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

gazed out with that sudden wonder and terror which at times seize upon us when we awake in strange environment. Youth and vitality resumed sway. She was alive, then. The night had passed, then. She was as she had been, herself, her own, still. The surge of young blood came back in her veins. The morning was there, the hills were there, the world was there. Hope began once more with the throb of her perfect pulse. She stretched a round white arm and looked down it to her hand. She held up her fingers against the light, and the blood in them, the soul in them, showed pink and clean between. Slowly she pushed down the patchwork silk. There lay her splendid limbs and body. Yes, it was she, it was herself, her own. Yes, she would live, she would succeed, she would win! All of which, of course, meant to her but one thing—escape.

A knock came at the door, really for the third time, although for the first time heard. Old Sally entered, bearing her tray, with coffee.

"Now you lay right still whah you is, Ma'am," she began. "You-all wants a li'l bit o' coffee. Then I'll bring you up some real breakfus'—how you like yuah aigs? Ma'am, you suttinly is lookin' fine dis mawnin'. I'll fetch you yuah tub o' watah right soon now."

In spite of herself Josephine found herself unable to resist interest in these proceedings. After all, her prison was not to be without its comforts. She hoped the eggs would be more than two.

The old serving woman slowly moved about here and there in the apartment, intent upon duties of her own. While thus engaged, Josephine, standing femininely engaged before her glass, chanced to catch sight of her in the mirror. She had swiftly slipped over and opened the door of a wardrobe. Over her arm now was some feminine garment.

"What have you there?" demanded Josephine, turning as swiftly.

"Jus' some things I'se gwine take away to make room for you, tha'ss all, Ma'am."

Josephine approached and took up in her own hands these evidences of an earlier occupancy of the room. They were garments of a day gone by. The silks were faded, dingy, worn in the creases from sheer disuse. Apparently they had hung untouched for some time.

[Illustration: They were garments of a day gone by.]

"Whose were these, Sally?" demanded Josephine.

"I dunno, Ma'am. I'se been mos'ly in the kitchen, Ma'am."

Josephine regarded her closely. No sign of emotion showed on that
brown mask. The gray brows above the small eyes did not flicker.
"I suppose these may have belonged to Mr. Dunwody's mother," said
Josephine carelessly.

"Yassam!"

"His sister?"

"Yassam!"

"Or his wife, perhaps?"

"Yassam, ef they really wuz one."

"Was there ever?" demanded Josephine sharply.

"Might a-been none, er might a-been a dozen, fur's I know. Us folks don' study much 'bout whut white folks does."

"You must have known if there was any such person about—you've been here for years. Don't talk nonsense!"

Temptation showed on Sally's face. The next instant the film came again over the small brown eyes, the mask shut down again, as the ancient negro racial secretiveness resumed sway. Josephine did not ask for what she knew would be a lie.

"Where is my own maid, Jeanne?" she demanded. "I am anxious about her."

"I dunno, Ma'am."

"Is she safe—has she been cared for?"

"I reckon she's all right."

"Can you bring her to me?"

"I'll try, Ma'am."

But breakfast passed and no Jeanne appeared. From the great house came no sounds of human occupancy. Better struggle, conflict, than this ominous waiting, this silence, here in this place of infamy, this home of horror, this house of some other woman. It was with a sense of relief that at length she heard a human voice.

Outside, beneath the window, quavering sounds rose. The words were French, Canadian French, scarce distinguishable to an ear trained only in the Old World. It was an old man singing, the air perhaps that of some old chanson of his own country, sung by villagers long before:

  "Souvenirs du jeune age
  Sont gravis dans mon coeur,
  Quand je pense au village,
  Revenant du bonheur—"

The old voice halted, at length resuming, idly: "Quand je pense—quand je pense." Then after humming the air for a little time it broke out as though in the chorus, bold and strong:

"Rendes-moi ma patrie, ou laisses-moi mourir!"

The words came to her with a sudden thrill. What did they not mean to the alien, to the prisoner, to the outcast, anywhere in all the world! "Give me back my country, or let me die!"

She stepped to the window and looked down. An old man, brown, bent and wrinkled, was digging about the shrubbery, perhaps preparing some of the plants for their winter sleep. He was clad in leather and linsey, and seemed ancient as the hills. He resumed his song. Josephine leaned out from the casement and softly joined in the refrain:

"Rendez-moi ma patrie, ou laissez-moi mourir!"

[Illustration: An old man, brown, bent and wrinkled]

The old man dropped his spade. "Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, and looked all about, around, then at last up.

"Ah! Bon jour, Mademoiselle!" he said, smiling and taking off his old fur cap. "You spik also my language, Mademoiselle?"

"Mais oui, Monsieur," rejoined Josephine; and addressed him further in a few sentences on trivial topics. Then, suddenly resolved, she stepped out of her own room, passed softly down the stair, out through the wide central hall, and so, having encountered no one, joined the ancient man on the lawn. It chanced he had been at labor directly in front of one of the barred lower windows. He now left his spade and stepped apart, essaying now a little broken English.

"You seeng my song al_so_, Mademoiselle? You like the old song from Canadian village, aye? I seeng heem many tam, me."

"Who are you?" demanded Josephine.

"Me, I am Eleazar, the ol' trap' man. Summers, I work here for Monsieur Dunwodee. Verr' reech man, Monsieur Dunwodee. He say, 'Eleazar, you live here, all right.' When winter come I go back in the heel, trap ze fur-r, Madame, ze cat, ze h'ottaire, ze meenk, sometime ze coon, also ze skonk. Pret' soon I'll go h'out for trap now, Mademoiselle."

"How long have you been here, Eleazar?" she asked.

"Many year, Mademoiselle. In these co'ntree perhaps twent'—thirt' year, I'll don' know."

"Were you here when the lady lived here?" she demanded of him directly.

He frowned at this suddenly. "I'll not know what you mean,
Mademoiselle."

"I mean the other lady, the wife of Mr. Dunwody."

"My faith! Monsieur Dunwody he'll live h'alone here, h'all tam."

She affected not to understand him. "How long since she was here,
Eleazar?" she demanded.

"What for you'll talk like those to me? I'll not know nossing, Mademoiselle. I'll not even know who is Mademoiselle, or why she'll been here, me. I'll not know for say, whether 'Madame,' whether 'Mademoiselle.' Mais 'Mademoiselle'—que je pense."

She looked about her hastily. "I'm here against my wish, Eleazar.
I want to get away from here as soon as I can."

He drew away in sudden fright. "I'll not know nossing at all, me," he reiterated.

"Eleazar, you like money perhaps?"

"Of course, yes. Tout le monde il aime l'argent."

"Then listen, Eleazar. Some day we will walk, perhaps. How far is it to Cape Girardeau, where the French people live?"

"My son Hector he'll live there wance, on Cap' Girardeau. He'll make the tub, make the cask, make the bar_rel_. Cap' Girardeau, oh, perhaps two—t'ree day. Me, I walk heem once, maybe so feefty mile, maybe so seexty mile, in wan day, two-t'ree a little more tam, me. I was more younger then. But now my son he'll live on St. Genevieve, French place there, perhaps thirtee mile. Cap' Girardeau, seventy-five mile. You'll want for go there?" he added cunningly.

"Sometime," she remarked calmly. Eleazar was shrewd in his own way. He strolled off to find his spade.

Before she could resume the conversation Josephine heard behind her in the hall a step, which already she recognized. Dunwody greeted her at the door, frowning as he saw her sudden shrinking back at sight of him.

"Good morning," he said. "You have, I hope, slept well. Have you and Eleazar here planned any way to escape as yet?" He smiled at her grimly. Eleazar had shuffled away.

"Not yet."

"You had not come along so far as details then;" smilingly.

"You intruded too soon."

"At least you are frank, then! You will never get away from here excepting on one condition."

She made no answer, but looked about her slowly. Her eyes rested upon a little inclosed place where some gray stones stood upright in the grass; the family burial place, not unusual in such proximity to the abode of the living, in that part of the country at the time.

"One might escape by going there!" she pointed.

"They are my own, who sleep there," he said simply but grimly. "I wish it might be your choice; but not now; not yet. We've a lot of living to do yet, both of us."

She caught no note of relenting in his voice. He looked large and strong, standing there at the entrance to his own home. At length he turned to her, sweeping out his arm once more in a gesture including the prospect which lay before them.

"If you could only find it in your heart," he exclaimed, "how much I could do for you, how much you could do for me. Look at all this. It's a home, but it's just a desert—a desert—the way it is now."

"Has it always been so?"

"As long as I can remember."

"So you desire to make all life a desert for me! It is very noble of you!"

Absorbed, he seemed not to hear her. "Suppose you had met me the way people usually meet—and you some time had allowed me to come and address you—could you have done that, do you reckon?" He turned to her, an intent frown on his face, unsmiling.

"That's a question which here at least is absurd," she replied.

"You spoke once of that other country, abroad,—" he broke off, shaking his head. "Who are you? I don't feel sure that I even know your name as yet."

"I am, as you have been told, Josephine, Countess St. Auban. I am French, Hungarian, American, what you like, but nothing to you. I came to this country in the interest of Louis Kossuth. For that reason I have been misunderstood. They think me more dangerous than I am, but it seems I am honored by the suspicions of Austria and America as well. I was a revolutionist yonder. I am already called an abolitionist here. Very well. The name makes little difference. The work itself—"

"Is that how you happened to be there on the boat?"

"I suppose so. I was a prisoner there. I was less than a chattel. I was a piece of property, to be staked, to be won or lost at cards, to be kidnapped, hand-cuffed, handled like a slave, it seems. And you've the hardihood to stand here and ask me who I am!"

"I've only that sort of hardihood, Madam, which makes me ride straight. If I had observed the laws, I wouldn't have you here now, this morning."

"You'll not have me long. If I despise you as a man without chivalry, I still more do so because you've neither ambition nor any sense of morals."

"You go on to improve me. I thank you, Mademoiselle—Eleazar was right. I heard him. I like you as 'Mademoiselle.'"

"What difference?" she flared out. "We are opposed at all angles of the human compass. There is no common meeting ground between us. Let me go."

He looked at her full in the