XIX
FLORA ROMANCES
"Dearest," warily exclaimed the Creole beauty, with a sudden excess ofher pretty accent, "I am in a situation perfectly dreadful!"
Anna drew her to a sofa, seeing pictures of her and Hilary together, andtortured with a belief in their exquisite fitness to be so. "Can I helpyou, dear?" she asked, though the question echoed mockingly within her.
"Ah, no, except with advice," said Flora, "only with advice!"
"Ho-o-oh! if I were worthy to advise you it wouldn't flatter me so to beasked."
"But I muz' ask. 'Tis only with you that I know my secret will be--toeverybody--and forever--at the bed of the ocean. You can anyhow promiseme that."
"Yes, I can anyhow promise you that."
"Then," said Flora, "let me speak whiles--" She dropped her face intoher hands, lifted it again and stared into her listener's eyes sopiteously that through Anna ran another cry--"He has not asked! No girlalive could look so if he had asked her!"
Flora seemed to nerve herself: "Anna, every dollar we had, everypicayune we could raise, grandma and I, even on our Mobile house and ourfew best jewels, is--is--"
"Oh, what--what? Not lost? Not--not stolen?"
"Blown up! Blown up with that poor old man in the powder-mill!"
"Flora, Flora!" was all Anna, in the shame of her rebuked conjectures,could cry, and all she might have cried had she known the very truth:That every dollar, picayune, and other resource had disappeared_gradually_ in the grist-mill of daily need and indulgence, and neverone of them been near the powder-mill, the poor old man or any of hisdevices.
"His theories were so convincing," sighed Flora.
"And you felt so pitiful for him," prompted Anna.
"Grandma did; and I was so ambitious to do some great patrioticservice--like yours, you Callenders, in giving those cannon--and--"
"Oh, but you went too far!"
"Ah, if we had only gone no farther!"
"You went farther? How could you?"
"Grandma did. You know, dear, how suddenly Captain Kincaid had to leavefor Mobile--by night?"
"Yes," murmured Anna, with great emphasis in her private mind.
"Well, jus' at the las' he gave Charlie a small bag of gold, hundredsof dollars, for--for--_me to keep for him till his return_. Anna! I wasoffended."
"Oh, but surely he meant no--"
"Ah, my dear, did I ever give him the very least right to pick me out inthat manner? No. Except in that one pretty way he has with all ofus--and which you know so well--"
An uncourageous faint smile seemed the safest response.
"Yes," said Flora, "you know it. And I had never allowed myself--"
With eyes down the two girls sat silent. Then the further word cameabsently, "I refused to touch his money," and there was anotherstillness.
"Dear," slowly said Anna, "I don't believe it was his. It would not havebeen in gold. Some men of the battery were here last evening--You knowthe Abolition schoolmistress who was sent North that day?"
"Yes, I know, 'twas hers."
"Well, dear, if she could entrust it to him--"
"Ah! _she_ had a sort of right, being, as the whole battery knows, inlove with him"--the beauty swept a finger across her perfect brows--"upto there! For that I don't know is he to blame. If a girl has no moresense--"
"No," murmured Anna as the cruel shaft went through her. "What didCharlie do with the money?"
Flora tossed a despairing hand: "Gave it to grandma! And poor innocentgrandma lent it to the old gentleman! 'Twas to do wonders for the powderand gun, and be return' in three days. But the next--"
"I see," sighed Anna, "I see!"
"Yes, next day 'twas Sunday, and whiles I was _kneeling in the church_the powder, the gun, the old man and the money--Oh, Anna, what shall Ido?"
"My dear, I will tell you," began Anna, but the seeker of advice was notquite ready for it.
"We have a few paltry things, of course," she spoke on, "but barelywould they pay half. They would neither save our honor, neither leave usanything for rent or bread! Our house, to be sure, is worth more than wehave borrowed on it, but in the meantime--"
"In the meantime, dear, you shall--" But still Flora persisted:
"Any day, any hour, Captain Kincaid may return. Oh, if 'twere anybody inthis worl' but him! For, Anna, I must take all the blame--all!" The facewent again into the hands.
"My dear, you shall take none. You shall hand him every dollar, everypicayune, on sight."
"Ah, how is that possible? Oh, no, no, no. Use your money? Never, never,never!"
"It isn't money, Flora. And no one shall ever know. I've got some oldfamily jewellery--"
"Family--Oh, sweet, for shame!"
"No shame whatever. There's a great lot of it--kinds that will never beworn again. Let me--" The speaker rose.
"No, no, no! No, Anna, no! For Heaven's sake--"
"Just a piece or two," insisted Anna. "Barely enough to borrow theamount." She backed away, Flora clinging to her fingers and faltering:"No, blessed angel, you must not! No, I will not wait. I'll--I'll--"
But Anna kissed the clinging hands and vanished.
A high elation bore her quite to her room and remained with her untilshe had unlocked the mass of old jewels and knelt before them. But thenall at once it left her. She laid her folded hands upon them, bent herbrow to the hands, then lifted brow and weeping eyes and whispered toHeaven for mercy.
"Oh"--a name she could not speak even there went through her heart intwo big throbs--"if only we had never met! I never set so much as asmile to snare you, you who have snared me. Can Connie be right? Haveyou felt my thraldom, and are you trying to throw me off? Then I musthelp you do it. Though I covet your love more than life I will nottether it. Oh, it's because I so covet that I will not tether it! Withthe last gem from my own throat will I rather help you go free if youwant to go. God of mercy, what else can I do!"
In grave exultancy Flora moved up and down the drawing-room enjoying hertread on its rich carpet. She would have liked to flit back to the sideof yonder great chimney breast, the spot where she had been surprisedwhile sounding the panel work, but this was no time for postponablerisks. She halted to regale her critical eye on the goodly needlework ofa folding-screen whose joints, she noticed, could not be peered through,and in a pretty, bird-like way stole a glance behind it. Nothing there.She stepped to a front window and stood toying with the perfect round ofher silken belt. How slimly neat it was. Yet beneath the draperies itso trimly confined lay hid, in a few notes of "city money," the proceedsof the gold she had just reported blown into thin air with the oldinventor--who had never seen a glimmer of it. Not quite the full amountwas there; it had been sadly nibbled. But now by dear Anna's goodness(ahem!) the shortage could be restored, the entire hundreds handed backto Captain Kincaid, and a snug sum be retained "for rent and bread." Yetafter all--as long as good stories came easy--why hand anything back--toanybody--even to--him?
He! In her heart desire and odium beat strangely together. Fine asmartial music he was, yet gallingly out of her rhythm, above her key.Liked her much, too. Yes, for charms she had; any fool could be likedthat way. What she craved was to be liked for charms she had not, gracesshe scorned; and because she could not be sure how much of that sort shewas winning she tingled with heat against him--and against Anna--Annagiver of guns--who _had the money_ to give guns--till her bosom roseand fell. But suddenly her musing ceased, her eyes shone.
A mounted officer galloped into the driveway, a private soldierfollowed, and the private was her brother. Now they came close. Theleader dismounted, passed his rein to Charlie and sprang up the verandasteps. Flora shrank softly from the window and at the same moment Annareentered gayly, showing a glitter of values twice all expectation:
"If these are not enough--" She halted with lips apart. Flora had madesign toward the front door, and now with a moan of fond protest coveredthe gem-laden hand in both her palms and pushed it from her.
"
Take them back," she whispered, yet held it fast, "'tis too late!There--the door-bell! 'Tis Hilary Kincaid! All is too late, take themback!"
"Take them, you!" as vehemently whispered Anna. "You must take them! Youmust, you shall!"
Flora had half started to fly, but while she hung upon Anna's words shelet her palms slip under the bestowing hand and the treasure slide intoher own fingers.
"Too late, too late! And oh, I can never, never use them any'ow!" Shesprang noiselessly aside. To a maid who came down the hall Anna quietlymotioned to show the newcomer into an opposite room, but Flora saw thatthe sign was misinterpreted: "She didn't understan'! Anna, she's goingto bring him!" Before the words were done the speaker's lithe form wasgliding down the room toward the door by which the other ladies had goneout, but as she reached it she turned with a hand-toss as of somedespairing afterthought and flitted back.
Out in the hall the front door opened and closed and a sabre clinked:"Is Miss Callender at home?"
Before the question was half put its unsuspected hearers had recovered afaultless poise. Beside a table that bore her roses she whom theinquirer sought stood retouching them and reflecting a faint excess oftheir tint, while Flora, in a grave joy of the theatrical, equal to hercompanion's distress of it, floated from view behind the silken screen.