Jupiter Lights

There came a sound at the door; not a knock, but a rub across the panels. This too was alarming. Meadows kept the door well bolted, and called fearfully, “Who’s there?”

“It’s ony me – Powlyne,” answered a shrill voice. “I’s come wid de wines; Miss S’breeny, she sont me.”

The tones were unmistakably feminine; Meadows drew back the bolt and peeped out. A negro girl of twelve stood there, bearing a tray which held a decanter and wineglass; her wool was braided in little tails, which stood out like short quills; her one garment was a calico dress, whose abbreviated skirt left her bare legs visible from the knees down-ward.

“Do you want to come in?” said Meadows. “I can take it.” And she stretched out her hand for the tray.

“Miss S’breeny she done tole me to put ‘em myse’f on de little table close ter der bed,” answered Powlyne, craning her neck to look into the room.

Meadows opened the door a little wider, and Powlyne performed her office. Seeing that she was very small and slight, the English girl recovered courage.

“I suppose you live here?” she suggested.

“Yass, ’m.”

“And when there isn’t any one else ’andy, they send you?”

“Dey sonds me when dey wanster, I’s Miss S’breeny’s maid,” answered Powlyne, digging her bare heel into the matting.

“Her maid? – for gracious sake! What can you do?”

“Tuckenoffener shoes. En stockin’s.”

“Tuckenoffener?”

“Haul’em off. Yass,’m.”

“Well, if I hever!” murmured Meadows, surveying this strange coadjutor, from the erect tails of wool to the bare black toes.

There was a loud groan in the hall outside. Meadows started.

“Unc’ Abram, I spec, totin’ up de wood,” said Powlyne.

“Is he ill?”

“Ill!” said the child, contemptuously. “He’s dat dair sassy ter-night!”

“Is he coming in here? Oh, don’t go away!” pleaded Meadows. She had a vision of another incursion of black men in bathing costumes.

But Uncle Abram was alone, and he was very polite; he bowed even before he put the wood down, and several times afterwards. “Dey’s cookin’ suppah for yer, miss,” he announced, hospitably. “Dey’ll be fried chickens en fixin’s; en hot biscuits; en jell; en coffee.”

“I should rather have tea, if it is equally convenient,” said Meadows, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Dere, now, doan yer like coffee?” inquired Uncle Abram, looking at her admiringly. For it was such an extraordinary dislike that only very distinguished people could afford to have it. “Fer my part,” he went on, gazing meditatively at the fire which he had just replenished, “I ’ain’t nebber had ’nuff in all my borned days – no, not et one time. Pints wouldn’t do me. Ner yet korts. I ’ain’t nebber had a gallion.”

Voices were now heard in the hall. Cicely entered, followed by Eve Bruce.

“All the darkies on the island will be coming to look at her to-morrow,” said Cicely, after Meadows had gone to her supper; “they’ll be immensely stirred up about her. She’s still afraid – did you see? – she kept as far away as she could from poor old Uncle Abram as she went down the hall. The field hands will be too much for her; some of the little nigs have no clothes at all.”

“She won’t see them; she goes to-morrow.”

“That’s as you please; if I were you, I would keep her. They will bring a mattress in here for her presently; perhaps she has never slept on the floor?”

“I dare say not. But she can for once.”

Cicely went to one of the windows; she opened the upper half of the shutter and looked out. “How the wind blows! Jupiter Light shines right into your room.”

“Yes, I can see it from here,” said Eve. “It’s a good companion – always awake.” She was speaking conventionally; she had spoken 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.