The Prodigal Judge

CHAPTER XXII
AT THE CHURCH DOOR

There was the patter of small feet beyond Betty's door, and little Steve, who looked more like a nice fat black Cupid than anything else, rapped softly; at the same time he effected to squint through the keyhole.

"Supper served, Missy," he announced, then he turned no less than seven handsprings in the upper hall and slid down the balustrade to the floor below. He was far from being a model house servant.

His descent was witnessed by the butler. Now in his own youth big Steve with as fair a field had cut similar capers, yet he was impelled by his sense of duty to do for his grandson what his own father had so often done for him, and in no perfunctory manner. It was only the sound of Betty's door opening and closing that stayed his hand as he was making choice of a soft and vulnerable spot to which he should apply it. Little Steve slid under the outstretched arm that menaced him and fled to the dining-room.

Betty came slowly down the stairs. Four hours since Jeff had ridden away with the letter. Already there had come to her moments when, she would have given much could she have recalled it, when she knew with dread certainty that whatever her feeling for Charley, it was not love; moments when she realized that she had been cruelly driven by circumstances into a situation that offered no escape.

"Mas'r Tom he say he won't come in to supper, Missy; he 'low he's powerful busy, gittin' ready to go to Memphis in the mo'ning," explained Steve, as he followed Betty into the dining-room.

His mistress nodded indifferently as she seated herself at the table; she was glad to be alone just then; she was in no mood to carry on the usual sluggish conversation with Tom; her own thoughts absorbed her more and more they became terrifying things to her.

She ate her supper with big Steve standing behind her chair and little Steve balancing himself first on one foot and then on the other near the door. Little Steve's head was on a level with the chair rail and but for the rolling whites of his eyes he was no more than a black shadow against the walnut wainscoting; he formed the connecting link between the dining-room and the remote kitchen. Betty suspected that most of the platters journeyed down the long corridor deftly perched on top of his woolly head. She frequently detected him with greasy or sticky fingers, which while it argued a serious breach of trust also served to indicate his favorite dishes. These two servitors were aware that their mistress was laboring under some unusual stress of emotion. In its presence big Steven, who, with the slightest encouragement, became a medium through which the odds and ends of plantation gossip reached Betty's ears, held himself to silence; while little Steve ceased to shift his weight from foot to foot, the very dearth of speech fixed his attention.

The long French windows, their curtains drawn, stood open. All day a hot September sun had beaten upon the earth, but with the fall of twilight a soft wind had sprung up and the candles in their sconces flared at its touch. It came out of wide solitudes laden with the familiar night sounds. It gave Betty a sense of vast unused spaces, of Belle Plain clinging on the edge of an engulfing wilderness, of her own loneliness. She needed Charley as much as he seemed to think he needed her. The life she had been living had become suddenly impossible of continuance; that it had ever been possible was because of Charley; she knew this now as she had never known it before.

Her thoughts dealt with the past. In her one great grief, her mother's death, it had been Charley who had sustained and comforted her. She was conscious of a choking sense of gratitude as she recalled his patient tenderness at that time, the sympathy and understanding he had shown; it was something never to be forgotten.

Unrest presently sent her from the house. She wandered down to the terrace. Before her was the wide sweep of the swampy fore-shore, and beyond just beginning to silver in the moonlight, the bend of the river growing out of the black void. With her eyes on the river and her hands clasped loosely she watched the distant line of the Arkansas coast grow up against the sky; she realized that the moon was rising on Betty Malroy for the last time.

She liked Charley; she needed some one to take care of her and her belongings, and he needed her. It was best for them both that she should marry him. True she might have gone back to Judith Ferris; that would have been one solution of her difficulties. Why hadn't she thought of doing this before? Of course, Charley would have followed her East. Charley met the ordinary duties and responsibilities of his position somewhat recklessly; it was only where she was concerned that he became patiently determined.

"I suppose the end would have been the same there as here," thought Betty.

A moment later she found herself wondering if Charley had told Carrington yet; certainly the Kentuckian would not remain at Thicket Point when he knew. She was sure she wished him to leave not Thicket Point merely, but the neighborhood. She did not wish to see him again—not see him again—not see him again—She found herself repeating the words over and over; they shaped themselves into a dreadful refrain. A nameless terror of the future swept in upon her. She was cold and sick. It was as though an icy hand was laid upon her heart. The words ran on in endless repetition—not see him again—they held the very soul of tragedy for her, yet she was roused to passionate protest. She must not think of him, he was nothing to her. She was to be married to another man, even now she was almost a wife—but battle as she might the struggle went on.

There was the sound of a step on the path. Betty turned, supposing it to be Tom; but it was not Tom, it was Carrington himself who stood before her, his face haggard and drawn. She uttered an involuntary exclamation and shrank away from him. Without a word he stepped to her side and took her hands rather roughly.

For a moment there was silence between them, Betty stared up into his face with wide scared eyes, while he gazed down at her as if he would fasten something on his mind that must never be forgotten. Suddenly he lifted her soft cold hands to his lips and kissed them passionately again and again; then he held them in his own against his cheek, his glance still fixed intently upon her; it held something of bitterness and reproach, but now she kept her eyes under their quivering lids from him.

"What am I to do without you?"—his voice was almost a whisper. "What is this thing you have done?" Betty's heart was beating with dull sickening throbs, but she dared not trust herself to answer him. He took both her hands in one of his, and, slipping the other under her chin, raised her face so that he could look into her eyes; then he put his arm loosely about her, holding her hands against his breast. "If I could have had one moment out of all the years for my own—only one. I am glad you don't care, dear; it hurts when you reach the end of something that has been all your hope and filled all your days. I have come to say good-by, Betty; this is the last time I shall see you. I am going away."

All in an instant Betty pressed close to him, hiding her face in his arm; she clung to him in a panic of pain and horror. She felt something stir within her that had never been there before, as a storm of passionate longing swept through her. Her words, her promise to another man, became as nothing. All her pride was forgotten. Without this man the days stretched away before her a blank. His arm drew her closer still, until she felt her heart throb against his.

"Do you care?" he said, and seemed to wonder that she should.

"Bruce, Bruce, I didn't know—and now—Oh, my dear, my dear—" He pressed his lips against the bright little head that rested in such miserable abandon against his shoulder.

"Do you love me?" he whispered. The blood ran riot in his veins.

"Why have you stayed away—why didn't you come to me? I have promised him—" she gasped.

"I know," he said, and shut his lips. There was another silence while she waited for him to speak. She felt that she was at his mercy, that whether right or wrong, as he decided so it would be. At length he said. "I thought it wasn't fair to him, and it seemed so hopeless after I came here. I had nothing—and a man feels that—so I kept away." He spoke awkwardly with something of the reserve that was habitual to him.

"If you had only come!" she moaned.

"I did—once," he muttered.

"You didn't understand; why did you believe anything I said to you? It was only that I cared—that in my heart I knew I cared—I've cared about you ever since that trip down the river, and now I am going to be married to-morrow—to-morrow, Bruce—do you realize I have given my promise? I am to meet him at the Spring Bank church at ten o'clock—and it's tomorrow!" she cried, in a laboring choked voice. For answer he drew her closer. "Bruce, what can I do?—tell me what I can do."

Carrington made an involuntary gesture of protest.

"I can't tell you that, dear—for I don't know." His voice was steady, but it came from lips that quivered. He knew that he might have urged the supreme claim of his love and in her present desperate mood she would have listened, but the memory of Norton would have been between them always a shame and reproach; as surely as he stood there with his arms about her, as surely as she clung to him so warm and near, he would have lived to see the shadow of that shame in her eyes.

"I can not do it—I can not, Bruce!" she panted.

"Dear—dear—don't tempt me!" He held himself in check.

"I am going to tell you—just this once, Bruce—I love you—you are my own for this one moment out of my life!" and she abandoned herself to the passionate caressing with which he answered her. "How can I give you up?" he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. He put her from him almost roughly, and leaning against the trunk of a tree buried his face in his hands. Betty watched him for a moment in wretched silence.

"Don't feel so bad, Bruce," she said brokenly. "I am not worth it. I tried not to love you—I didn't want to." She raised a white face to his.

"I am going now, Betty. You—you shouldn't stay here any longer with me." He spoke with sudden resolution.

"And I shall not see you again?" she asked, in a low, stifled voice.

"It's good-by—" he muttered.

"Not yet—oh, not yet, Bruce—" she implored. "I can not—"

"Yes—now, dear. I don't dare stay—I may forget—" but he turned again to her in entreaty. "Give me something to remember in all the years that are coming when I shall be alone—let me kiss you on the lips—let me—just this once—it's good-by we're saying—it's good-by, Betty!"

She went to him, and, as he bent above her, slipped her arms about his neck.

"Kiss me—" she breathed.

He kissed her hair, her soft cheek, then their lips met.

He helped her as she stumbled blindly along the path to the house, and half lifted her up the steps to the door. They paused there for a moment. At last he turned from her abruptly in silence. A step away he halted.

"If you should ever need me—" "Never as now," she said.

She saw his tall figure pass down the path, and her straining eyes followed until it was lost in the mild wide spaces of the night.

Another hot September sun was beating upon the earth as Betty galloped down the lane and swung her horse's head in the direction of Raleigh. Her grief had worn itself out and she carried a pale but resolute face. Carrington was gone; she would keep her promise to Charley and he should never know what his happiness had cost her. She nerved herself for their meeting; somewhere between Belle Plain and Thicket Point Norton would be waiting for her.

He joined her before she had covered a third of the distance that separated the two plantations.

"Thank God, my darling!" he cried fervently, as he ranged up alongside of her.

"Then you weren't sure of me, Charley?"

"No, I wasn't sure, Betty—but I hoped. I have been haunting the road for more than an hour. You are making one poor unworthy devil happy, unless—"

"Unless what, Charley?" she prompted.

"Unless you came here merely to tell me that after all you couldn't marry me." He put out his hand and covered hers that held the reins. "I'll never give you cause to regret it—you know how I love you, dear?"

"Yes, Charley—I know." She met his glance bravely.

"We are to go to the church. Mr. Bowen will be there; I arranged with him last night; he will drive over with his wife and daughter, who will be our witnesses, dear. We could have gone to his house, but I thought it would seem more like a real wedding in a church, you know."

Betty did not answer him, her eyes were fixed straight ahead, the last vestige of color had faded from her face and a deathly pallor was there. This was the crowning horror. She felt the terrible injustice she was doing the man at her side, the depth and sincerity of his devotion was something for which she could make no return. Her lips trembled on the verge of an avowal of her love for Carrington. Presently she saw the church in its grove of oaks, in the shade of one of these stood Mr. Bowen's horse and buggy.

"We won't have to wait on him!" said Norton.

"No—" Betty gasped out the monosyllable.

"Why—my darling—what's the matter?" he asked tenderly, his glance bent in concern on the frightened face of the girl.

"Nothing—nothing, Charley."

They had reined in their horses. Norton sprang to the ground and lifted her from the saddle.

"It will only take a moment, dear!" he whispered encouragingly in the brief instant he held her in his arms.

"Oh, Charley, it isn't that—it's dreadfully serious—" she said, with a wild little laugh that was almost hysterical.

"I wouldn't have it less than that," he said gravely.

Afterward Betty could remember standing before the church in the fierce morning light; she heard Mr. Bowen's voice, she heard Charley's voice, she heard another voice—her own, though she scarcely recognized it. Then, like one aroused from a dream, she looked about her—she met Charley's glance; his face was radiant and she smiled back at him through a sudden mist that swam before her eyes.

Mr. Bowen led her toward the church door. As they neared it they caught the clatter of hoofs, and Tom Ware on a hard-ridden horse dashed up; he was covered with dust and inarticulate with rage. Then a cry came from him that was like the roar of some mortally wounded animal.

"I forbid this marriage!" he shrieked, when he could command speech.

"You're too late to stop it, Tom, but you can attend it," said Norton composedly.

"You—you—" Words failed the planter; he sat his horse the picture of a grim and sordid despair.

Mr. Bowen divided a look of reproach between his wife and daughter; his own conscience was clear; he had told no one of the purpose of Norton's call the night before.

"I'll tie the horses, Betty," said Norton.

Ware turned fiercely to Bowen.

"You knew better than to be a party to this, and by God!—if you go on with it you shall live to regret it!"

The minister made him no answer, he thoroughly disapproved of the planter. It was well that Betty should have a proper protector, this half-brother was hardly that measured by any standard.

Norton, leading the horses, had reached the edge of the oaks when from the silent depths of the denser woods came the sharp report of a rifle. The shock of the bullet sent the young fellow staggering back among the mossy and myrtle-covered graves.

For a moment no one grasped what had happened, only there was Norton who seemed to grope strangely among the graves. Black spots danced before his eyes, the little group by the church merged into the distance—always receding, always more remote, as he, stumbled helplessly over the moss and the thick dank myrtle and among the round graves that gave him a treacherous footing; and then he heard Betty's agonized cry. He had fallen now, and his strength went from him, but he kept his face turned on the group before the church in mute appeal, and even as the shadows deepened he was aware that Betty was coming swiftly toward him.

"I'm shot—" he said, speaking with difficulty.

"Charley—Charley—" she moaned, slipping her strong young arms about him and gathering him to her breast.

He looked up into her face.

"It's all over—" he said, but as much in wonder as in fear. "But I knew you would come to me—dear—" he added in a whisper. She felt a shudder pass through him. He did not speak again. His lips opened once, and closed on silence.

---

Back | Next | Contents