Chapter I. The Romance That Might Have Been

With July there came a long rain, and in the burst of sunshine which followed it the young tobacco shot up fine and straight and tall, clothing the landscape in a rich, tropical green.

>From morning till night the men worked now in the great fields, removing the numerous "suckers" from the growing plants, and pinching off the slender tops to prevent the first beginnings of a flower, except where, at long spaces, a huge pink cluster would be allowed to blossom and come to seed.

Christopher, toiling all day alone in his own field, felt the clear summer dawn break over him, the golden noon gather to full heat, and the coming night envelop him like a purple mist. Living, as he did, so close to the earth, himself akin to the strong forces of the soil, he had grown gradually from his childhood into a rare physical expression of the large freedom of natural things.

It was an unusually hot day in mid-August—the time of the harvest moon and of the dreaded tobacco fly—that he came home at the dinner hour to find Cynthia standing, spent and pale, beside the well.

"The sun is awful, Christopher; I don’t see how you bear it but it makes your hair the colour of ripe wheat."

"Oh, I don’t mind the sun," he answered, laughing as he wiped the sweat from his face and stooped for a drink from the tilted bucket. "I’m too much taken up just now with fighting those confounded tobacco flies. They were as thick as thieves last night."

"Uncle Boaz is going to send the little darkies out to hunt them at sundown," returned Cynthia. "I’ve promised them an apple for every one they catch."

Her gaze wandered over the broad fields, rich in promise, and she added after a moment, "Fletcher’s crop has come on splendidly."

"The more’s the pity."

For a long breath she looked at him in silence; at the massive figure, the face burned to the colour of terra-cotta, the thick, wheaten-brown hair then, with an impulsive gesture, she spoke in her wonderful voice, which held so many possibilities of passion:

"I didn’t tell you, Christopher, that I’d found out the name of the girl at the cross-roads. She went away the day afterward and just got back yesterday."

Something in her tone made the young man look up quickly, his face paling beneath the sunburn.

All the boyish cheerfulness he had worn of late faded suddenly from his look.

"Who is she?" he asked.

"Jim Weatherby knew. He had seen her several times on horseback, and he says she’s Maria Fletcher, that ugly little girl, grown up. She hates the life here, he says, and they think she is going to marry before the winter. Fletcher was talking down at the store about a rich man who is in love with her."

Christopher stooped to finish his drink, and then rose slowly to his full height.

"Well, one Fletcher the less will be a good riddance," he said harshly, as he went into the house.

In the full white noon he returned to the field, working steadily on his crop until the sunset. Back and forth among the tall green plants, waist deep in their rank luxuriance, he passed with careful steps and attentive eyes, avoiding the huge "sand leaves" spreading upon the ground and already yellowing in the August weather. As he searched for the hidden "suckers" along the great juicy stalks, he removed his hat lest it should bruise the tender tops, and the golden sunshine shone full on his bared head.

Around him the landscape swept like an emerald sea, over which the small shadows rippled in passing waves, beginning at the rail fence skirting the red clay road and breaking at last upon the darker green of the far-off pines. Here and there a tall pink blossom rose like a fantastic sail from the deep and rocked slowly to and fro in the summer wind. When at last the sun dropped behind the distant wood and a red flame licked at the western clouds, he still lingered on, dreaming idly, while his hands followed their accustomed task. Big green moths hovered presently around him, seeking the deep rosy tubes of the clustered flowers, and alighting finally to leave their danger-breeding eggs under the drooping leaves. The sound of laughter floated suddenly from the small Negro children, who were pursuing the tobacco flies between the furrows. He had ceased from his work, and come out into the little path that trailed along the edge of the field, when he saw a woman’s figure, in a gown coloured like April flowers, pass from the new road over the loosened fence-rails. For a breathless instant he wavered in the path; then turning squarely, he met her questioning look with indifferent eyes. The new romance had shriveled at the first touch of the old hatred. Maria, holding her skirt above her ruffled petticoat, stood midway of the little trail, a single tobacco blossom waving over her leghorn hat. She was no longer the pale girl who had received Carraway with so composed a bearing, for her face and her gown were now coloured delicately with an April bloom. "I followed the new road," she explained, smiling, "and all at once it ended at the fence. Where can I take it up again?" He regarded her gravely. "The only way you can take it up again is to go back to it," he answered. "It doesn’t cross my land, you know, and—I beg your pardon—but I don’t care to have you do so. Besides staining your dress, you will very likely bruise my tobacco." He had never in his life stood close to a woman who wore perfumed garments, and he felt, all at once, that her fragrance was going to his brain. Delicate as it was, he found it heady, like strong drink. "But I could walk very close to the fence," said the girl, surprised. "Aren’t you afraid of the poisonous oak?" "Desperately. I caught it once as a child. It hurt so." He shook his head impatiently. "Apart from that, there is no reason why you should come on my land. All the prettiest walks are on the other side—and over here the hounds are taught to warn off trespassers." "Am I a trespasser?" "You are worse," he replied boorishly; "you’re a Fletcher." "Well, you’re a savage," she retorted, angered in her turn. "Is it simply because I happen to be a Fletcher that you become a bear?" "Because you happen to be a Fletcher," he repeated, and then looked calmly and coolly at her dainty elegance.

"And if I were anybody else, I suppose, you would let me walk along that fence, and even be polite enough to keep the dogs from eating me up?" "If you were anybody else and didn’t injure my tobacco—yes."

"But as it is I must keep away?"

"All I ask of you is to stay on the other side." "And if I don’t?" she questioned, her spirit flaring up to match with his, "and if I don’t?" All the natural womanhood within her responded to the appeal of his superb manhood; all the fastidious refinement with which she was overlaid was alive to the rustic details which marred the finished whole—to the streak of earth across his forehead, to the coarseness of his ill-fitting clothes, to the tobacco juice staining his finger nails bright green. On his side, the lady of his dreams had shrunken to a witch; and he shook his head again in an effort to dispel the sweetness that so strangely moved him. "In that case you will meet the hounds one day and get your dress badly torn, I fear." "And bitten, probably." "Probably." "Well, I don’t think it would be worth it," said the girl, in a quiver of indignation. "If I can help it, I shall never set my foot on your land again." "The wisest thing you can do is to keep off," he retorted. Turning, with an angry movement, she walked rapidly to the fence, heedless of the poisonous oak along the way; and Christopher, passing her with a single step, lowered the topmost rails that she might cross over the more easily. "Thank you," she said stiffly, as she reached the other side. "It was a pleasure," he responded, in the tone his father might have used when in full Grecian dress at the fancy ball. "You mean it is a pleasure to assist in getting rid of me?"

"What I mean doesn’t matter," he answered irritably, and added, "I wish to God you were anybody else!" At this she turned and faced him squarely as he held the rails. "But how can I help being myself?" she demanded. "You can’t, and there’s an end of it." "Of what?" "Oh, of everything—and most of all of the evening at the cross-roads." "You saw me then?" she asked. "You know I did," he answered, retreating into his rude simplicity. "And you liked me then?"

"Then," he laughed, "why, I was fool enough to dream of you for a month afterward." "How dare you!" she cried. "Well, I shan’t do it again," he assured her insolently. "You can’t possibly dislike me any more than I do you," she remarked, drawing back step by step. "You’re a savage, and a mean one at that—but all the same, I should like to know why you began to hate me." He laid the topmost rail along the fence and turned away. "Ask your grandfather!" he called back, as he passed into the tobacco field, with her fragrance still in his nostrils.

Maria, on the other side, walked slowly homeward along the new road that had ended so abruptly. Her lip trembled, and, letting her skirt drag in the dust, she put up her hand to suppress the first hint of emotion. It angered her that he had had the power to provoke her so, and for the moment the encounter seemed to have bereft her of her last shreds of womanly reserve. It was as if a strong wind had blown over her, laying her bosom bare, and she flushed at the knowledge that he had heard the fluttering of her breath and seen the indignant tears gather to her eyes—he a boorish stranger who hated her because of her name. For the first time in her life she had run straight against an impregnable prejudice—had felt her feminine charm ineffectual against a stern masculine resistance. She was at the age when the artificial often outweighs the real—when the superficial manner with a woman is apt to be misunderstood, and so to her Christopher Blake now appeared stripped even of his physical comeliness; the interview had left her with an impression of mere vulgar incivility. As she entered the house she met Fletcher passing through the hall with the mail-bag in his hand, and a little later, while she sat in a big chair by her chamber window, Miss Saidie came in and laid a letter in her lap. "It’s from Mr. Wyndham, I think, Maria. Shall I light a candle?" "Not yet; it is so warm I like the twilight." "But won’t you read the letter?" "Oh, presently. There’s time enough." Miss Saidie came to the window and leaned out to sniff the climbing roses, her shapeless figure outlined against the purple dusk spangled with fireflies. Her presence irritated the girl, who stirred restlessly in her chair. "Is he coming, Maria, do you think?"

"If I let him—yes." "And he wants to marry you?" The girl laughed bitterly. "He hasn’t seen me in my home yet," she answered, "and our vulgarity may be too much for him. He’s very particular, you know." The woman at the window flinched as if she had been struck. "But if he loves you, Maria?" "Oh, he loves me for what isn’t me," she answered, "for my ’culture,’ as he calls it—for the gloss that has been put over me in the last ten years." "Still if you care for him, dear—" "I don’t know—I don’t know," said Maria, speaking in the effort to straighten her disordered thoughts rather than for the enlightenment of Miss Saidie. "I was sure I loved him before I came home—but this place upsets me so—I hate it. It makes me feel raw, crude, unlike myself. When I come back here I seem to lose all that I have learned, and to grow vulgar, like Jinnie Spade, at the store." "Not like her, Maria." "Well, I ought to know better, of course, but I don’t believe I do—not when I’m here." "Then why not go away? Don’t think of us; we can get along as we used to do." "I don’t think of you," said the girl. "I don’t think of anybody in the world except myself—and that’s the awful part—that’s the part I hate. I’m selfish to the core, and I know it."

"But you do love Jack Wyndham?" "Oh, I love him to distraction! Light the candle, Aunt Saidie, and let me read his letter. I can tell you, word for word, what is in it before I break the seal. Six months ago I went into a flutter at the sight of his handwriting. Six months before that I was madly in love with Dick Bright—and six months from to-day—Oh, well, I suppose I really haven’t much heart to know—and if I ever care for anybody it must be for Jack—that’s positive."

Standing beside the lighted candle on the bureau, she read the letter twice over, and then turning away, wrote her answer kneeling beside the big chair at the window.