Chapter XVIII: A Painful Disappointment

“How strange!” Maisie said to herself, as she walked along with the great bunch of roses clasped to her breast. “I am only eighteen years old, but I am a widow, and I am going to my husband’s grave!”

She wondered if Delmar had repented his marriage as bitterly as she had done, and the thought came to her that perhaps his dying hour had been welcome because it brought him release from his irksome fetters.

The keen humiliation of the thought made her wince with pain, and big tears sparkled in her eyes so that she could scarcely see where she was going as she stumbled along through the lonely cemetery until she came within a few yards of the large green plot of ground where Barrington was laid between his two wives, with the tall white monument towering grandly in the center of the space.

Maisie stopped still, with a little choking gasp, thinking of all that had come and gone since that changeful April day almost four months ago, when she had last stood here, watching the grave-clods falling on him who had been her friend eight years, then turned against her at the last, reaching out from the grave for his vengeance.

She stood still, looking at the three green graves, almost hidden in flowers, at the tall white monument keeping guard over the quiet sleepers, and at the old negro, with his shock of white wool, moving about with a green watering-can, refreshing the grass that was so green and lively despite the sultry August heat. Mechanically, her eyes followed his slow movements, and then she discovered a new grave in the most distant corner of the plot--a mound that was a bed of rarest flowers below a beautiful monument--a broken marble shaft entwined with lilies, gleaming whitely in the afternoon sunlight.

“Delmar’s grave!” she thought, with a violent leap of the heart.

She turned aside, and sat down to recover herself on the low stone coping around a grave, and as she rested, the old negro moved away from the plot with his watering-can.

“He is going to the spring for more water. I will look at it while he is gone,” she thought, not caring to risk detection by the old man, in whom she recognized one of the servants of Castellane.

She tottered tremblingly forward to the plot, and walked across the damp green grass to a rustic chair that was placed close beside the new grave, as though for the accommodation of some one who came often to commune with the dead.

“Josephine,” she thought quickly, remembering how she and Delmar had loved each other.

She sank into the chair, thinking:

“How her heart must ache over the bitter result of her treachery, and the feeble repentance that came too late.”

Then she ventured to lift her eyes to the monument, to read the words in which Delmar’s death had been commemorated on the broken shaft, fit emblem of his short life, so violently ended on the red field of battle.

A long, slanting sunbeam pierced the green shrubberies, like a golden finger, pointing out the words cut deep in the shining white marble.

She read with dazed eyes:

“MAISIE VAN ALLYN,
“WIFE OF DELMAR BARRINGTON.
“Died April 21, 1898, Aged Eighteen Years.
“Somewhere with God.”

Her great, staring eyes darkened and dilated with fear and wonder, her face went death-white, she trembled like a wind-blown leaf, and from her pallid lips came a gasping cry:

“What horrible thing is this? I--I--do not understand!”

Nature, warm, lively, palpitating, recoiled in blind terror from the awful shock, and Maisie’s senses reeled so that she fell face downward presently among the odorous flowers, and lay there, still as the dead below, until the old man came pottering back and found her thus.

Naturally, he made much ado at finding the young stranger there in such a plight, but as soon as he could rally his scattered wits he concluded it was a swoon, and set to work to revive her, not finding it difficult when he plunged her little hands into his can of cold spring water.

Maisie gasped, shivered, and opened her great, startled eyes in wonder on his wrinkled, kindly black face.

“Dar, now, set up, honey; you’se all right ergin!” coaxed her rescuer cheerily, lifting her back to the chair, while he wondered how she came there and who she was, anyway, with those eyes that had given him such a queer start when she looked at him, seeming to stir some chord of memory in his mind.

But he could not remember any one he had ever met just like this dark-skinned, violet-eyed young girl with the mass of thick, curly dark hair under her little black turban with its close veil.

Everything came back to Maisie in a moment, and she struggled to recover her self-possession, saying tremulously:

“Yes, thank you; I’m all right now. I must have had a sunstroke, it is so very warm to-day.”

“Dat’s a fac’, missie,” assented the old man, mopping his perspiring brow with a red bandanna, while he regarded the girl with puzzled curiosity, struck with something indefinably familiar about her voice and face that made him continue curiously:

“Does you lib hereabouts?”

“No, I am an entire stranger. My name is Violet Summers, and I stopped off the train just to spend a day at Rosedale on my way--home, because I had been told it was such a pretty place. But as I knew nobody, and hadn’t any place to go, I thought I would go through the cemeteries. I’m fond of reading strange things on monuments,” explained Maisie, humoring his curiosity because it did her good to look at a familiar face from Castellane, even though it only belonged to a servant.

Besides, she must find out from him the meaning of that tombstone that recorded her death when she stood here reading it with the warm tide of life bounding through her veins.

She pointed a trembling finger at the stone, and continued:

“I was just reading that when I had--that sunstroke. It was very sad for a young wife to die so soon. Perhaps you can tell me her story?”

“Dat I kin, missie--en er sad story ’tis,” returned the old negro, swallowing something like a sigh in his throat, and brushing the back of his hand across his dim old eyes as he rambled on:

“She was my young missie, she was, an’ libbed yander at Castl’ane, whar you see dem towers risin’ high. She war married one day ter my young Marse Delmar Barrin’ton--en de same day he went off ter de war wif his comp’ny, de Young Guards, gran’ as a lord in his new uniform. But dat bruk pritty li’l’ Maisie’s heart, him goin’ on ter de crewel war, whar he might git kilt any day, en she mos’ los’ her mind wif trubble, so she runned away dat same day--mebbe er follerin’ Marse Del, dey finks, but, enyways, she went ter a great big city--Philadelphy, dey calls it--I mind I had a great aunt oncet named Philadelphy--en she stop at a hotel, pore li’l’ Maisie, en dat night, whilst she’s ondressin’, she cotch fire to her gownd sleebe, en burnt all up, en died in a li’l’ while.”

“Heavens!” cried the girl, in wonder, and, encouraged by her interest, the old man added, with moist eyes:

“Yaas, burnt cl’ar up, pore pritty chile, ’twell de flesh fa’r drap offen her bones, en mos’ all her pritty yaller ha’r burnt offen her skull ’twell dey wouldn’t er nebber knowed who de gal was but fer her knapsack wif her name on ter it, en her gole watch wif her name inside, en her name on the scraps o’ close dey tore offen her body--so dey just tallygraffed back here, and Marse Byrd Barrin’ton en his aunt dey went ter Philadelphy en fetch home de remains en bury her here, pore li’l’ chile, fer she war so young en small--she warn’t sca’cely growed up.”

Dumb with horror, Maisie listened and looked, comprehending very quickly who was buried here in her place.

It could be no other than the young, fair-haired woman who had robbed her on the train going to New York. Alas, she had met with a terrible retribution.

She looked at her own name on the broken marble shaft and realized that she was virtually dead to all her friends--dead and in her lonely grave. She could not understand why it hurt her so cruelly to know it. Had she not cut herself off from them forever by her own will? Had she not vowed never to go back? Living or dead, what did it matter, anyway?

She said hoarsely:

“It was very dreadful, and no wonder you feel so sorry over it. Was poor Maisie’s husband much grieved?”

“He was gone away ter de war, yer know, missie, en dough dey writ him de news, o’ co’se, I hear um say dat dey don’t nebber git no answer, en dey ’fraid he hain’t nebber ceabed dat letter. Mebbe he was already kilt--I done tole you Marse Del war kilt endurin’ de war, didn’t I?”

“Yes, yes,” she answered absently, and he added:

“Yaas, pore boy, kilt in de war, an’ his brudder Byrd he done gone off ter Cubia ter fetch home de corpse for ter bury longside pore li’l’ Maisie.”

So Byrd had gone away!

She should not see him when she went back to peep in the windows at Castellane to-night as she had planned to do.

A keen pang of disappointment pierced her heart.

All at once a shadow seemed to gloom over the fair summer day and a chill struck coldly upon her heart. She could not understand why it was so; she did not realize yet that her feelings toward him were subtly changed; that she had longed--yes, longed--to see him again.

Almost without her own volition, it seemed to her, she faltered:

“Was your Mr. Byrd sorry about poor little Maisie?”

“Sorry, missie, sorry? Good Gawd, hit almost kilt him, dat’s de trufe! I ain’t tole yer, has I, dat bofe dem brudders war in lub wif Maisie? Yaas, indeed, but she hate Marse Byrd, en say she wouldn’t marry him fur all his millions. Nance, de red-headed maid, say dat young missie was er fool, dat Marse Byrd much de fines’ man er dem two. En so says I. Howsumdever, Miss Maisie wouldn’t hab him, nohow! But Marse Byrd he jist lubbed de groun’ dat girl walked on, you hear me! Laws-a-mussy, after he brung her home en buried her he war tuk down wif de brain-fever, and laik ter die for long weeks, en everybuddy say ’twan’t long o’ nothin’ but grief fer li’l’ Maisie! So den de doctor say he mus’ go ter White Sulphur Springs fer ter strengthen hisself. He went, long er his aunt en Miss Shirley en her datter Josephine, which dey do say is er try in to cotch Marse Byrd, but she’s wastin’ her time, now I tells yer; fer when he put up dis monyment en went ter de Springs, he say:

“‘Nicodemas, listen now: I want you to keep dis grabe like a flower-garden ebery day, en if you fails ter water de grass one single day I gwine break yo’ hade, you hear? You knows how I lubbed dat li’l’ gal, and when I comes back I’ll sit here ebery day en think erbout my li’l’ angel in hebben.’ So I promised him, en I’se kep’ my word, you see, doan you, missie?”

“Yes, you have been very faithful, Uncle Nick, and I’ve found your story very interesting. Here’s a dollar to buy you some tobacco. Good-by!” exclaimed Maisie, pressing the money into his eager black palm, and hurrying away lest she betray herself and break down into genuine sobs of self-pity at the story the old man had told.

Her feelings were so chaotic that she did not know yet whether she ought to reveal herself or not. Her most coherent thought was one of cruel disappointment at Barrington’s absence.