University of Virginia Library

15. A LITTLE BLACK BAG

Mary watched Nance, with a quick glance at Jim. Again he had forgotten that he had a wife. She had studied this strange absorption with increasing uneasiness. During the long, beautiful drive of the afternoon beside laughing waters, through scenes of unparalleled splendor, through valleys of entrancing peace, the still, sapphire skies bending above with clear, Southern Christmas benediction, he had not once pressed her hand, he had not once bent to kiss her.

Each time the thought had come, she fought back the tears. She had made excuses for him. He was absorbed in the memories of his miserable childhood in New York, perhaps. The approaching meeting with his relatives had awakened the old hunger for a mother's love that had been denied him. The scenes through which they were passing had perhaps stirred the currents of his subconscious being.

And yet why should such memories estrange his spirit from hers? The effect should be the opposite. In the remembrance of his loneliness and suffering, he should instinctively turn to her. The love with which she had unfolded his life should redeem the past.

He was standing now with his heavy chin silhouetted against the flickering light of the candle on the table. His hand closed suddenly on the handle of the bag with the swift clutch of an eagle's claw. She started at the ugly picture it made in the dim rays of the candle.

What were the thoughts seething behind the mask of his face? She watched him, spellbound by his complete surrender to the mood that had dominated him from the moment he had touched the deep forests of the Black Mountain range. A grim elation ruled even his silences. The man standing there rigid, his face a smiling, twitching mask, was a stranger. This man she had never known, or loved. And yet they were bound for life in the tenderest and strongest ties that can hold the human soul and body.

She tossed her head and threw off the ugly thought. It was morbid nonsense! She was just hungry for a kiss, and in his new environment he

had forgotten himself as many thoughtless men had forgotten before and would forget again.

"Jim!" she whispered tenderly.

He made no answer. His thick lips were drawn in deep, twisted lines on one side, as if he had suddenly reached a decision from which there could be no appeal.

She raised her voice slightly.

"Jim?"

Not a muscle of his body moved. The drawn lines of the mouth merely relaxed. His answer was scarcely audible.

"Yep — "

"She's gone!"

"Yep — "

She moved toward him wistfully.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

His square jaw still held its rigid position silhouetted in sharp profile against the candle's light. He answered slowly and mechanically.

"What?"

His indifference was more than the sore heart could bear. The pent-up tears of the afternoon dashed in flood against the barriers of her will.

"You — haven't — kissed — me — today," she stammered, struggling with each word to save a break.

Still he stood immovable. This time his answer was tinged with the slightest suggestion of amusement.

"No?"

She staggered against the table beside the door and gripped its edge desperately.

"Oh — " she gasped. "Don't you love me any more?"

With his sullen head still holding its position of indifference, his absorption in the idea which dominated his mind still unbroken, he threw out one hand in a gesture of irritation.

"Cut it, Kid! Cut it!"

His tones were not only indifferent; they were contemptuously indifferent.

With a sob, she sank into the chair and buried her face in her arms.

"You're tired! I see it now; you've tired of me. Oh — it's not possible — it's not possible!"

The torrent came at last in a flood of utter abandonment.

Jim turned, looked at her and threw up his hands in temporary surrender.

"Oh, for God's sake!" he muttered, crossing deliberately to her side. He stood and let her sob.

With a quick change of mood, he drew her to her feet, swept her swaying form into his arms, crushed her and covered her lips with kisses.

"How's that?"

She smiled through her tears.

"I feel better — "

Jim laughed.

"For better or worse — `until Death do us part' — that's what you said, Kid, and you meant it, too, didn't you?"

He seized both of her arms, held them firmly and gazed into her eyes with steady, stern inquiry.

She looked up with uneasy surprise.

"Of course — I meant it," she answered slowly.

He held her arms gripped close and said:

"Well — we'll see!"

His hands relaxed, and he turned away, rubbing his square chin thoughtfully.

She watched him in growing amazement. What could be the mystery back of this new twist of his elusive mind?

He laid his hand on the black bag again, smiled, and turned and faced her with expanding good humor.

"Great scheme, this marryin', Kid! And you believe in it exactly as I do, don't you?"

"How do you mean?" she faltered.

"That it binds and holds both our lives as only Almighty God can bind and hold?"

"Yes — nothing else is marriage."

"That's what I say, too!"

He placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Great scheme!" he repeated. "I get a pretty girl to work for me for nothing for the balance of my life." He paused and lifted the slender forefinger of his right hand. "And you pledged your pious soul — I memorized the words, every one of them: `I, Mary, take thee, James, to my wedded husband — to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish and obey, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereunto I give thee my troth — '"

He paused, lifted his head and smiled grimly: "That's some promise, believe me, Kiddo! `And obey' — you meant it all, didn't you?"

She would have hedged lightly over that ugly old word which still survived in the ceremony Craddock had used, but for the sinister suggestion in his voice back of the playful banter. He had asked it half in jest, half in earnest. She had caught by the subtle sixth sense the tragic idea in that one word

that he was going to hold her to it. The thought was too absurd!

"Obey — you meant it, didn't you?" he repeated grimly.

A smile played about the corners of her mouth as she answered dreamily:

"Yes — I — I — promised!"

"That's why I set my head on you from the first — you're good and sweet — you're the real thing."

Again she caught the sinister suggestion in his tone and threw him a startled look.

"What has come over you today, Jim?" she asked.

He hesitated and answered carelessly.

"Oh, nothing, Kiddo — just been thinking a little about business. Got to go to work, you know." He returned to the table and touched the bag lightly.

"Watch out now for this bag while I put up the car — and don't forget that curiosity killed the cat."

Quick as a flash, she asked:

"What's in it?"

Jim threw up his hands and laughed.

"Didn't I tell you that curiosity killed a cat?" He pointed to the skin on the wall. "That's what stretched that wild-cat's hide up there! She got too near the old musket!"

"Anyhow, I'm not afraid of her end — what's in it?"

Jim scratched his red head and looked at her thoughtfully.

"You asked me that once before today, didn't you?"

"Yes — "

"Well, it's a little secret of mine. Take my advice — put your hand on it, but not in it."

Again the sinister look and tone chilled her.

"I don't like secrets between us, Jim," she said.

She looked at the bag reproachfully, and he watched her keenly — then laughed.

"I'd as well tell you and be done with it; you'll go in it anyhow."

She tossed her head with a touch of angry pride. He took her hand, led her across the room and placed it on the valise.

"I've got five thousand dollars in gold in that bag."

She drew back, surprised beyond the power of speech.

"And I'm going to give it to this old woman — "

To her — why?" she gasped.

"She's my mother."

"Your mother?"

"Yes."

"I — I — thought — you told me she was dead."

"No. I said that I didn't know who she was."

He paused, and a queer brooding look crept into his face.

"I haven't seen her since I was a little duffer three years old. This room and these wild crags and trees come back to me now — just a glimpse of them here and there. I've always remembered them. I thought I'd dreamed it — "

"You remember — how wonderful!" she breathed reverently. She understood now, and the clouds lifted.

"The skunk I called my daddy," Jim went on thoughtfully, "took me to New York. He said that my mother deserted me when I was a kid. I believed him at first. But when he beat me and kicked me into the streets, I knew he was a liar. When I got grown I began to think and wonder about her. I hired a lawyer that knew my daddy, and he found her here — "

With a cry of joy, she seized his arms:

"Tell her quick! Oh, you're big and fine and generous, Jim — and I knew it! They said that you were a brute. I knew they lied. Tell her quick!"

He lifted his hand in protest.

"Nope — I'm going to put up a little job on the old girl — show her the money tonight, get her wild at the sight of it — and give it to her Christmas morning. We've only a few hours to wait — "

"Oh, give it to her now — Jim! Give it to her now!"

He shook his head and walked to the door.

"I want to say something to her first and give her time to think it over. Look out for the bag, and I'll bring in the things."

He swung the rough board door wide, slammed it and disappeared in the darkness.

The young wife watched the bag a moment with consuming curiosity. She had fiercely resented his insulting insinuations at her curiosity, and yet she was wild to look at that glowing pile of gold inside and picture the old woman's joyous surprise.

Her hand touched the lock carelessly and drew back as if her finger had been burned. She put her hands behind her and crossed the room.

"I won't be so weak and silly!" she cried fiercely.

She heard Jim cranking the car. It would take him five minutes more to start it, get it under the shed and bring in the suit-case and robes.

"Why shouldn't I see it!" she exclaimed. "He

has told me about it." She hesitated and struggled for a moment, quickly walked back to the bag and touched the spring. It yielded instantly.

"Why, it's not even locked!" she cried in tones of surprise at her silly scruples.

Her hand had just touched the gold when Nance entered.

She snapped the bag and smiled at the old woman carelessly. What a sweet surprise she would have tomorrow morning!

Nance crossed slowly, glancing once at the girl wistfully as if she wanted to say something friendly, and then, alarmed at her presumption, hurried on into the little shed-room.

Mary waited until she returned.

"Room's all ready in thar, ma'am," she drawled, passing into the kitchen without a pause.

"All right — thank you," Mary answered.

She quickly opened the bag, thrust her hand into the gold and withdrew it, holding a costly green-leather jewelry-case of exquisite workmanship. There could be no mistake about its value.

With a cry of joy, she started back, staring at the little box.

"Another surprise! And for me! Oh, Jim,

man, you're glorious! My Christmas present, of course! I mustn't look at it — I won't!"

She pushed the case from her toward the bag and drew it back again.

"What's the difference? I'll take one little, tiny peep."

She touched the spring and caught her breath. A string of pearls fit for the neck of a princess lay shining in its soft depths. She lifted them with a sigh of delight. Her eye suddenly rested on a stanza of poetry scrawled on the satin lining in the trembling hand of an old man she had known.

She dropped the pearls with a cry of terror. Her face went white, and she gasped for breath. The jewel-case in her hand she had seen before. It had belonged to the old gentleman who lived in the front room on the first floor of her building in the days when it was a boarding house. The wife he had idolized was long ago dead. This string of pearls from her neck the old man had worshiped for years. The stanza from "The Rosary" he had scrawled in the lining one day in Mary's presence. He had moved uptown with the landlady. Two months ago a burglar had entered his room, robbed and shot him.

"It's impossible — impossible!" she gasped. "Oh,

dear God — it's impossible! Of course the burglar pawned them, and Jim bought them without knowing. Of course! My nerves are on edge today — how silly of me — "

Jim's footsteps suddenly sounded on the porch, and she thrust the jewel-case back into the bag with desperate effort to pull herself together.