Chapter XXXIV: Mating Time

We had my nephew home with us that very day. Somers and I went to the State solicitor, Toby Vanbrugh, with our tale, and he marked Lewis Parker’s indictment, “_nolle pros_,” with a very bad grace. It was hard upon him, after all, to see his big case collapse like a pricked bubble. He had built high hopes upon the prosecution of the case of the people against C. Lewis Parker; he had seen himself well advertised by its prosecution, elected, perhaps, State senator upon the strength of it, with who knows what further political advancement beyond, governor--United States senator! He had a healthy opinion of his abilities, had the Honorable Toby Vanbrugh. And now all that was gone; in the face of Miss McGregor’s ante-mortem statement, vouched for by five witnesses, he could do no less than drop the case, and he knew it.

On the whole, the newspapers were as kind as we could have expected. One or two of them played the case up, for it was a unique news story; but that will pass soon enough, I trust, and poor, demented Aunt Mary will be left to rest quietly beneath her modest headstone, where the bobwhites, that whistle in the quiet cemetery through long spring mornings, can disturb her no more.

It was two days after the tragic dénouement of our mystery, and Dorothy and Lewis, reunited, sat hand in hand in the big living room of Fort House. The slanting sun cast long yellow beams through its western windows and played lovingly on the girl’s black hair, so that red, coppery lights glinted in it.

To them entered Peter McGregor and I. “Well, Dot,” said her brother cheerfully, “I suppose you’ll be leaving us now?”

Dorothy nodded. “We’ll be in our own little house to-morrow. Rosina’s over there now, scrubbing and cleaning, until your life isn’t safe for it. And she’s promised to have breakfast waiting for us there in the morning.”

“Well,” he sighed, “it’ll be lonely here, but I suppose you’re not sorry to leave Fort House.”

The girl shivered. “No; we were happy here once, but everything seems so changed. I miss----” She stopped, biting her lips, and I knew she thought of poor old Aunt Mary, in some way lovable for all her selfishness, whom we had laid to rest in the churchyard that afternoon.

Peter sighed again. “Poor Aunt Mary! She did terrible things; she made us all suffer; but, after all, she wasn’t to blame.”

So we all felt; she had been irresponsible. Doctor Somers’ kindly judgment, delivered over her dead body in that east bedroom, had had its effect. We remembered the old lady kindly enough, as the puppet of her own mad impulses, more to be pitied than blamed.

“Well,” said I more briskly, “you two are fixed. You’re safely married, even if you didn’t have a big wedding, and all ready to settle down in your own home. And Somers, I suppose, will be going North again presently. But what will Anne Christie do?”

Dorothy gave me a pitying, superior glance. “Oh, you men!” she said. “Listen!”

We listened obediently, and we heard faint voices drifting in through the open southern windows, which faced the front porch.

“I’ll be going back to the hospital now, I suppose.” That was Doctor Somers’ brusque voice; it sounded rather less than pleased.

A faint-heard sigh. “Must you go?” Miss Christie’s low tones were wistfully tremulous. I must strain to hear.

“Must I? Why, not for another fortnight. Why?”

“Because--because I----”

“Anne! Do you want me to stay?”

“Oh, the idiot!” exclaimed Dorothy. “Does she?”

“Hush, Dot!” And we all listened frankly.

“I--I don’t want you to go,” whispered Anne Christie.

“Anne, dear!” There was a tiny rustle, as if he had moved closer. “I’m thirty-eight years old, a battered, skinny, homely brute----”

“You are not!”

“A grotesque-looking creature, almost middle-aged, and just starting my chosen work. I’ve frittered away years and years, just studying, working on a small salary when I might have been earning big money for my wife.”

“For your w-wife?”

“Yes, when I get one. And here I am, with my best years gone, little better than a failure.”

“You’re not! You’re just wonderful, the most wonderful man I ever saw or dreamed of!”

“Better than Doctor Gaskell, even?”

“Of course! And,” very wistfully, “I h-hope you’ll be very happy with your w-wife, whoever she is!”

“Humph!” A characteristic snort, expressing disgust of this evasion, this edging about a topic. “Anne Christie, will you marry me?”

“I’m only a poor mountain girl, and my father’s in prison for making moonshine liquor!”

“Stepfather!” stubbornly replied Somers.

“Well, but I’m not--not g-good enough.”

“Anne!” A chair slammed back. “Anne--dear, I love you. Are you going to marry me, or not?”

For all answer there came a little, murmurous, cooing sound and a rustling, as if a girl in crisp gingham had settled more comfortably into the crook of some one’s arm.

A long silence followed, while we within doors smiled tenderly at nothing. Then: “Oh, Floyd, honey, let me go. I’m s-sure that man saw us; he’s looking back and laughing!”

I sighed, as a lonely old man will. “Two more accounted for,” said I. “That leaves only you and me, Peter.”

“Not me!” the boy replied promptly. “I’m going to be married in December.”

“Why, Peter McGregor. And you never told me!” Dorothy looked shocked.

“We-ell, Dot, you see, I didn’t know it myself until I was in New York that last time. And I got back to find old Lewis in jail, and everybody so upset--I thought I’d better keep it to myself for a while, until things brightened up a bit.”

“Who--who is she?” demanded Dorothy.

I did not listen. I am a very selfish old man. All these bright young folk whom I loved, all the friends I had on earth, I thought gloomily, had paired off, and I was left alone. I tried to smile.

“Congratulations, Peter! That’s just fine. It’s the mating season. Well, it’s time I settled down, too. I’ll go now and write a letter.”

“Stop, unk!” Lewis caught my arm. “What makes you look so queer? What letter do you mean?”

“Why, to Stamford, to the Home for the Aged there. It’s a nice homey place and very exclusive. I--I have f-friends there, too. I’m going to buy a membership.”

“You are not!” declared Dorothy and my nephew at once. “Why, your room’s waiting for you at our new bungalow; we’ve moved your things over there, and everything.”

“You are not!” cried Peter. “Why, unk, I was counting on you to bach in with me here at Fort House until I bring Edith down at Christmas time to take care of us both!”

“You are not!” That was Floyd Somers, in from the porch, his extraordinarily long, lean arm wrapped about Anne’s shoulders. “You’re coming to live with Anne and me, of course! I’ve decided to resign from the hospital and buy out Gaskell’s practice. A little general medicine will do me good, and there’s plenty of medicolegal work in North Carolina, once I get to be known here. I like this country. We’re going to buy Gaskell’s house, Anne and I; and of course you’ll live with us there!”

My eyes filled with tears. After all, I was not friendless nor forgotten. “God b-bless you, children!” I said. “I’ll stay with you all, turn and turn about.”

* * * * *

My story is done. I am living with Lewis and Dorothy; but, when Anne and Floyd come back from their honeymoon next month, I shall go there for a while, and in January I move to Fort House, to stay with Peter and his Edith. I hope she may prove to be as true and as sweet as my other two nieces--by marriage and courtesy!

Ralph Satterfield and his fellows of the corn-whisky ring are safe in Atlanta; and Somers need not fear the bootleggers’ vengeance for another twenty years, at least. As for Roaring Lafe Rutledge, he never came to trial. He died in prison of some heart condition, brought on, Doctor Somers says, by excessive drinking.

Aunt Mary McGregor sleeps in the Pinelands cemetery, no more than a dozen feet from the man she slew. We put flowers on both graves impartially, as the genial sun of North Carolina shines on both; and the quail whistle “bob_white_! bob_white_!” without disturbing the rest of either.

We do not judge her. As Floyd Somers said, “When you have stood, with a deadly weapon in hand, facing an enemy who has power to betray your secrets and destroy the security of your whole life; and when you have let him go unscathed, knowing you could kill him with impunity, then, and not till then, dare you blame Mary McGregor.”

Let that be her epitaph. But I, for one, shall never to my dying day hear the quail calling “bob_white_! bob_white_!” of a lazy summer morning without an inward shrinking.

THE END

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Transcriber’s Notes

This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text.

The following changes and corrections have been made:

• p. 26: Replaced “listend” with “listened” in phrase “I listened
frankly, welcoming any signs of human companionship.”
• p. 76: Removed comma after “quail” from phrase “A quail whistled
sharply.”
• p. 94: Replaced “beeen” with “been” in phrase “From the moment he
left the stand he had been deathly white.”
• p. 152: Added opening double quotation mark before phrase “I’ll be
a-all right p-presently.”
• p. 176: Replaced “laugher” with “laughter” in phrase “Renewed
laughter.”
• p. 186: Replaced “docor” with “doctor” in phrase “the doctor knew
more than was good for him.”