CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
But Margaret had not forgotten. During the long slow weeks that followed, she had been busy remembering. And planning. What she had planned restored her strength more quickly than did her powerful constitution.
During her recovery she had many visitors; she received them all amiably, thanked them for jellies and broths and cakes. But she never ate any of them. She would eat nothing made by the hands of those she thought had murdered Linda. However, whenever Mrs. King called, smiling uneasily, Margaret received her kindly. She had lots of time.
Her aunt, Mrs. Susan Rowe, drove ten miles to visit her, and remained a week. Susan had become plump, complacent and overbearing. She still had rancor against her niece, and showed it openly even while sitting beside Margaret’s bed.
One day she said, “Maggie, did I tell you Ralph and dear Lydia was visitin’ me last spring?”
“No, you didn’t tell me.” Margaret’s voice was quiet. She was sitting up with the aid of pillows, her black hair braided on each side of her thin face. She was knitting and her hands did not slow.
“Well, they was. You wouldn’t know Ralph. He got real fat. And Lydia, too. They’ve got another little girl, now, makin’ two. Phyllis is only three, and they’ve named the baby after me—Susan. Ain’t that nice? They got four servants and a hired girl for the babies and two carriages, one to take Ralph where he wants to go, and one for Lydia and the young uns! They was there when it was my birthday, and Ralph, bless him, gave me two hundred dollars! They’re real happy, and Lydia thinks the sun rises and sets on my boy.”
She chattered on, her sly eye upon Margaret. Margaret was tranquil. But she thought, so you were here, Ralph, and you never came to see me. You were only ten miles away! And you never came. You must have known what I have been suffering. Just as I know what you have been suffering. Only you and I could have told each other about it.
Then all at once it seemed as though she could not endure it, as though living had become unbearable. She had to see Ralph; she had to see him. It did not matter what they tore down, what they trod on to reach each other.
When she could speak, she said casually to Susan: “I want to know Ralph’s address. I want to write to him and tell him how much I enjoyed his book.”
Susan hesitated, then with ill grace she gave Margaret Ralph’s address.
Resolved now, to write to Ralph and beg him to see her when he came again, Margaret’s physical slackness vanished. She sat up alertly when Miss Betsy brought the children in to see her, she was delighted, kissed them, fondled them. She scolded Gregory when he teased his older brother, gathered Dickie to her breast and looked coldly at the other child. Miss Betsy watched her. When John came in, smelling of clean hay and cattle, she greeted him pleasantly, almost gaily. As she talked to him, she thought, I’m done with you. She said to him, “Yes, I’m much better, John. I think I can get up for a while tomorrow.”
John watched her, pleased but uneasy. There seemed something false in her animation, in her desire to conciliate him. It appeared to him that there was something mocking beneath her words. Though she laughed at his heavy humor, let him hold her hand, he felt that she was farther from him than ever, that she had at last closed a door between them.
Driven by uneasiness, he went for a long walk over his land in the late summer twilight. He walked rapidly and unevenly, smelling the pungency of sun-warmed hay, the incense of coming autumn.
Gradually, he felt strangely comforted. It seemed to him that while a man walked so, on his own land, among his own harvests, that nothing of great harm could come to him.
When he returned to the house he felt courageous again, and he felt a great pity for Margaret, so removed these days from the strength of the earth. It made him sad that she had once known its power and that she did not know it now. Why, that was why he had loved her in the first place, because she loved the things he loved, because she too was unshakable and strong. But now, she looked at nothing, saw nothing, but some sickness in herself. What that sickness was he did not know clearly, but he knew it was there.
He had a shamefaced impulse to pray. He had not prayed for a long time, since he was a child. But he awkwardly removed his hat, lifted his face to the evening sky, and tried. He could not form words; he could only think in confused shapes, in great yearning gestures. And somehow he felt that he had been understood.
He would not have felt so comforted had he known that Margaret was, at that very minute, writing a long and incoherent letter to Ralph Blodgett.
Margaret sat at her bedroom window, wrapped in shawls. The early autumn air was chilly, but the sun shone with brilliance. Her hands lay on her knees slackly.
I have nothing, now, except Dickie and Ralph, she thought. I feel as though I had been in a dream for a long time, and heard voices only at a distance. Now everything is painfully bright; it has a meaning. Oh, it’s glorious to be alive again, tingling. I have only to wait now, until Ralph comes to me.
Miss Betsy brought little Gregory in to see her. Margaret kissed the child absently, then pushed him away. “Take him out,” she said irritably. “He tires me. He’s so noisy. When Dickie comes in, I want to see him.”
She did not see the look of hurt on the child’s face. He had not understood her words, but he had felt her repudiation. He went to Miss Betsy and hid his face in her skirts. She put her hand on his head.
“You don’t treat this poor baby right, Maggie,” she said quietly.
“Oh, don’t be sentimental, Aunt Betsy. He’s just a little animal. He’s not got any feelings to be hurt.” No more than his father has, she added to herself.
Miss Betsy felt a harsh constriction in her throat. “How do you know he hasn’t any feelings?” she burst out, “Just because he hasn’t silly feelings like yours doesn’t mean he hasn’t his own kind! You don’t deserve to have him, that you don’t!”
She gathered the child in her arms and strode from the room. Margaret felt somewhat ashamed. But she shrugged, and resumed her contemplation of the country beyond the window. She did not look at it with friendliness; it belonged to John. She had no part in it, never wanted any part in it. Now, she was done with it forever. She saw no more beauty in the hills and the valleys and the changing sky.
The bedroom door opened silently; Mrs. Ezra King, clad in gray calico, gray sunbonnet and gray shawl, stood in the doorway. Margaret looked at her without expression; she knew why the woman had come.
Mrs. King advanced into the room, after glancing nervously behind her. The house was silent.
“Maggie, I ’spect you know why I come?”
Margaret said nothing. She did not offer the visitor a chair. She merely looked at her steadfastly. Mrs. King put a handkerchief to her mouth, her hand was trembling.
“You kin help us, Maggie, if you want to. And I know you will. I said to Ezra this mornin’, ‘Maggie will help us. Maybe she don’t know about it. Johnny Hobart’ll listen to her.’”
“Yes, he’ll listen,” said Margaret quietly. “But you see, I won’t speak to him.” She looked at the woman with hatred. “You killed Linda, you know, Sarah King.”
Mrs. King’s face went gray. Her mouth moved without sound. Then she put her recticule on the table and faced Margaret with a spare dignity.
“Now, you know that ain’t so, Maggie Hamilton If your sister had behaved herself, like a decent girl, maybe Bill might’ve married her. ’Sides, if you only knew what that girl used to say ’bout you to all of us, when she’d come over and visit with me! Many times I said, ‘Lindy Hamilton, you ought to be ’shamed, and Maggie so good to you!’ But she didn’t have no shame, Maggie. The girl’s dead, and I hope she’s in peace, but she was a bad girl in more ways than one, and even before her trouble I didn’t want Bill to have no truck with her. This is plain speakin’, Maggie Hamilton, and I wouldn’t’ve said nothin’ ’bout it, but you made me. Only you was allus one never tc see things as they are.”
Margaret’s face darkened, beca
me ugly with passion.
But she said quietly, “However, it still remains that you killed Linda. She was only a young girl, almost a child. You had no pity for her. So, I have no pity for you.”
Mrs. King drew herself up.
“It ain’t only Linda, Maggie Hamilton. That ain’t the only reason you’re drivin’ us out of house and home, out of the place that Ezra’s pa owned, and his pa’s pa before him! That ain’t the reason we’re put on the road, and maybe on the county! You allus hated me—all of us. You hate the whole country! I’ve allus seen that. I said to Miz Holbrooks, ‘Maggie’s dangerous. She hates all of us. It’s a bad thing for us that she married Johnny Hobart!’”
Margaret stood up, grasping the back of her chair. “You’re right!” said Margaret exultantly. “I hate you; I hate all of you! I remember things, you see. I hate your ugliness and your stupidity, your meanness and your greed. I’ll not be satisfied until I turn all of you out, and I’ll do it! Now then, get out of here!”
She sat down again; she was almost gasping. But Mrs. King had become calm. She looked at Margaret steadily.
“So you’ve come right out and spoke your piece, Maggie Hamilton. You hate us. I ’spect it’s because we’ve allus hated you. No, not hated you, but laughed at you, and your whole family. And then when you married Johnny Hobart, we was ready to be friends with you, because you’d become decent and like civilized folks. But you wouldn’t be friends. You had no sense. How could we like you ’fore you got married? What was there ’bout you to like? We thought you’d change when you got married. Well, you changed, sure enough. But how? You became mean and haughty, looked down on us like we was dirt, not answerin’ us when we met you on the road. And now I believe what Linda said ’bout you: that you treat your man like he was dirt, too, not good enough to touch your little finger.
“You got a lot to learn, Maggie Hamilton. And you’ll learn, true’s there’s a Lord in heaven! And all I hope is that you’ll suffer like you made us suffer, drivin’ us off our land, makin’ beggars of us. You’ll have the whole county against you and your man. There won’t be no peace for you. Johnny Hobart’s a hard man, but he was good in his way, givin’ decent folks time. Now you’ll turn the whole county against him, too, and there won’t be peace for him either.”
“Get out, with your pious whinings,” said Margaret contemptuously. “Or shall I have you put out?”
When John came in for the noonday meal Margaret called him. He came running up the stairs two at a time, eagerly. He found her pale and smiling. She told him about Mrs. King: He listened, his face becoming heavy.
Then he said, “See here, Maggie. I’m puttin’ them out because I need their land, and they’re three years behind to me. Ezra King’s no farmer. His land’s goin’ to rack and ruin. He ain’t shiftless, just not fitten to be a farmer. I’m apayin’ him five hundred dollars, though I don’t need to.
“Now then, I might’ve let them stay, ’spite of Linda. Linda was your business. The girl was soft inside. It wasn’t no quarrel of mine. But another reason I’m makin’ them go is because of the baby that—died. I can’t forget that baby.”
Margaret smiled indulgently, began to speak of something else. But when he left her, he was vaguely disturbed. He had noticed lately that though his neighbors still treated him with respect, they whispered together in groups after he had passed. He looked down on them, but, paradoxically, wanted their regard. He had a jovial nature that desired a sympathetic audience. But now, when he met his neighbors in the general store and joked as usual with them, they merely stared at him without comment.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The first part of autumn was as dry as summer. The long drought continued until well into October. Then, about the fifteenth, the heavens opened.
After three days, when the falling wall of water did not show any signs of thinning, the river began to rise. It rose within a foot or two of its banks, a phenomenon never seen in that generation. The country folk became uneasy; they stood in thick groups about the river, watching the muddy and rushing waters with deep gloom. If it kept on, there would be a flood. The late crops were already being destroyed; down the valley there were reports of lost cattle, where the river had risen higher.
And still it rained, and still the river rose. There were reports from distant places that houses were being swept from their foundations. All the bridges had become unsafe; only the one at Big Bend, between the valley and Whitmore, was showing no signs of weakness. And then, after two weeks, all the bridges but that one went down, the lower valley was flooded, scores of cattle were lost, and there were several deaths reported in isolated parts of the valley.
Even when the rain stopped the streams continued to rise, swollen, red-brown, ferocious; trees sent bridges thundering down, swept whole herds to death, and spread a watery desolation over two-thirds of the valley. Each day brought reports of other deaths, of children and old people, and even of strong men and young women.
John Hobart suffered the least. His lower acres were inundated, but two-thirds of his land was still above water, and there had been no threat to his home. The house was situated on rising land; though from the windows, to the east, could be seen shining breadths of water where green fields had been. At night they could hear the distant thundering of the river, but they knew they were safe.
The Hobarts, the Brownlows, the Kings, the Holbrooks, and the MacKensies escaped most of the general destruction, as did another half-dozen families. But for the rest, there was only bereavement and ruin.
Everyone lent his hand, his home, and his fires to aid the sufferers. Personal differences went down before common sympathy as the land and the bridges had gone down before the flood. But for a few days John Hobart did nothing.
Then one night he came to Margaret, who was sewing before the fires as her two little boys played on the hearth. He came in, muddy and tired, his boots squishing water on the clean rugs. Gregory rose up with a shout at the sight of his father, struggled on his short legs to him, his hands outstretched. But Dickie merely glanced up idly, then leaned against his mother’s knee. She laid a gentle hand on his head, and they smiled at each other.
John’s tired face lit with a fond smile as Gregory clung to his great legs, than he swung the child up in his arms. Gregory sat on his shoulder, and, carrying the child so, John approached his wife.
“Maggie,” he said abruptly. “Aunt Betsy’s movin’ in here tonight. I’m turnin’ the old house over to the folks that need it. ’Bout three, four families. They ain’t got no place to go, and everybody else’s crowded. So, you’d better get out any blankets you can spare, and vittles and coal oil, and look down in the cellar and see what you got that can go over there. Jack and I and the other fellows’ll carry them over right away. The folk’ll be here in a minit or two; a whole hay wagon full of ’em.”
Margaret continued to sew for a few moments; then she put her work on the table beside her and rose. She looked directly into John’s eyes; her lips had whitened.
“I have nothing to give these—people, John,” she said calmly. “Nothing.”
He stared at her as though he had not heard right. Then dark color rushed into his face, and he sputtered, “What’s that? What’s that you say, Maggie? You ain’t got nothin’? That’s a lie. We’ve got enough for fifty people, a hundred people. We’ve got—”
“We’ve got—nothing,” said Margaret. Her voice was very quiet, but she was ashen. “I’ve got nothing for them. Not a crust of bread, not a blanket. I won’t have them here. I won’t lift my hand for them. You can do what you want with them, keep them, turn them out to starve or rot. I’ll have nothing to do with them.”
In spite of her quietness there was something so violent in her manner that John turned cold. He let Gregory slip out of his arms; he took Margaret’s arm in his strong fingers, held her close to him
“Do you know what you’re sayin’? Before God, I don’t believe it! Turn those folks away? Not give them someth
in’ to eat? Not put a roof over ’em? Folks that’ve lost every damn thing in the world? Everybody’s taken in all they can. They can’t take no more. Do you understand that, Maggie? Are you sick—in the head?”
She pulled her arm from him, sprang back a step and faced him. All the accumulated hatred of the years, rushed out upon her face.
“You fool!” she cried. “How could I expect you to understand? Don’t you know I’ve waited all my life for just this minute? I’ve hoped for a chance to do just this, to have them coming begging at my door, and then to turn them away. I’ve watched them watching me, hoping in their black hearts that something would happen to me, something that would leave me at their mercy. But now they’re at my mercy. And I’m going to show them none.”
John seemed more aghast at her manner and her words than he did at their meaning. Was this Maggie, this halfwild creature with bloodless lips and glaring eyes? He was terrified. He took her by the shoulders, shook her a little.
“Maggie, you ain’t well,” he said hoarsely. “Maggie, darling, sit down. There now, sit down just a minit, and listen to me. What’s wrong with you? Somethin’ botherin’ you? Got that pain in your head again? Maggie, look at me. Honey, stop that shiverin’ and look at me. Look, Maggie, want me to send for ole Dr. Brewster? I’ll send the trap for him—”
She shook off his hands. She pushed her hair from her forehead. She shook her head jerkily.
“Oh, what’s the use, anyway?” she sobbed dryly. “Leave me alone, John. You couldn’t understand. You always were stupid. You never understood, nor cared, what I thought about you. You never cared to know how I’ve hated you all this time, dreaded the sight of you, wanted to run from you. You’ve done only what you wanted to do; you never cared to ask what I wanted to do. And now, when you’ve got a chance to help me you ask me if I’m sick! Yes, I am—sick. Sick of you, sick of all these people, sick of everything. I only want to get away from you.”
John stood before the fire, staring at Margaret, his hands hanging slack at his sides. His eyes were empty, his face the color of wet clay. The little boys began to whimper. A long silence fell, broken only by the sound of the dropping coals and the distant creak of a heavily loaded cart. Margaret did not look at her husband; her head had fallen back against the chair; her eyes were closed. But in the firelight he could see the throb of the pulse in her white throat. She looked exhausted and infinitely broken.