The New Missioner/Chapter 22

ADE aware of the tragedy which had occurred in the village by various swift-footed messengers, who showed the usual alacrity of swift-footed messengers in purveying evil tidings, Frances had twice during the night been to the O'Brien cottage; but the Black Pearl had persistently refused to see her, and had had conveyed to her in no uncertain terms that she had no desire to profit by any of the stock of comfort or consolation that Frances, or any other spiritual adviser might have on hand.

The following morning the Missionary sat in her doorway, her head bent over some sewing and her face sad and troubled. The circumstance of O'Brien's death had shocked her indescribably and it continued to occupy her thoughts to such an extent that she was almost oblivious of Angel, who had paid Frances one of her rare visits that morning, and, after a cursory and indifferent survey of the cabin and its occupant, had betaken herself to a tree, and now sat perched on a bough of one of the quivering aspens near the door. The golden leaves fluttered restlessly about her or floated dreamily through the sun-warmed November air.

A sad-faced monkey with the world-weariness of ages in its eyes, gibbered and chattered on a branch above her or occupied itself sufficiently in frightening, with sly malice, the bluejays and magpies which exchanged raucous comments on its behaviour.

Presently Angel slid down the tree to the infinite detriment of her frock, a consideration which never suggested itself to her, and seated herself beside Frances, as if, for once in a way, she felt the need of human companionship. This was somewhat surprising, as, being a person of infinite resource herself, she depended on no one for entertainment or amusement.

"I'd rather hear squirrels and birds talk dan people," she finally announced.

"Squirrels and birds can't talk," said Frances abstractedly.

"Dey can too," affirmed Angel, with placid assurance. "Dat's all you know. Dey tell me funny things. So do Hurry-Scurry," pointing to her monkey. She appeared to meditate a few moments. "I went into the woods an' heard Mis' O'Brien talk. She talks sis way: 'I'm awful sorry, honest I am, Bob; but I couldn't go.'"

Frances could not repress the start which was involuntary with her, at any of Angel's impersonations, they were so curiously life-like. You had but to shut your eyes to see the Black Pearl standing before you; for her soft, sliding voice was very perfectly reproduced by the child.

Angel, flattered as ever by spontaneous appreciation, whenever she chose to exhibit her gifts, prepared to further dazzle her audience. "An' Bob Flick say sis way:

"'I always wanted you, Pearl. I'd a stole an' lied, an' fought for you, too. See? Will you come down the trail wif me next Thursday?'"

"I told Herries, an' he laughed sis way: 'Ho, ho, ho!'"

Herries's harsh laughter, more bitter, more sardonic than ever, rang from her lips.

Frances shivered. "Don't, Angel," she cried sharply. "It sounds horrible. Where did you hear such gibberish? Has someone been teaching you a play?"

But Angel only smiled after her own inscrutable fashion, and dragging White Puppy toward her, began to instruct him in the painful act of standing on his hind legs.

From time to time during the day, the child's words recurred to Frances and she found herself pondering over them, vaguely troubled and distressed by them, and yet, failing to attach any definite meaning to Angel's disjointed phrases.

In the afternoon Carrothers stopped at the cabin door. He spoke at once of the village tragedy, and seemed rather troubled over it in a vague and indecisive way, and at the same time rather self-congratulatory in an equally vague and indecisive way that he was not of that breed of men to whom violent passions brought violent reckonings.

"Have you been able to see our sister—I mean the erring woman who is responsible for this tragedy?" he asked Frances.

"No." She shook her head.

"I have," importance and resentment struggling for mastery. "She is more hardened than I could have believed." A flush rose on his cheek. "I—I was treated with contumely."

Frances's lips curved in a faint, ironic smile. She could well imagine it.

"It's a solemn thing to think of the state of such souls." But his tone was mollified; the swift vision of retribution was evidently comforting. "And, oh, Missioner, I saw Mr. Herries a few moments this afternoon and was struck by his manner and appearance. What ails him?"

"Mr. Herries?" Frances lifted her head quickly. "Is he ill? Why, he would surely have let me know!"

"He didn't seem ill," explained Carrothers conscientiously. "He seemed to be labouring with some distress of mind which he tried, I thought, to hide from me."

Frances rolled up her work. "I think, if you will excuse me," she said, rising, "I will go up to his cabin and see is he ill or in trouble. He may need me—or, wait"

She ran inside and fetched the little whistle which Herries had given her long ago. Twice she blew on it, and then, shading her eyes with her hand, peered curiously up the trail to the old Scotchman's cabin; but he did not appear in the doorway and hasten down the hill as was his wont when she thus summoned him.

Really worried now, she lost no time in climbing the hill to his hut. The door stood open, swinging back and forth on its hinges. Within, the room was disorderly; the fire out in the stove, and there were no traces of any food having been prepared that day.

Frances, feeling more puzzled than ever, pencilled a little note and leaving it on the table, closed the door behind her and retraced her steps homeward. There seemed, for the moment, nothing else to do; but she could not rid herself of the feeling of apprehension and worry; and when Garvin sat in her little living room that evening she confided her feeling to him. He attributed this entirely to the shock she had suffered the night before, and its corresponding effect on her nerves.

"The old man is all right," he assured her, "but I will go up to his shanty after I leave you, and if he is not there, I will either look him up myself or have someone else do so. There, will that satisfy you? Believe me, nothing can happen to Herries."

"I know I'm foolish," she said deprecatingly, "but"

"Ah, Missioner," he besought, using that term as playfully as always, and yet speaking with real earnestness, "forget Herries, forget this ugly affair of the O'Briens, forget all these people who come and make demands on you, and give me this evening. Think only of me and of yourself."

She smiled at him, that delightful smile which always struck one afresh with its tenderness and charm.

"You have been hard on me since my friends went away," drawing his chair near to her and taking her hands closely in his. "You have scarcely given me a minute, and you're always ready to give any old tramp that wants it, all the minutes he or she may ask; and no one craves your minutes as I do, Frances, or prizes them half so much." His voice fell into deep and tender intonations. "Ah, Frances, I never knew any woman like you—I've always known the other kind—and a new life has begun for me. Why, life, my life, that I thought about lived, is new and fresh through my love for you. I can't understand it. It's the most wonderful transforming and renewing of energy that ever happened. A few months ago I was tired, cynical; life was half, or perhaps more than half lived, and it did not matter, for it held nothing that I really cared for. I was conscious, fully conscious, of the power that was in my hands through my money, and to save myself, I couldn't care a rap about it. There was nothing it could buy me that I really wanted. And then I met you. I loved you." He laid his cheek against her hands folded in his. "I loved you from the first; and I'm young again. Why, it's the fate of a god!" His face was touched with a pale and glowing enthusiasm. "I'm young, ambitious, the world's a world of illusions. I believe in good because I believe in you. I have experience, great wealth, revived interest. What may I not do now, Frances!" His voice thrilled with triumphant rapture.

His words lifted her into the very heart of the splendid worlds; the ivory gates swung wide; but on those fair sun-lighted shores she became suddenly conscious of the menacing surf of a great ocean, the ocean of pain, and she seemed to hear through the pleasing of all delicate and harmonious sounds the cries of the shipwrecked.

"You do love me, Frances? You will marry me?" His words came to her as from far away, and muffled by the roar of the mighty sea.

And now the delicate and harmonious sounds swelled also to an ocean, and between the roar of the opposing surges, the surges of the ocean of pain and the ocean of joy, she became bewildered and confused beyond speech.

She struggled to her feet; he saw that her face was deadly white, and she pressed her hands to her eyes.

"To-morrow," she whispered, pleadingly. "I—I can't"

"You are tired out," he murmured. "These merciless people. They draw and draw and draw on you. Well, we'll put a stop to that. I am going now, and you are to rest, Frances, to take a long rest and let no one disturb you. Will you promise me that?"

She nodded.

"And I will not come, I promise you, before to-morrow evening. No, that is so long—to-morrow afternoon."

She smiled faintly. "To-morrow afternoon."

But in spite of her promise, she rested but little that night, for on the golden sands of all her splendid worlds there still beat the low, terrible surges of the ocean of pain, and through crowding and glorious visions, she saw the face of Herries turned to her and he, who never asked, besought help and comfort.

Finding it impossible to sleep, she arose very early and made her way up to the old man's cabin, and there, to her relief, she found him. The light was just glimmering over the hills as she threw wider the half open door. He sat alone, in the shadows, his head sunk on his breast. His face had sharpened visibly, the outline more cameo-like than ever, and his skin had acquired a strange, blue pallor; the bitter lines about the mouth had also deepened perceptibly.

"Mr. Herries," cried Frances from the doorway; but he looked at her without response, looked at her unflinchingly, and yet, as if she were but another of the many phantoms of the night come to mock him. She went forward and kneeling beside him, took in hers his cold hands. "Mr. Herries," she implored, "what is it?"

He looked at her a few minutes in silence.

"It was I—I who killed O'Brien," he muttered at last. "I saw Bob Flick and the Pearl meeting day after day. I sent Angel into the pines to listen to them—I went myself—I told O'Brien—I knew how mad and jealous he was, but I told him."

Frances shrank from him, her face white. "You told him!" she whispered. "You told him! Why?"

"God knows why—I persuaded myself that he ought to know, that it was right that I should tell him; but I know now that it was the devil in me. I'd got so that I couldn't believe in God or man, and the black malice in my heart had to take shape and strike; but I believed in you, Missioner, I believed in you and I'd made up my mind to come to you before I spoke to O'Brien. Then I looked through your window, and I saw you sitting there with Garvin, with a smile on your lips and a bunch of roses, red roses on your breast—and I turned away. Why should I spoil your happiness?"

Frances crouched, almost cringed on the floor beside him in silence.

"Aye, shrink from me," he cried. "You're right. I ask no forgiveness."

"Forgiveness! Forgiveness!" she cried poignantly. "Oh, can you ever forgive me?" She got to her feet, a curious blank, almost blind look in her eyes, and drifted through the door. Out on the hillside, she walked on and on, indifferent, unconscious of the direction she took, until wearied, she sank down beneath a tree and sat there for a long time, brooding, motionless. At last she arose and walked, though wearily, on up the hill.