! Pouting now, and with eyes half covered by the dark shaded
lids, as they gazed moodily out at the wild snowflakes that were
hurrying like crazy things against the warm window pane and meeting
their end there. A loose tea-gown clung in long folds about her. A
dull colored thing, save for the two broad bands of sapphire plush
hanging straight before, from throat to toe. Melicent was plainly
dejected; not troubled, nor sad, only dejected, and very much bored; a
condition that had made her yawn several times while she looked at the
falling snow.

She was philosophizing a little. Wondering if the world this morning
were really the unpleasant place that it appeared, or if these
conditions of unpleasantness lay not rather within her own mental
vision; a train of thought that might be supposed to have furnished
her some degree of entertainment had she continued in its pursuit. But
she chose rather to dwell on her causes of unhappiness, and thus
convince herself that that unhappiness was indeed outside of her and
around her and not by any possibility to be avoided or circumvented.
There lay now a letter in her desk from David, filled with admonitions
if not reproof which she felt to be not entirely unjust, on the
disagreeable subject of Expenses. Looking around the pretty room she
conceded to herself that here had been temptations which she could not
reasonably have been expected to withstand. The temptation to lodge
herself in this charming little flat; furnish it after her own liking;
and install that delightful little old poverty-stricken English woman
as keeper of Proprieties, with her irresistible white starched caps
and her altogether delightful way of inquiring daily after that "poor,
dear, kind Mr. Hosmer." It had all cost a little more than she had
foreseen. But the worst of it, the very worst of it was, that she had
already begun to ask herself if, for instance, it were not very
irritating to see every day, that same branching palm, posing by the
window, in that same yellow jardinière. If those draperies that
confronted her were not becoming positively offensive in the monotony
of their solemn folds. If the cuteness and quaintness of the
poverty-stricken little English woman were not after all a source of
entertainment that she would willingly forego on occasion. The answer
to these questions was a sigh that ended in another yawn.

Then Melicent threw herself into a low easy chair by the table, took
up her visiting book, and bending lazily with her arms resting on her
knees, began to turn over its pages. The names which she saw there
recalled to her mind an entertainment at which she had assisted on the
previous afternoon. A progressive euchre party; and the remembrance of
what she had there endured now filled her soul with horror.

She thought of those hundred cackling women—of course women are never
cackling, it was Melicent's exaggerated way of expressing
herself—packed into those small overheated rooms, around those
twenty-five little tables; and how by no chance had she once found
herself with a congenial set. And how that Mrs. Van Wycke had cheated!
It was plain to Melicent that she had taken advantage of having fat
Miss Bloomdale for a partner, who went to euchre parties only to show
her hands and rings. And little Mrs. Brinke playing against her.
Little Mrs. Brinke! A woman who only the other day had read an
original paper entitled: "An Hour with Hegel" before her philosophy
class; who had published that dry mystical affair "Light on the
Inscrutable in Dante." How could such a one by any possibility be
supposed to observe the disgusting action of Mrs. Van Wycke in
throwing off on her partner's trump and swooping down on the last
trick with her right bower? Melicent would have thought it beneath her
to more than look her contempt as Mrs. Van Wycke rose with a
triumphant laugh to take her place at a higher table, dragging the
plastic Bloomdale with her. But she did mutter to herself now, "nasty
thief."

"Johannah," Melicent called to her maid who sat sewing in the next
room.

"Yes, Miss."

"You know Mrs. Van Wycke?"

"Mrs. Van Wycke, Miss? the lady with the pinted nose that I caught
a-feeling of the curtains?"

"Yes, when she calls again I'm not at home. Do you understand? not at
home."

"Yes, Miss."

It was gratifying enough to have thus summarily disposed of Mrs. Van
Wycke; but it was a source of entertainment which was soon ended.
Melicent continued to turn over the pages of her visiting book during
which employment she came to the conclusion that these people whom she
frequented were all very tiresome. All, all of them, except Miss Drake
who had been absent in Europe for the past six months. Perhaps Mrs.
Manning too, who was so seldom at home when Melicent called. Who when
at home, usually rushed down with her bonnet on, breathless with "I
can only spare you a moment, dear. It's very sweet of you to come."
She was always just going to the "Home" where things had got into such
a muddle whilst she was away for a week. Or it was that "Hospital"
meeting where she thought certain members were secretly conniving at
her removal from the presidency which she had held for so many years.
She was always reading minutes at assemblages which Melicent knew
nothing about; or introducing distinguished guests to Guild room
meetings. Altogether Melicent saw very little of Mrs. Manning.

"Johannah, don't you hear the bell?"

"Yes, Miss," said Johannah, coming into the room and depositing a gown
on which she had been working, on the back of a chair. "It's that
postman," she said, as she fastened her needle to the bosom of her
dress. "And such a one as he is, thinking that people must fly when he
so much as touches the bell, and going off a writing of 'no answer to
bell,' and me with my hand on the very door-knob."

"I notice that always happens when I'm out, Johannah; he's ringing
again."

It was Thérèse's letter, and as Melicent turned it about and looked
critically at the neatly written address, it was not without a hope
that the reading of it might furnish her a moment's diversion. She did
not faint. The letter did not "fall from her nerveless clasp." She
rather held it very steadily. But she grew a shade paler and looked
long into the fire. When she had read it three times she folded it
slowly and carefully and locked it away in her desk.

"Johannah."

"Yes, Miss."

"Put that gown away; I shan't need it."

"Yes, Miss; and all the beautiful passmantry that you bought?"

"It makes no difference, I shan't use it. What's become of that black
camel's-hair that Mrs. Gauche spoiled so last winter?"