The Purchase Price by Emerson Hough (ebook reader screen .txt) 📕

he did not find. Here he was soon discovered by the old negro woman, who began an excited harangue, with wild gesticulations. To Josephine it seemed that Sally pointed toward the interior of the house, as though she beckoned, explained. She heard his deep-voiced cry.

By this time the names had taken firm hold upon the entire structure. Smoke tinged with red lines poured through the great double doors of the mansion house. Yet even as she met the act with an exclamation of horror, Josephine saw Dunwody fling away his weapons, run to the great doors and crash through them, apparently bent upon reaching some point deep in the interior.

Others saw this, and joined in her cry of terror. The interior of the hall, thus disclosed by the opening of the doors, seemed but a mass of flames. An instant later, Dunwody staggered back, his arm across his face. His hair was smoking, the mustaches half burned from his lips. He gasped for breath, but, revived by air, drew his coat across his mouth and once again dashed back. Josephine, standing with hands clasped, her eyes filled with terror, expected never to see him emerge alive.

He was scarcely more than alive when once more he came back, blinded and staggering. This time arms reached out to him, steadied him, dragged him from the gallery, through the enshrouding smoke, to a place of safety.

He bore something shielded, concealed in his arms—something, which now he carried tenderly and placed down away from the sight of others, behind the shade of a protecting clump of shrubbery. His breath, labored, sobbing, showed his distress. They caught him again when he staggered back, dragged him to a point somewhat removed, upon the lawn. All the time he struggled, as though once more to dash back into the flames, or as though to find his weapons. He was sobbing, half crazed, horribly burned, but seemingly unmindful of his hurts.

The fire went on steadily with its work, the more rapidly now that the opening of the front doors had admitted air to the interior. The construction of the house, with a wide central hall, and stairways leading up almost to the roof, made an admirable arrangement for a conflagration. No living being, even though armed with the best of fire fighting apparatus, could have survived in that blazing interior. All they could do, since even a bucket brigade was out of the question here, was to stand and watch for the end. Some called for ladders, but by accident or design, no ladders were found where they should have been. Men ran about like ants. None knew anything of time's passing. No impression remained on their minds save the fascinating picture of this tall pillar of the fire.

Dunwody ceased to struggle with those who restrained him. He walked apart, near to the little clump of shrubs. He dropped to the ground, his face in his hands.

"What do you reckon that thah was he brung out in his arms, that time?" demanded Mr. William Jones, after a time, of a neighbor who met him a little apart. "Say, you reckon that was folks? Anybody in there? Anybody over—thah? Was that a bed—folded up like—'bout like a crib, say? I'm skeered to go look, somehow."

"God knows!" was the reply. "This here house has had mighty strange goings on of late times. There was always something strange about it,—something strange about Dunwody too! There ain't no doubt about that. But I'm skeered, too—him a-settin' thah—"

"But who was she, or it, whatever it was? How come—in—in there? How long has it been there? What kind of goings on do you think there has been; in this here place, after all?" Mr. Jones was not satisfied. They passed apart, muttering, exclaiming, wondering.

An hour later, Tallwoods mansion house was no more. The last of cornice and pillar and corner post and beam had fallen into a smoldering mass. In front of one long window a part of the heavy brick foundation remained. Some bent and warped iron bars appeared across a window.

Unable to do anything, these who had witnessed such scenes, scarce found it possible to depart. They stood about, whispering, or remaining silent, some regarding the smouldering ruin. Once in a while a head was turned over shoulder toward a bowed form which sat close under a sheltering tree upon the lawn.

"He is taking it mighty hard," said this or that neighbor. "Lost nigh about everything he had in the world." But still his bowed form, stern in its sentinelship, guarded the something concealed behind the shadows. And still they dared not go closer.

So, while Dunwody was taking that which had come to him, as human beings must, the gray of the dawn crawled up, up over the eastern edge of this little Ozark Valley. After a time the day would come again, would look with franker eyes upon this scene of horror. As the light grew stronger, though yet cold and gray, Dunwody, sighing, raised his head from his hands and turned. There was a figure seated close to him—a woman, who reached out a hand to take his scarred and burned ones in her own,—a woman, moreover, who asked him no questions.

"Oh! Oh God!" he began, for the first time breaking silence, his burned lips twitching. "And you,—why don't you go away? What made you come?"

She was silent for a time. "Am I not your friend?" she asked, at length.

Now he could look at her. "My friend!" said he bitterly. "As if all the world had a friend for me! How could there be? But you saw that,—this—?"

She made no answer, but only drew a trifle nearer, seeing him for the first time unnerved and unstrung. "I saw something, I could not tell what—when you came out. I supposed—"

"Well, then," said he, with a supreme effort which demanded all his courage, as he turned toward her; "it all had to come out, somehow. It is the end, now."

She had brought with her a cup of water. Now she handed it to him without comment. His hand trembled as he took it.

"You saw that—?" He nodded toward the ruins. All she did was to nod, in silence. "Yes, I saw you come out—with—that—in your arms."

"Who—what—do you suppose it was?"

"I don't know." Then, suddenly,—"Tell me. Tell me! Was it she?"

"Send them away!" he said to her after a time. She turned, and those who stood about seemed to catch the wish upon her face. They fell back for a space, silent, or talking in low tones.

"Come," he said.

He led her a pace or so, about the scanty wall of shrubbery. He pulled back a bit of old and faded silk, a woman's garment of years ago, from the face of that something which lay there, on a tiny cot, scarce larger than a child's bed.

It was the face of a woman grown, yet of a strangely vague and childlike look. The figure, never very large, was thin and shrunken unbelievably. The features, waxy-white, were mercifully spared by the flames which had licked at the shielding hands and arms that had borne her hither. Yet they seemed even more thin, more wax-like, more unreal, than had their pallor come by merciful death. Death? Ah, here was written death through years. Life, full, red-blooded, abounding, luxuriant, riotous, never had animated this pallid form, or else had long years since abandoned it. This was but the husk of a human being, clinging beyond its appointed time to this world, so cruel and so kind.

They stood and gazed, solemnly, for a time. The hands of Josephine St. Auban were raised in the sign of her religion. Her lips moved in some swift prayer. She could hear the short, hard breathing of the man who stood near her, grimed, blistered, disfigured, in his effort to bring away into the light for a time at least this specter, so long set apart from all the usual ways of life.

"She has been there for years," he said, at last, thickly. "We kept her, I kept her, here for her sake. In this country it would be a sort of disgrace for any—any—feeble—person, you know, to go to an institution. Those are our graves over yonder in the yard. You see them? Well, here was our asylum. We kept our secrets.

"She was this way for more than ten years. She was hurt in an accident—her spine. She withered away. Her mind was gone—she was like a child. She had toys, like a child. She wept, she cried out like a child. Very often I was obliged to play—Ah! my God! My God!"

"This was one of your family. It was that which we heard—which we felt—about the place—?" Her voice was very clear, though low.

"My wife! Now you know." He dropped back, his face once more between his hands, and again she fell into silence.

"How long—was this?" at length she asked quietly.

He turned a scorched and half-blinded face toward her. "Ever since I was a boy, you might say," said he. "Even before my father and mother died. We kept our own counsel. We ran away, we two children. They counseled me against it. My people didn't like the match, but I wouldn't listen. It came like some sort of judgment. Not long after we were married it came—the dreadful accident, with a run-away team—and we saw,—we knew—in a little while—that she simply lived like a child—a plant—That was ten years ago, ten centuries!—ten thousand years of torture. But I kept her. I shielded her the best I knew how. That was her place yonder, where the bars were—you see. Nobody knew any more. It's all alone, back in here. Some said there was a funeral, out here. Jamieson didn't deny it, I did not deny it. But she lived—there! Sally took care of her. Sometimes she or the others were careless. You heard once or twice. Well, anyway, I couldn't tell you. It didn't seem right—to her. And you were big enough not to ask. I thank you! Now you know."

Still she was silent. They dropped down, now weary, side by side, on the grass.

"Now you see into one bit of a human heart, don't you?" said he bitterly. The gray dawn showed his distorted and wounded face, scarred, blackened, burned, as at length he tried to look at her.

"I did the best I knew. I knew it wasn't right to feel as I did toward you—to talk as I did—but I couldn't help it, I tell you, I just couldn't help it! I can't help it now. But I don't think it's wrong now, even—here. I was starved. When I saw you,—well, you know the rest. I have got nothing to say. It would be no use for me to explain. I make no excuses for myself. I have got to take my medicine. Anyhow, part of it—part of it is wiped out."

"It is wiped out," she repeated simply. "The walls that stood there—all of them—are gone. It is the act of fate, of God! I had not known how awful a thing is life. It is all—wiped away by fire. Those walls—"

"But not my sins, not my selfishness, not the wrong I have done! Even all that has happened to me, or may happen to me, wouldn't be punishment enough for that. Now you asked me if you were not my friend? Of course you are not. How could you be?"

"It would be easier now than ever before," she said. But he shook his head from side to side, slowly, dully, monotonously.

"No, no," he said, "it would not be right,—I would not allow it."

"I remember now," she said slowly, "how you hesitated. It must have been agony for you. I knew there was something, all the time. Of course, I