“This is where I belong–this is where I belong,” she kept repeating to herself; but the words had no meaning for her. Every instinct and habit made her a stranger among these poor swamp-people living like vermin in their lair. With all her soul she wished she had not yielded to Harney’s curiosity, and brought him there.
The rain had drenched her, and she began to shiver under the thin folds of her dress. The younger woman must have noticed it, for she went out of the room and came back with a broken tea-cup which she offered to Charity. It was half full of whiskey, and Charity shook her head; but Harney took the cup and put his lips to it. When he had set it down Charity saw him feel in his pocket and draw out a dollar; he hesitated a moment, and then put it back, and she guessed that he did not wish her to see him offering money to people she had spoken of as being her kin.
The sleeping man stirred, lifted his head and opened his eyes. They rested vacantly for a moment on Charity and Harney, and then closed again, and his head drooped; but a look of anxiety came into the woman’s face. She glanced out of the window and then came up to Harney. “I guess you better go along now,” she said. The young man understood and got to his feet. “Thank you,” he said, holding out his hand. She seemed not to notice the gesture, and turned away as they opened the door.
The rain was still coming down, but they hardly noticed it: the pure air was like balm in their faces. The clouds were rising and breaking, and between their edges the light streamed down from remote blue hollows. Harney untied the horse, and they drove off through the diminishing rain, which was already beaded with sunlight.
For a while Charity was silent, and her companion did not speak. She looked timidly at his profile: it was graver than usual, as though he too were oppressed by what they had seen. Then she broke out abruptly: “Those people back there are the kind of folks I come from. They may be my relations, for all I know.” She did not want him to think that she regretted having told him her story.
“Poor creatures,” he rejoined. “I wonder why they came down to that fever-hole.”
She laughed ironically. “To better themselves! It’s worse up on the Mountain. Bash Hyatt married the daughter of the farmer that used to own the brown house. That was him by the stove, I suppose.”
Harney seemed to find nothing to say and she went on: “I saw you take out a dollar to give to that poor woman. Why did you put it back?”
He reddened, and leaned forward to flick a swamp-fly from the horse’s neck. “I wasn’t sure—-”
“Was it because you knew they were my folks, and thought I’d be ashamed to see you give them money?”
He turned to her with eyes full of reproach. “Oh, Charity—-” It was the first time he had ever called her by her name. Her misery welled over.
“I ain’t–I ain’t ashamed. They’re my people, and I ain’t ashamed of them,” she sobbed.
“My dear…” he murmured, putting his arm about her; and she leaned against him and wept out her pain.
It was too late to go around to Hamblin, and all the stars were out in a clear sky when they reached the North Dormer valley and drove up to the red house.
Chapter VII
SINCE her reinstatement in Miss Hatchard’s favour Charity had not dared to curtail by a moment her hours of attendance at the library. She even made a point of arriving before the time, and showed a laudable indignation when the youngest Targatt girl, who had been engaged to help in the cleaning and rearranging of the books, came trailing in late and neglected her task to peer through the window at the Sollas boy. Nevertheless, “library days” seemed more than ever irksome to Charity after her vivid hours of liberty; and she would have found it hard to set a good example to her subordinate if Lucius Harney had not been commissioned, before Miss Hatchard’s departure, to examine with the local carpenter the best means of ventilating the “Memorial.”