Jupiter Lights. Woolson Constance Fenimore
conventionally through the long supper, and the effort had tired her: she was not in the least accustomed to concealing her thoughts.
“Always awake. Are you always awake?” said Cicely, returning to the fire.
“I? What an idea!”
“I don’t know; you look like it.”
“I must look very tired, then?”
“You do.”
“Fortunately you do not,” answered Eve, coldly. For there was something singularly fresh about Cicely; though she had no color, she always looked fair and perfectly rested, as though she had just risen from a refreshing sleep. “I suppose you have never felt tired, really tired, in all your life?” Eve went on.
“N – no; I don’t know that I have ever felt tired, exactly,” Cicely answered, emphasizing slightly the word “tired.”
“You have always had so many servants to do everything for you,” Eve responded, explaining herself a little.
“We haven’t many now; only four. And they help in the fields whenever they can – all except Dilsey, who stays with Jack.”
Again the name. Eve felt that she must overcome her dread of it. “Jack is very like his father,” she said, loudly and decidedly.
“Yes,” answered Cicely. Then, after a pause, “Your brother was much older than I.”
“Oh, Jack was young!”
“I don’t mean that he was really old, he hadn’t gray hair. But he was thirty-one when we were married, and I was sixteen.”
“I suppose no one forced you to marry him?” said the sister, the flash returning to her eyes.
“Oh, yes.”
“Nonsense!”
“I mean he did – Jack himself did. I thought that perhaps you would feel so.”
“Feel how?”
“Why, that we made him – that we tried, or that I tried. And so I have brought some of his letters to show you.” She took a package from her pocket and laid it on the mantelpiece. “You needn’t return them; you can burn them after reading.”
“Oh, probably,” answered Eve, incoherently. She felt choked with her anger and grief.
There was a murmuring sound in the hall, and Miss Sabrina, pushing the door open with her foot, entered apologetically, carrying a jar of dark-blue porcelain, ornamented with vague white dragons swallowing their tails. The jar was large; it extended from her knees to her chin, which rested upon its edge with a singular effect. “My dear,” she said, “I’ve brought you some po-purry; your room hasn’t been slept in for some time, though I hope it isn’t musty.”
The jar had no handles; she had difficulty in placing it upon the high chest of drawers. Eve went to her assistance. And then Miss Sabrina perceived that their guest was crying. Eve changed the jar’s position two or three times. Miss Sabrina said, each time, “Yes, yes; it is much better so.” And, furtively, she pressed Eve’s hand.
Jack Bruce’s wife, meanwhile – forgotten Jack – stood by the hearth, gazing at the fire. She was a little creature, slight and erect, with a small head, small ears, small hands and feet. Yet somehow she did not strike one as short; one thought of her as having the full height of her kind, and even as being tall for so small a person. This effect was due, no doubt, to her slender litheness; she was light and cool as the wind at dawn, untrammelled by too much womanhood. Her features were delicate; the oval of her face was perfect, her complexion a clear white without color. Her lustreless black hair, very fine and soft, was closely braided, the plaits arranged at the back of the head as flatly as possible, like a tightly fitting cap. Her great dark eyes with long curling lashes were very beautiful. They had often an absent-minded look. Under them were bluish rings. Slight and smooth as she was – the flesh of her whole body was extraordinarily smooth, as though it had been rubbed with pumice-stone – she yet seemed in one way strong and unyielding. She was quiet in her looks, in her actions, in her tones.
Eve had now choked down her tears.
“I sent Powlyne with some cherry-bounce,” said Miss Sabrina, giving Eve’s hand, secretly, a last pressure, as they came back to the hearth. “Your maid will find it – such a nice, worthy person as she seems to be, too; so generally desirable all round. If she is really to leave you to-morrow, you must have some one else. Let me see – ”
“I don’t want any one, thanks,” Eve answered. Two spots of color rose in her cheeks. “That is, I don’t want any one unless I can have Jack?” She turned to Cicely, who still stood gazing at the fire. “May Jack sleep here?”
“With Dilsey?” said Cicely, lifting her eyes with a surprised glance.
“Yes, with Dilsey. The room is large.”
“I am sure I don’t care; yes, if you like. He cries at night sometimes.”
“I hope he will,” responded Eve, and her tone was almost fierce. “Then I can comfort him.”
“Dilsey does that better than any one else; he is devoted to her; when he cries, I never interfere,” said Cicely, laughing.
Eve bit her lips to keep back the retort, “But I shall!”
“It is a sweet idea,” said Miss Sabrina, in her chanting voice. “It is sweet of Miss Bruce to wish to have him, and sweet of you, Cicely, to let him go. We can arrange a little nursery at the other end of this room to-morrow; there’s a chamber beyond, where no one sleeps, and the door could be opened through, if you like. I am sure it will be very nice all round.”
Eve turned and kissed her. Cicely pushed back a burning log with her foot, and laughed again, this time merrily. “It seems so funny, your having the baby in here at night, just like a mother, when you haven’t been married at all. Now I have been married twice. To be sure, I never meant to be!”
“My precious child!” Miss Sabrina remonstrated.
“No, auntie, I never did. It came about,” Cicely answered, her eyes growing absent again and returning to the fire.
Meadows now came in with deferential step, and presently she was followed by her own couch, which Uncle Abram spread out, in the shape of a mattress, on the floor. The English girl looked on, amazed. But this was a house of amazements; it was like a Drury Lane pantomime.
Later, when the girl was asleep, Eve rose, and, taking the package of letters, which she had put under her pillow, she felt for a candle and matches, thrust her feet into her slippers, and, with her dressing-gown over her arm, stole to the second door; it opened probably into the unoccupied chamber of which Miss Sabrina had spoken. The door was not locked; she passed through, closing it behind her. Lighting her candle, she looked about her. The room was empty, the floor bare. She put her candle on the floor, and, kneeling down beside it, opened the letters. There were but four; apparently Cicely had thought that four would be enough to confirm what she had said. They were enough. More passionate, more determined letters man never wrote to woman; they did not plead so much as insist; they compelled by sheer force of persistent unconquerable love, which accepts anything, bears anything, to gain even tolerance.
And this was Jack, her brother Jack, who had thus prostrated himself at the feet of that indifferent little creature, that cold, small, dark girl who already bore another name! She was angry with him. Then the anger faded away into infinite pity. “Oh, Jack, dear old Jack, to have loved her so, she caring nothing for you! And I am to burn your poor letters that you thought so much about – your poor, poor letters.” Sinking down upon the floor, she placed the open pages upon her knees, laying her cheek upon them as though they had been something human. “Some one cares for you,” she murmured.
There was now a wild gale outside. One of the shutters was open, and she could see Jupiter Light; she sat there, with her cheek on the letters, looking at it.
Suddenly everything seemed changed, she no longer wept; she felt sluggish, cold. “Don’t I care