University of Virginia Library

36. CHAPTER XXXVI.

Within two days after Bent Armitage
left the lonely old house in Saxonburg,
Mrs. Chester quitted it also, turning it over
without the least compunction to the care
of the negroes and the rats, and flying back,
of all places in the world, to the Beaumont
homestead, against which she had so lately
shaken off the dust of her feet.

It was singular conduct certainly, but
there was one thing which was even more
singular than the conduct itself, and that
was that it seemed to her perfectly natural.
It also seemed to her quite natural to throw
herself into Kate's arms, kiss her with sobbings
and gaspings of affection, hug and
kiss Nellie in the same ecstatic manner, and
weep with joy at getting home. A few
minutes later, her now very peculiar form of
rationality led her to relate with astonishing
volubility how Bent Armitage had come
down to avenge the Beaumonts on their
hereditary enemies, and how it was her
intention to attend the funeral of Frank
McAlister in the family carriage, and therefrom
give the survivors of his race a piece
of her mind.

Peyton Beaumont was not at home to
care for his sister in this sad moment. But
Vincent, a cool and clear-headed young man,
his apprehension quickened by his medical
knowledge, did all that was necessary. He
soon had his unfortunate aunt in her room
and in bed, under the guardianship of two
muscular negro mammas. When he came
out from her he said to his brother Poinsett,
“I think you had better ride yourself after

Mattieson. Tell him it is a clear case of
delirium.”

Kate was present, and heard these words.
A flush started into her pale cheeks, and
clasping her hands she exclaimed, “O Vincent!”
It seemed as if this girl's affections
followed the line of her natural duty, without
the slightest regard as to whether those
allied to her were lovable or not. Gentle
and pacific as she was, abhorring bloodshed
and all wild ways, we have seen how loyal
and tender she has been to her free-drinking,
pugnacious father and to her ungovernable
catamounts of brothers, although their
flighty and violent tempers have slaughtered
the dearest hopes of her heart and filled the
outlooks of her life with darkness. Mrs.
Chester, too, had been a perpetual plague
and perplexity; hardly a day had passed
but she had vexed Kate's soul with some
foolish interference or spiteful assault; and
at last she had driven her into that to her
most dreadful of extremities, an open
conflict. Yet the moment that misfortune
settled upon this pest of a blood-relation,
the girl was full of pity and sorrow.

“Am I to blame?” she asked, ready to
accuse herself. “She went away from here
because of a difficulty with me. Do you
suppose that made her ill?”

“Nonsense!” declared Nellie, somewhat
hardly. “She is always having difficulties.
If they could hurt her, she would have died
long ago.”

“Don't worry yourself, my dear,” said
Vincent, patting Kate's arm. “This is a
trouble which has long been hanging over
her.”

“But she has been very well of late,”
replied the girl. “I never saw her more
vigorous and clever, — in her way.”

“She has not seen a thoroughly well
day since I have been able to observe her
intelligently,” continued Vincent. “She
has been for a long time in a state of
abnormal excitement. We Beaumonts are
all, always, pretty near a brain-fever. Except
Kate here; and Kate is a Kershaw.”

“She is not in immediate danger, I suppose,”
quietly observed Nellie, who did not
love her aunt, and would not pretend to, not
even now.

“No,” judged Vincent. “Even if the
affair should terminate fatally, it will be a
lingering case.”

“O Vincent, how calmly you talk of it!”
said Kate.

“I am a physician,” he answered. “I
am professional.” Then, patting her arm
again, “You are a good, sweet girl; too
good for use in this world, Katie.”

“She is just a little bit silly,” added
Nellie, kissing her sister in a pitying way.
“Come, child, don't worry so much about
Aunt Marian. I dare say she will live to
plague us a good many years yet. I have
great faith in her.”

“I am not thinking entirely of her,” replied
Kate, musingly. Then, raising her head
suddenly, like one who resolves to speak in
spite of scruples, she asked. “Vincent, how
much truth has Aunt Marian been capable
of telling this evening?”

“Who knows? A mixture of truth and
error, I suppose.”

Kate walked slowly away, and signed to
her sister to follow her. When they were
alone she said, “Nellie, there is no sense in
this difficulty, if there is a difficulty, between
Bent and the McAlisters. They cannot
possibly have anything to do with each
other. It must, in some way, be a pure
misunderstanding.”

Nellie reflected with the rapidity of lightning.
It was evident that Kate wished to
save the life of the man who loved her, and
whom almost certainly she had once loved,
if indeed she did not love him still. Should
she be encouraged to talk of the matter, or
should she be checked at once? It was
impossible for a woman of more than average
affection and sentiment to decide otherwise
than in favor of Frank McAlister.

“I have no doubt that Bent is in fault,”
said Nellie. “Bent has probably been
drinking, and when he does that he is a
savage, like all his race. The Armitages
are no more fit to have liquor than so
many Seminoles. I sometimes think there
must be Indian blood in them. Yes, I
suppose Bent is going the way of his family;
he has been drinking, and wants to
fight some one. But what can we do?”

“I cannot ask you to do anything,”
answered Kate, with tears in her eyes, the
pathetic tears of a retired soul which finds
itself forced to step out into the hard, glaring
world of action. “But I must do something.
Both these men have liked me; I
owe them kindness for that. I never shall
be anything to either of them; but it is my
duty to try to save their lives. Moreover,
— you can understand it, Nellie, — this
quarrel may be about me. Well, I shall
try to stop it; woman as I am. I shall try.
People will say it is not a lady's affair; but
I cannot and shall not mind that. A lady
surely cannot be wrong in seeking to save
life. I cannot go to Mr. McAlister, but I certainly
shall see Bentley. Will you help me?”

It was about as impossible for Nellie Armitage
to say to her sister, “I will not help
you,” as it would have been for her to die
outright by a mere effort of will. She reflected
just one moment; but in that moment
she decided to do herself what Kate
proposed to do, — decided, furthermore, that
she would do it without informing the girl
of her purpose. All that she said was, “Yes,
I will help you.”

“You are my own darling,” cried Kate,
embracing her. “You are the strong and
brave part of myself. O, it is a comfort to
lean upon you!”

“I am something, in a weak way, like
a husband, am I not?” returned Nellie,
smiling away the scene.

“Will you send for Bent here?” asked
Kate. “Papa has forbidden his family the
house. But for such a purpose as this —”

“I will see to everything,” promised
Nellie. “It is late now. Go and sleep.
Leave everything to me.”

Kate hardly closed her eyes that night.
The anxieties and sorrows of the last few
months had got her into a way of lying
much awake. Slumber is very largely a
matter of habit; the less you do of it, the
less you are likely to be able do; and this
troubled soul had acquired an unhappy facility
for easy wakings and prolonged vigils.
This night she tossed for hours, often turning
her pillow to find a cool spot for her fevered
head, and repeatedly rising to seek
refreshment in the damp air that flowed in
from the outer night. Most of the time her
mind oscillated between her crazed aunt
and the image of Bent Armitage hunting
Frank McAlister to his death. She went
through scene after scene in insane asylums,
and stood witness to a succession of fatal
duels.

It was unendurable, and she sought
relief in devotion; but she prayed in vain.
There is no comfort in the truest piety, as
the case of Cowper bears witness, when it
is presided over by a shattered nervous
system. To no wicked soul, to no criminal
called upon to expiate unparalleled guilt,
could the heavens seem more pitiless than
they seemed to this scrupulously unselfish,
this pathetically conscientious innocent.
The Moloch of superstition which arises
from deranged health, or overtasked sympathies,
or a wearied brain, deigned no
reply to her petitions but a demand for sacrifice,
sacrifice! “I have given him up,”
she replied in her despair. “I do give him
up. Only, spare his life.”

Once an apparition from the real life
of the world — an apparition which would
have moved and troubled her profoundly,
had she understood it — came to give her a
moment of distraction and slight relief.
She had risen, seated herself by the window,
pushed open the blinds, and was
drawing deep gasps of the cool night breeze,
her aching eyes wandering through the
broad moonlight. Suddenly the dogs
barked; next there was the trample of a
horse's feet advancing slowly and as if with
caution; at last the figure of a horseman
showed hazily in the road which passed the
house. It remained a few minutes motionless,
and then went the way it had ar
rived. Kate did not know that Frank
McAlister came four miles every night to
look at the windows of her room. Much as
she thought about him, this never entered
her imagination. She languidly watched
the unknown out of sight, wondered a little
who he might be, went back to her bed, and
at last slept.

Before the younger sister was up in the
morning, the elder had set out on her mission.
Nellie had no difficulty in finding
Bent, for he too had risen early, as was his
custom.

This ill-starred youth was very sad, mainly
because he was a little sick. The liquor
which had been for the week past his chief
motive-force, and almost his food, had become
a dose. It had temporarily paralyzed
his digestion, and it palled upon his taste.
He had thrown away in disgust the cocktail
which was to prepare him for breakfast;
and, deprived of his usual stimulus, shaken
moreover by his long drinking-bout, he was
in low spirits. He was in that state of
mind in which a man sees himself, not merely
as others see him, but as his enemies and
despisers see him. Remembering how for
two days, or perhaps three, he could not tell
which, he had been blustering publicly
about Hartland, threatening death on sight
to Frank McAlister in places where Frank
McAlister never went, he queried whether
he had not seemed a fool to everybody else,
and whether he had not, in fact, been a fool.

He thought of going back to Saxonburg;
then he had a mad impulse to rush over to
the Beaumont house and propose to Kate;
then, knowing that she would refuse him,
and probably even decline to see him, he
queried whether he had not best shoot himself.
At last it occurred to him that he
might feel the better for a gallop; and, taking
a horse from the hotel stables, he rode
out breakfastless into the country, directing
his course towards the long, low eminence
on which stood the Beaumont residence;
for he too wanted to look at the home of
Kate. By the way, he had his revolver
under his coat and a brace of derringers in
his pocket; being not yet decided in mind
that he would not fire upon Frank McAlister
if he should see him.

Nellie Armitage, also in the saddle, and
followed by a mounted servant, encountered
him half a mile from the village. Both
drew rein as they met, the negro remaining
at a little distance.

“Good morning, Bent,” said Nellie. “I
am glad to find you. I came to look for
you.”

“I hope you mean kindly,” replied the
young man, with a look which was both
sullen and piteous. “I could n't stand
much of a lecture this morning.” (He
chose to pronounce it “lectur',” according

to his slangy humor.) “I feel up to
blowing the top of my head off if anybody
I like should scold me. It 's one of
the black days.”

The better nature of this youth, so much
worthier a man than his thoroughly selfish
and shameless brother, showed itself in the
fact that tears of remorse and humiliation
rose to his eyelids, and that his glance cowered
under the gaze of a noble woman, a
woman whom he respected.

“Yes, it is one of the black days,” said
Mrs. Armitage, surveying gravely and not
without pity his haggard face. She well
knew the meaning of that pallor; she had
studied it often in her husband; she had
seen it before in Bent.

“I will be as gentle as things allow,” she
went on. “Bentley, is it true that you are
here to bring about a meeting with one of
the McAlister?”

He had a mind to say that surely no
Beaumont should find fault with him for
such a purpose as that; but he was a
straightforward man, and he remembered
that he was talking to a straightforward
woman; he decided that it would be in bad
taste to bandy words.

“That is what I waded in here for,” he
replied, almost involuntarily using his slang
to carry off his embarrassment; for he
recollected his absurd blustering about
the village, and supposed that Nellie knew
of it.

“Is this on our account?” continued
Nellie. “I heard that you were here to
take up the feud.”

“That is all nonsense,” he burst out. “I
have been — wild; but I know perfectly
well that I am not a Beaumont; I have not
been fool enough to want to meddle in your
family affairs. I have my own quarrel with
this Frank McAlister.”

It is about Kate, thought Nellie. She
did not want to say a word further; she
hated to be always talking with men about
her sister; it seemed to make the girl too
public. But she had undertaken this job of
sending Bent home, and she must go through
with it.

“Does your quarrel refer to one of us?”
she asked unflinchingly.

Bent did not speak, and in truth could
not speak, but his look said, yes.

“I know it has nothing to do with me,”
she continued. “What right have you to
quarrel about her?”

After a long pause Bent answered, “He
has slandered me to her.”

“I don't believe it,” abruptly declared
Nellie, remembering Frank's manly face
and deportment, unmarked by a trace of
meanness.

“He told her that I was a drunkard,”
Bent added with a crimsoning face. “Even
if I am one, he had no right to say it. It
killed me,” he went on, after a brief struggle
with his emotion. “You know that I
loved your sister. Well, she had a right to
avoid me. You had a right to check me.
But he, what business had he to say anything?
O, curse him!”

And here his voice gave way utterly,
sinking into a sob or a growl.

“There is one sure way to clear this up,”
observed Nellie, not looking at him the while,
for his grief touched her. “My sister will
tell us the absolute truth. You must go
with me and see her.”

“Has n't your father forbidden me his
house?” asked Armitage.

“If you have scruples about entering it at
my invitation, she will come out to meet
you,” said Nellie, evading a direct reply.
“Come.”

“I suppose it will be proved to me that I
am a fool,” muttered Bent, as he rode on by
her side.

Presently they halted in the road before
the Beaumont mansion. Kate, dressed in
black, was sitting in the veranda, anxiously
awaiting the return of her sister. At a sign
from Nellie she came hastily down to the
gate and halted there breathless, looking up
at Armitage with an expression which was
partly aversion, partly pleading. Thin,
haggard, and anxious, her pallor marking
more clearly than health could the exquisite
outline of her Augustan features, her lucid
hazel eyes unnaturally large and bright
with eagerness, she was beautiful, but also
woful and almost terrible. At the first sight
of her thus, so changed from what she had
been when he last met her, Bentley was
horror-stricken and terror-stricken. He
dismounted and took off his hat; he wanted
to prostrate himself at her feet.

“Miss Beaumont, are you ill?” He
could say nothing else, and he could say
nothing more.

“I am not well,” she replied. “How can
I be?”

There seemed to be a complaint in the
words, but there was none in the tone.
Her utterance and her whole manner were
singularly mild and sweet, even for her.
Gentle as she always had been, she had of
late searched her conduct with such exaggerated
conscientiousness, that she had
found herself guilty of impatience and tartness,
remembering with special remorse her
controversy with Mrs. Chester; and by her
efforts to curb a petulance which in reality
had no existence she had acquired a bearing
which resembled that of one who has
passed years under the discipline of a convent;
she was an incarnation of self-control,
resgination, and humility.

“Let us say what we have to say at
once,” observed Mrs. Armitage, who had

also dismounted. “Bentley, can you ask
your own questions?”

“I can't,” murmured the young fellow.

Nellie was too purely a woman not to
pity a man so thoroughly humbled and
wretched as was this man. But after one
merciful glance at him, she turned to her
sister and went on firmly: “Kate, I have
promised Bent that he shall know the truth.
Is it true, — he has heard so, — is it true
that Frank McAlister has slandered Bent
to you?”

Kate's calmness vanished; all her face
filled with excited blood; she answered
hoarsely and almost sternly, “No!”

“In no way, in nothing?” continued
Nellie.

“In no way, in nothing,” repeated Kate,
still with the same air of agitated protest.

Bentley suddenly flushed crimson with anger.
He had been duped into outrageous
folly which had pained the being whom he
worshipped; and in his indignation he
burst forth, “Then there is one Beaumont
much to blame. Your aunt told me this.”

The two women glanced at each other,
and shrank backward as if under a blow.

“It must be spoken,” said Nellie, at last.
“Our poor aunt is crazy.”

“Crazy?” demanded Bentley.

“She is in the house, under confinement.”

“Crazy!” he repeated. “So am I. I
have been crazy for a week. I always shall
be.”

There was another silence, an intensely
tragic one, — one of those silences which
do not come because there is nothing to say,
but because all that can be said is too painful
for utterance.

“Yes, I am no better than a madman,”
resumed Bentley, suddenly lifting his eyes
and staring eagerly at Kate, with the air of
one who bids an everlasting farewell to all
that is dear. “I am and always shall be a
miserable drunkard. But at least, Miss
Beaumont, I will never torment you again.
This is the last time that you will see me,
or, I hope, hear of me.”

Without even offering his hand for a good
by, he sprang on his horse and spurred
away.

When he was out of sight, Nellie turned
to her sister and said with a serenity which
would be amazing, did we not remember
the hardening misery of her married life,
“It is a happy riddance.”

“He had never done me any harm,”
replied Kate. “I am very, very sorry for
him.”

“Think of the harm he would have done
you, had you liked him.”

“Perhaps he would not have been the
same,” was the pensive response. “Perhaps
I could not employ my life better than in
trying to reform some such person.”

“As I have employed my life,” said Nellie,
bitterly.

“There is nothing left me but to live for
others,” murmured Kate.

Her face was sadly calm, with the calmness
of despair. Suddenly a little light of
interest and perhaps of pleasure came into
it. Nellie followed the direction of her sister's
eye and beheld the approaching figure
of the Rev. Arthur Gilyard.

“Must that be the end of it?” she
thought. “Is Kate to become his wife, and
wear herself to death on his sense of duty?”