The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
He struck another match.
"Don't be uneasy, it is nothing but an owl."
The light was turned up and showed an owl sitting on the top of an
old tester that had formerly been the canopy of her grandmother's
bed.
The owl stared stupidly at them--turning its head solemnly.
Helen laughed hysterically.
"Now, sit down on the old sofa," he said. "There is much to say to
you. We are now on the verge of a tragedy or a farce, or--"
"Sometimes plays end well, where all are happy, do they not?" she
asked, smiling hysterically and sitting by him, but looking at the
uncanny owl beyond. She was silent, then:
"Oh, I--I--don't you think I am entitled now--to have something end
happily--now--once--in my life?"
He pitied her and was silent.
"Tell me," she said after a while, "you have moved father and Lily
to--to--one of the Cottontown cottages?"
He arose: "In a little while I will tell you, but now we must have
something to eat first--you see I had this lunch fixed for our
journey." He went out, over to his lap-robe and cushion, and brought
a basket and placed it on an old table.
"You may begin now and be my housekeeper," he smiled. "Isn't it time
you were learning? I daresay I'll not find you a novice, though."
She flushed and smiled. She arose gracefully, and her pretty hands
soon had the lunch spread, Travis helping her awkwardly.
It was a pretty picture, he thought--her flushed girlish face, yet
matronly ways. He watched her slyly, with a sad joyousness in his
eyes, drinking it in, as one who had hungered long for contentment
and peace, such as this.
She had forgotten everything else in the housekeeping. She even
laughed some at his awkwardness and scolded him playfully, for,
man-like, forgetting a knife and fork. It was growing chilly, and
while she set the lunch he went out and brought in some wood. Soon a
fine oak fire burned in the fireplace.
They sat at the old table at last, side by side, and ate the
delightful lunch. Under the influence of the bottle of claret, from
The Gaffs cellar, her courage came and her animation was beautiful to
him--something that seemed more of girlhood than womanhood. He drank
it all in--hungry--heart-hungry for comfort and love; and she saw and
understood.
Never had he enjoyed a lunch so much. Never had he seen so beautiful
a picture!
When it was over he lit a cigar, and the fine odor filled the old
room.
Then very quietly he told her the story of Mammy Maria's return, of
the little home she had prepared for them; of her coming that day to
the mill and taking Lily, and that even now, doubtless, she was there
looking for the elder sister.
She did not show any surprise--only tears came slowly: "Do you know
that I felt that something of this kind would happen? Dear
Mammy--dear, dear Mammy Maria! She will care for Lily and father."
She could stand it no longer. She burst into childish tears and,
kneeling, she put her beautiful head on Travis's lap as innocently as
if it were her old nurse's, and she, a child, seeking consolation.
He stroked her hair, her cheek, gently. He felt his lids grow moist
and a tenderness he never had known came over him.
"I have told you this for a purpose," he whispered in her ear--"I
will take you to them, now."
She raised her wet eyes--flushed. He watched her closely to see signs
of any battle there. And then his heart gave a great leap and surged
madly as she said calmly: "No--no--it is too late--too late--now.
I--could--never explain. I will go with you, Richard Travis, to the
end of the world."
He sat very still and looked at her kneeling there as a child would,
both hands clasped around his knee, and looking into his eyes with
hers, gray-brown and gloriously bright. They were calm--so calm, and
determined and innocent. They thrilled him with their trust and the
royal beauty of her faith. There came to him an upliftedness that
shook him.
"To the end of the world," he said--"ah, you have said so much--so
much more than I could ever deserve."
"I have stood it all as long as I could. My father's drunkenness, I
could stand that, and Mammy's forsaking us, as I thought--that, too.
When the glory of work, of earning my own living opened itself to
me,--Oh, I grasped it and was happy to think that I could support
them! That's why your temptation--why--I--"
He winced and was silent.
"They were nothing," she went on, "but to be forgotten, forsaken
by--by--"
"Clay?" he helped her say.
"Oh," she flushed--"yes,--that was part of it, and then to see--to
see--you so different--with this strange look on you--something which
says so plainly to me that--that--oh, forgive me, but do you know I
seem to see you dying--dying all the time, and now you are so
changed--indeed--oh please understand me--I feel differently toward
you--as I would toward one dying for sympathy and love."
She hid her face again. He felt his face grow hot. He sat perfectly
still, listening. At last she said:
"When I came here to-night and saw it all--empty--I thought: 'This
means I am deserted by all--he has brought me here to see it--to know
it. What can I do but go with him? It is all that is left. Did I make
myself? Did I give myself this fatal beauty--for you say I am
beautiful. And did I make you with your strength--your conquering
strength, and--Oh, could I overcome my environment?' But now--now--it
is different--and if I am lost, Richard Travis--it will be your
fault--yours and God's."
He stroked her hair. He was pale and that strange light which Jud
Carpenter had seen in his eyes that afternoon blazed now with a
nervous flash.
"That is my story," she cried. "It is now too late even for God to
come and tell me through you--now since we--you and I--oh, how can I
say it--you have taken me this way--you, so strong and brave
and--grand--"
He flushed hot with shame. He put his hand gently over her mouth.
"Hush--hush--child--my God--you hurt me--shame me--you know not what
you say."
"I can understand all--but one thing," she went on after a while.
"Why have you brought me to this--here--at night alone with you--to
tell me this--to make me--me--oh, change in my feelings--to you? Oh,
must I say it?" she cried--"tell you the truth--that--that--now since
I see you as you are--I--I,--I am willing to go!"
"Hush, Helen, my child, my God--don't crush me--don't--listen,
child--listen! I am a villain--a doubly-dyed, infamous one--when you
hear"--
She shook her head and put one of her pretty hands over his mouth.
"Let me tell you all, first. Let me finish. After all this, why have
you brought me here to tell me this, when all you had to do was to
keep silent a few more hours--take me on to the station, as you
said--and--and--"
"I will tell you," he said gently. "Yes, you have asked the question
needed to be explained. Now hear from my own lips my infamy--not all
of it, God knows--that would take the night; but this peculiar part
of it. Do you know why I love to stroke your hair, why I love to
touch it, to touch you, to look into your eyes; why I should love,
next to one thing of all earth, to take you in my arms and smother
you--kill you with kisses--your hair, your eyes, your mouth?"
She hid her face, crimson.
"Did no one tell you, ever tell you--how much you look like your
cousin"--he stopped--he could not say the word, but she guessed.
White with shame, she sprang up from him, startled, hurt. Her heart
tightened into a painful thing which pricked her.
"Then--then--it is not I--but my Cousin Alice--oh--I--yes--I did
hear--I should have known"--it came from her slowly and with a
quivering tremor.
He seized her hands and drew her back down by him on the sofa.
"When I started into this with you I was dead--dead. My soul was
withered within me. All women were my playthings--all but one. She
was my Queen--my wife that was to be. I was dead, my God--how dead I
was! I now see with a clearness that is killing me; a clearness as of
one waking from sleep and feeling, in the first wave of conscience,
that inconceivable tenderness which hurts so--hurts because it is
tender and before the old hard consciousness of material things come
again to toughen. How dead I was, you may know when I say that all
this web now around you--from your entrance into the mill till
now--here to-night--in my power--body and soul--that it was all to
gratify this dead sea fruit of my soul, this thing in me I cannot
understand, making me conquer women all my life for--oh, as a lion
would, to kill, though not hungry, and then lie by them, dying, and
watch them,--dead! Then this same God--if any there be--He who you
say put more on you than you could bear--He struck me, as,
well--no--He did not strike--but ground me, ground me into dust--took
her out of my life and then laid my soul before me so naked that the
very sunlight scorches it. What was it the old preacher said--that
'touch of God' business? 'Touch--'" he laughed, "not touch, but blow,
I say--a blow that ground me into star-dust and flung me into space,
my heart a burning comet and my soul the tail of it, dissolving
before my very eyes. What then can I, a lion, dying, care for the doe
that crosses my path? The beautiful doe, beautiful even as you are.
Do you understand me, child?"
She scarcely knew what she did. She remembered only the terrible
empty room. The owl uncannily turning its head here and there and
staring at her with its eyes, yellow in the firelight.
She dropped on the floor by him and clung again to his knees, her
head in his lap in pity for him.
"That is the story of the dying lion," he said after a while. "The
lion who worked all his cunning and skill and courage to get the
beautiful doe in his power, only to find he was dying--dying and
could not eat. Could you love a dying lion, child?" he asked
abruptly--"tell me truly, for as you speak so will I act--would make
you queen of all the desert."
She raised her eyes to his. They were wet with tears. He had touched
the pity in them. She saw him as she had never seen him before. All
her fear of him vanished, and she was held by the cords of a strange
fascination. She knew not what she did. The owl looked at her
queerly, and she almost sobbed it out, hysterically:
"Oh, I could--love--you--you--who are so strong and who
suffer--suffer so"--
"You could love me?" he asked. "Then, then I would marry you
to-night--now--if--if--that uncovering--that touch--had not been put
upon me to do nobler things than to gratify my own passion, had not
shown me the other half which all these years has been dead--my
double." He was silent.
"And so I sent to-day," he began after a while, "for a friend of
yours, one with whom you can be happier than--the dying lion. He has
been out of the county--sent out--it was part of the plan, part of
the snare of the lion and his whelp. And so I sent for him this
morning, feeling the death blow, you know. I sent him an urgent
message, to meet you here at nine." He glanced at his watch. "It is
past that now, but he had far to ride. He will come, I hope--ah,
listen!"
They heard the steps of a rider coming up the gravel walk.
"It is he," said Travis calmly--"Clay."
She sprang up quickly, half defiantly. The old Conway spirit flashed
in her eyes and she came to him tall and splendid and with half a
look of protest, half command, and yet in it begging, pleading,
yearning for--she knew not what.
"Why--why--did you? Oh, you do not know! You do not
understand--love--love--can it be won this way--apprenticed,
bargained--given away?"
"You must go with him, he loves you. He will make you happy. I am
dying--is not part of me already dead?"
For answer she came to him, closer, and stood by him as one who in
war stands by a comrade shot through and ready to fall.