Part 43 (1/2)
”Is dem sums?” she asked.
With the pencil end between her teeth, Jane looked up and nodded.
”Well,” Aunt Timmie sighed, ”he's done done a sum now dat beats 'em all holler! I got to set down, honey; mah bones is jest cussin' wid misery.”
Aunt Timmie, as may have been mentioned, never betrayed a secret except to the one confidant she implicitly trusted. This was Jane. And Jane would not breathe her trust but to the one person with whom she knew all things were safe. This was Ann. And Ann would have gone smilingly and willingly to the rack rather than whisper a word, except to Bob. And thus it was that, in the last resort, the stream from Uncle Zack's spring of secrets trickled through many silent places to pour itself into Bob's casual reservoirs.
Jane sat, pale and sometimes trembling, as Aunt Timmie unfolded the story of Zack's concoction, colored here and there with promptings of the old woman's own imagination. She heard each detail, and saw with shocking vividness the shot fired into the back of a man's head, and saw him fall across his threshold. Creepy feelings touched her body at this sickening reminder of a day she had stooped to awaken her father, and found that he had fallen in an everlasting, rather than a drunken, sleep. She s.h.i.+vered. The old woman finished, wiped her face and again mournfully rocked her body to and fro.
”When did it happen?” Jane whispered.
”I reckon sometime yistiddy; but it couldn' a-been so ve'y long ago, noway!”
Without another word Jane pushed back the sums and pa.s.sed swiftly stableward across the lawn. There was no one at the stables, but she took down her bridle and walked past the long row of box-stalls, finally entering when she came to a horse she knew. Understanding something of her need, he took the bit in his mouth before she had even pressed it--a little act of kindness which, from that time forward, made her his staunch friend.
”Now if you won't swell up when I try to tighten the girth,” she pleaded, on the verge of tears.
She had forgotten to whistle for Mac.
CHAPTER XXIX
A PARALYSING DISCOVERY
Jane did not go fast to Arden, for the sun was too blistering hot to torture a horse by frantic riding. But her mind was frantic, and tortured, with the uncertainty of what might be before her. Was Dale there? Had he not, indeed, fled into the mountains as any of his people would have done? Had he been arrested? Question after question surged through her brain, finding no answers and pa.s.sing on.
The Colonel was not in his accustomed place on the honeysuckled end of the porch, nor was Zack about, so she dismounted alone and tied the lathery beast. Perhaps they were at Bradford's cottage, comforting little Mesmie. Perhaps they were--but she tried not to think of that!
Never had the world seemed so deserted. Nothing was astir. The edge of a lace curtain, drawn outward by the pa.s.sing of someone through one of the library French windows, hung over the sill, deadly white and deadly still. The leaves were still, the air was still. Above her head, where recently she had watched two piping orioles flutter about their weaving, hung now the silent, pendant nest. No pipe, no bird, no motion. It seemed as though here were the stage of Perrault's fairytale; only 'twas a Prince within who had p.r.i.c.ked his destiny with a leaden bullet, and a Princess rode to wake him.
Alertly, but with a heavy dread at her heart, she crossed the porch and tiptoed to the open window. Dale was there, bent over the mahogany table, reading; as far from the world as he was from his mad act; as far from them both as he was from her. She went quietly in to him.
”Dale!”
He did not stir.
”Dale!” she again cried in a low voice, shaking him by the shoulder. He looked slowly up.
”Dale, what does this mean?” she hurriedly began. ”Why have you killed that man?”
He remembered the Colonel's unpleasant interview, and burned with a deep rage, growling:
”Leave me alone. I've got to read.”
”Are you asleep?” she incredulously exclaimed. ”Do you realize you've killed Tusk Potter, and any moment they may be after you?”
As he again looked up there was a storm of irritation in his face.
”They won't be after me if people keep their mouths shut! What do I care who I killed? Leave me alone! I've got to study!”
Stunned, she stared stupidly down at him, for here was a new trait--or, at least, one he had not shown her. Many times she had been utterly shocked, thoroughly enraged by evidences of his abnormal selfishness, but she was unprepared for this atrocious abandonment. It aroused her to a quick anger and, s.n.a.t.c.hing the book from the table, she dashed it to the floor.