A WEEK or two after the dinner at Isleham, Pembroke sat in his office, one afternoon, at the county-seat, with a letter spread out before him. It was very thumbed and illiterate, and quite devoid of punctuation.
“Marse french, i is in a heap of truble marse french an i aint done nuttin—i bought ten akers fum mr. Hackett you know mr. hackett he some relation to dem Hibbses he come frum i donow whar an he allus cussin de yankees an I had done pay him fur de ten akers mos all i had done got married ter Jane you know Jane whar was Miss livia Berkeley maid, an mr. hackett he come an he say he was gwine take the baid an he call me a low down nigger and kase I arnser him he hit me wid he stick an marse french i couldn’t help it an he hit Jane too an i knock him down an o marse french he went home an naix day he die an de sheriff he come an put me in jail—i feerd dey gwine hang me like a hound dog i aint got no money fur lawyers, an mr. hackett’s folks dem Hibbses dey is engage all de lawyers i dunno what i gwine do if you doan cum home to try me marse french—you know i was yur vally an daddy he was ole marse’s vally, an me an you useter go fishin when we was small an ole marse useter lick bofe on us fur gittin drownded in de crick i carn sleep at night, not kase de bed is hard an de straw cum thu de tickin but kase i feerd dey gwine ter hang me like a hound dog de black folks is agin me kase mr. hackett was fum de norf an de white folks is agin me kase mr. hackett was white o marse french fur Gord Amighty’s sake come long home and doan let em hang me Jane she is mighty poly an carn cum to see me sum gentmun swar at me you aint never done it—you give me a quarter evry time I hol yo horse No mo now from
“bob henry.”
This letter had reached him in Paris, and had more to do with bringing him home just when he came than Madame Koller—much more than Madame Koller expected—or Olivia, either, for that matter.
“It is a rather hard case,” he thought to himself, with a grim smile, “a man can’t go and say, ‘See what a disinterested thing I have done: come home months before I intended, to defend a poor ragged black rascal that claimed to be my “vally,” and expects to be hanged—and half the county believes I came in obedience to Madame Koller.’” But it occurred to him that he had done a good deal to make both Olivia Berkeley and Madame Koller believe what was not true about his return.
He put on his hat and, putting the letter in his pocket, went out and mounted his horse and rode off at a smart canter away from the village, down a little-used road, until he came to a stretch of pine woods. Then, following a bridle path a mile or more, he came upon a log house.
Everything had an air of sylvan peace in the quiet autumn afternoon. There was nothing to indicate domestic life about the place—the persons who lived within had no garden, no fowls—nothing but the log cabin under the pines. Pembroke knocked loudly with the butt of his riding whip at the rude door, but a voice a little way off answered him.
“Don’t waste your strength on the portcullis of the castle. Here I am.”
Pembroke followed the sound, leading his horse, and in a minute or two came upon a man of middle age, lying full length on the soft bed of pine needles, with a book and a pipe.
“This is peaceful,” said Pembroke, after tethering his horse and seating himself. “At Malvern it is more lonely than peaceful. The house is so large and so empty—Miles and I live in one wing of it. It wasn’t half a bad thing for you, Cave, when the doctors ordered you to the pine woods.”
Cave nodded.
“It’s uncommonly quiet and peaceful, this camping out. As I have no other house to go to, since mine was burned down, it rather bridges over the gulf of appearances to say I am living in a log cabin by command of the most mighty Dr. Sam Jones.”
“And there is no loneliness like that of a half deserted house,” continued Pembroke, unconsciously dropping his voice in sympathy with the faint woodland murmur around them. “It seems to me at Malvern that I continually hear my mother’s voice, and my father’s footstep, and all the pleasant family commotion I remember. And Elizabeth—Cave, no woman I ever knew suffered like my sister—and she was not the woman to suffer patiently. Old Keturah tells me that my father would have yielded at any time after he saw that her heart and life were bound up in Waring—but she would not ask him—so while I was enjoying myself three thousand miles away, and only sad when I came home to Miles, Elizabeth and my father were fighting that dreary battle. Keturah says that everybody said she was sweetly and gently patient, but all night she would walk the floor sobbing and weeping, while my father below walked his floor. It killed them both.”
Cave had turned away his head. Who has watched one, dearly loved, waste and die for another, without knowing all there is of bitterness? And was Pembroke so forgetful? He was not, indeed—but he had begun telling of the things which troubled him, and because he could bear to speak of poor Elizabeth he thought that Cave could bear to hear it. But there was a pause—a pause in which Pembroke suddenly felt ashamed and heartless. Elizabeth’s death was much to him—but it was everything to Cave. So Pembroke continued, rather to excuse himself, “Your cabin in the woods is at least not haunted by the dead people you loved. Sometimes, when I go into my mother’s room and see everything as she left it—the mirror in which I have often seen her braid her hair—she had scarcely a gray lock in it when she died—I feel—I cannot describe to you what I feel.”
“You ought to marry,” remarked Cave, in a cold, quiet voice.
“Not I,” answered Pembroke, carelessly, glad to escape from the train he had himself started. “I suppose a man ought to marry some time or other—but forty is early enough. I wouldn’t mind waiting until I were fifty. At sixty a man is apt to make an infernal fool of himself.”
“How about Eliza Peyton—or Madame Koller—whom you followed here?”
Pembroke had lighted a cigar since they began talking, and had disposed of himself comfortably on the pine needles by the side of his friend. The silence was the unbroken silence of the autumn woods. There was not the faintest whisper of wind, but over their heads the solemn trees leaned together and rustled softly. A long pause came after Cave’s question. Into Pembroke’s sunburnt face a dark flush slowly mounted. It is not often that a man of his type, with his iron jaw and strong features, blushes—but this was a blush of consciousness, though not of shame.
“I did not follow her here,” he said. “But who believes me? I think the woman herself fancies I did follow her. As for that little haughty Olivia Berkeley, the girl gives me a look that is equivalent to a box on the ear every time Madame Koller is mentioned. If ever I marry, I shan’t take a woman of spirit, you may depend upon it. I shall take a placid, stout creature. An eaglet like Olivia Berkeley is well enough for a man to amuse himself with—but for steady matrimony give me a barnyard fowl.”
“God help you,” answered Cave piously.
“But what really brought me here—although I knew all the time that I ought not to be loitering in Europe, and would probably have come anyhow—was this poor devil, Bob Henry, in jail, charged with murdering Hackett, that scalawag the Hibbses brought here.”
At this Cave sat up, full of animation.
“I can help the poor fellow, I think,” he said. “I went to see him as soon as they put him in jail—a wretched looking object in rags he was, too. He seemed to put great faith in you, and I did not tell him of some evidence that I have got hold of. The fellow’s going to get clear between us, I think.”
Pembroke sat up too, and took the cigar out of his mouth. The lawyer’s instinct rose within him, and he took to his profession like a pointer to his field work.
“You see, having been away during Hackett’s time, I know nothing of his habits or associations except from hearsay. Any lawyer in the county could do better for poor Bob Henry than I—in that way.”
“Hackett, you know, was a Northern man, who came down here and bought property during the war. He was a rabid Southerner. I distrusted the man for that alone. He was related to our friends, the Hibbses. I always suspected he had something to do with that gang of deserters down by the river, and if he was not a spy, then John Cave is a fool.”
“Well—what else?”
“Of course you know about Bob Henry’s buying the land of him, and the money he owed him, and the fight. The negro, after Hackett had struck him and insulted his wife, struck him back with a stick. Now the Hibbses, and everybody else for that matter, think that blow killed him. You see, among the people Hackett had a kind of false popularity, as a Northern man who has espoused Southern sentiments—a hypocrite, in short. The feeling against that poor black wretch was savage.”
“So,” said Pembroke, “instead of proving that the blow did kill Hackett, the jury will want it proved that it didn’t kill Hackett.”
“Exactly.”
“Hackett, I understand, was a convivial soul. It can be proved that he mounted his horse, rode home, and six hours afterward was walking about. It never seemed to occur to these country doctors to look for any other injury than the bruise on the head, when they found him as good as dead next morning. I hear, though, that people who passed his house at night would often hear shouting and carousing. Now, who did that shouting and carousing? Not the gentlemen in the county, certainly, nor anybody else that I can find out. This fits in with your account of his associating with deserters. I have always had a theory that he received an injury that killed him between the time he was seen alive and apparently well, and when he was found dying in his bed.”
“That is precisely what I think—and I have a witness, a ragged boy, hereabouts, whom I have tried to keep respectable, who heard a great noise as of men shouting and drinking at Hackett’s house the night of Hackett’s death. The boy was cold and hungry, and although he knew he would be driven away if caught—for Hackett was a hard-hearted villain—yet he sneaked up to the house and gazed through the half-drawn curtains at the men sitting around the table, fascinated as he says by the sight of fire and food. He heard Hackett singing and laughing, and he saw the faces, and—mark you,—knows the names of those low fellows, who have never been suspected, and who have kept so remarkably quiet. Then, here is the point—one of the very men who deserted from my company, and was very thick afterward with Hackett, suddenly disappeared, and within a month died of injuries he could give no account of. You may depend upon it they had a fight, and it was my former companion in arms that killed the worthy Hackett—not poor Bob Henry’s blow.”
Pembroke’s dark eyes shone.
“We’ll keep this to ourselves, and make the fellow hold his tongue. We won’t give the deserters a chance to concoct a plausible lie. They will be certain to be at the court house when the trial comes off, and when I put them in the witness box unprepared—you will see.”
They talked over the case a half an hour longer before Pembroke got up to go. Then he said: “Are you going to call at The Beeches? You must have known Eliza Koller before she left here.”
“Know her,” cried Cave, “yes, I know her. I hope she has improved in every other way as much as she has in looks. I saw her the other day. It seemed to me that her hair was not so violently yellow when she went away; however, I’ll be cautious,—I see you are badly singed. Little Olivia Berkeley wouldn’t do for my lord—”
Pembroke got up and flung off in a passion, pursued by Cave shouting:
“I’ll give long odds on the widow!”