# Iron and Lavender

   A deeply interesting romance of the Southern mountains, by a man who knows men and women—and how to write a story.
Iron and Lavender
By Hapsburg Liebe
THERE is no more striking thing in the social history of South Carolina than the Apperson-Batesford feud. It began during the days of the reconstruction period, and a little of its bitterness still exists. A misunderstanding was its foundation, and pride was its blood and bone and sinew. Although there were no fights, except very formal duels,—for the men of the Appersons and Batesfords were gentlemen and not given to brawling,—the hatred which rankled in the breasts of the one family for the other was deeply rooted and powerful.
The usual thing happened. A son of the house of Batesford met a daughter of the house of Apperson, and the two quickly fell in love with each other. He was virtually a prince, and she was virtually a princess; they were married in a flying carriage, and the result was that they were cast out by their respective families. Then Oliver Batesford set to work and reclaimed a magnificent plantation from the encroachment of the great Congaree swamp, and on the highest part of it built a big house of the ante-bellum type. In spite of the widely spread influences of his people and his wife’s people, he soon became a power in the political affairs of his State.
One daughter came. When she was seventeen, her father died. The plantation began to go down. A few years, and the little mother, still heartbroken over her husband’s death, went the long way too. Three more years, and the daughter, now a very beautiful and stately young woman, had entirely lost the great plantation and the old home that was on it. She had all the education and refinement of a true Southern aristocrat, but like her mother, she was no business woman. The whole estate, including the live-stock and the farming machinery, had been sold at public auction in Columbia, and the buyer was a notorious flea-skinner named Pensinger Gale.
There was nothing left over. Miss Floribel Jackson Apperson Batesford, who was as proud as any of the old Appersons and Batesfords, received the news very quietly. She suspected that the buyer had kept the bid down by means of his own, and in this she may have been correct. Gale, she well knew, had neither conscience nor heart; he had only claws and the cunning brain of a money-worshiper. Her father, she remembered, had once horsewhipped Pensinger Gale on the Capitol grounds in Columbia. And now, of course, Gale was exulting.
FLORIBEL, her slender and supple and roundish figure clothed in worn but neatly laundered summer white, stood at the weather-beaten front gate. The gaze of her blue eyes was turned out across the wide acres that had grown dollars by the thousands in cotton and corn for her father, acres that were now wastes of weeds and briars. She loved every foot of that ground; every foot of it was sacred to her; and it had all fallen into the vulgar hands of a vandal, a profaning despoiler!
Her grief was intense. She turned to keep from seeing those beloved acres, and faced the beloved old house, which stood high and proudly in its setting of roses and sweet cape-jasmines and mighty oaks. Governors, Congressmen, Senators, Jacksons and Lees had honored that house!
Her heart broke. She held to the gate for support, and bowed her golden-brown head. If only the place had fallen into the hands of a gentleman! If—
“Missy Flo!”
Floribel looked around slowly and saw the drawn, wizened black face of Lulu Righteousness Batesford, the little old mammy who had known and worshiped her since the hour of her birth.
“Mah po’ chil’! Don’t take it so hahd, mah li'l’ pet honey dahlin’ lamb sweetness.”
“Find Isham and Peter,” calmly ordered Floribel, “and have them move all the furniture into the sunset-room. Then begin packing my clothing and your clothing. That is, pack yours too if you wish to go with me.”
“Yessum, Missy,” said Lulu Righteousness, who wasn’t so badly named; and she limped hurriedly away.
Floribel went into the house, sat down at a hand-carved black-walnut writing-table, and began a note to the new owner of Cotton Blossoms Estate. She had just addressed him boldly as “Sir Vandal,” when there was a loud rapping at the front.
It was Pensinger Gale himself. He wore a black frock-coat and striped trousers, square-toed shoes and a brown fedora hat; his upper lip was broad and smoothly shaven and mean, and his iron-gray chin-whiskers very much resembled the whiskers of a goat. He bowed when Floribel appeared in the doorway.
“How d’ye do, Miss Batesford?” said he. Then, after making a wide sweep with his hand: “How'd you like to have all this back?”
“I don’t want you to give me anything,” said Floribel, her voice as cold as death with pride. She went on in the same voice, speaking down at him rather than to him:
“I am having my belongings stored in the west room; I will soon have them taken away; until that time, you will please allow no person in that room—and stay out of there yourself. None of the oaks on the grounds must be cut down. My mother herself planted the roses and the jasmines, and these must not be disturbed. The darkies and the horses must be given fair treatment. That is all I have to say to you.”
Gale laughed unpleasantly. “You’re giving me orders, eh?”
“I am a Batesford!” Her head was high. “A Batesford doesn’t make requests of men of your class.” And she shut the door in his face.
BEFORE nightfall a dozen of her relatives had come to offer her a home. But she wouldn’t go with any of them, for they had disliked either her father or her mother. They were sorry, they declared. They would have bought in the place, but—well, the years had brought them reverses too.
The following morning, Floribel boarded a train for Columbia, and with her went the faithful little mammy. Floribel was going to make her own way in the world; she, the most unfit of all persons to wage battle in life’s unending fray, was going to be independent; and she was beginning her fight with just nine dollars and ninety-four cents of capital!
She rented a pair of furnished rooms in a fairly respectable neighborhood, and paid for them a week in advance. The next day she set out to look for employment. It was extremely hard to find. Business men wanted somebody with experience, if they wanted anybody at all; even the department-stores preferred experienced help. The fact that her name was Batesford seemed to make no difference whatever in the world of cash-registers and typewriters and adding machines. Never would she beg for work, of course; she merely let herself down painfully to the level of the money-wranglers and offered them her services.
Three days of this, and Floribel looked pale and hollow-cheeked and worn. Her funds were almost gone. Black Lulu, each desperate and hopeless night, petted her mistress until she cried about it, and told her old mammy-stories of goblins and voodoos, and sang her to sleep, quite as though she were a little, little girl instead of one of the finest-looking young women in Columbia.
On the fourth evening they went without supper, and neither said a word to the other about it. Spartans both, were these. Floribel had jewelry that she might have sold; but it was all sacred jewelry, and not even the old, cold iron of poverty could force her to part with. . . . . They sat huddled together by an open window, in the warm July darkness, and the black woman patiently and affectionately stroked the white woman’s hand and crooned things that were sweet and comforting.
Suddenly Floribel straightened up. “Lulu—” she began in a tremulous whisper.
“Yessum, Missy,” replied Mammy, also in a tremulous whisper.
“I heard a noise in the other room!”
Lulu rose soundlessly, crept to an old-fashioned bureau and took from one of its drawers a big revolver that had belonged to Floribel’s father. Then, unmindful of the fact that the weapon wasn’t loaded, she went softly toward the door that led to the other room. Just inside the door there was a switch; with the harmless revolver leveled, the negress turned on the light.
STANDING in the center of the floor was a big young man.
“Up wid yo’ hands, sah—yo’ low-down po’ white trash!” Mammy ordered boldly, unhesitatingly. “Yo’ don’t, and I’s gwine fo’ to shoot a hole in yo’ big enough fo’ a yallah dawg to hide in!”
The intruder, of course, didn’t know that the revolver was not loaded. He obeyed promptly. Floribel hastened to a point some two yards behind the black woman, where she was standing in the shadow.
“A burglar!” she exclaimed in a low, tense voice.
“I haven’t taken anything,” said the big young man.
“There’s precious little to take, Mr. Burglar,” said Floribel. “Hold him here, Lulu, and I’ll call a policeman.”
The young man’s eyes widened. They were not bad eyes. “Don’t do it!” he pleaded. “Give me a chance. Honest, this is my very first time. Can you imagine what hard luck is?”
“Hard luck!” repeated Floribel, with a slightly tilted nose. “That’s slang, I presume, for poverty. Mr. Burglar, you don’t know—you can’t know any more about ‘hard luck’ than I know. And it was perfectly villainous in you to try to rob me.”
He looked pained. As his eyes were good eyes, so was his face a good face; it was strong, more than ordinarily handsome, boyish and frank and richly sunburned. His clothing, too, was good; he wore a suit of Scotch gray, and his broad-brimmed Western hat matched it well; his linen was white and spotless. He was a burglar of the “gentleman” class, thought Floribel; and she was correct, certainly.
“Busted?” He smiled. “I hope you'll pardon me for the slang. The slang of to-day, you know, is often the good English of to-morrow. I’m sorry you're busted. I am, honest. Now, I’m not a burglar. My name is Jim Nicklin. Out West they call me ‘Lucky Jim.’ And your name—”
“Miss Floribel Jackson Apperson Batesford, sir,” she said coldly. “Hold him, Lulu, and I’ll go for a policeman.”
Nicklin’s face lighted as though the name were a kind of revelation to him. Floribel ran from the room before he could speak. A brilliant thought entered the ordinarily slow mind of Lulu Righteousness.
“Po’ white trash,” she suddenly muttered, “yo’ come heah fo’ to rob mah lil’ missy.” In a stronger voice: “Now I’s gwine fo’ to rob you! Shell out, yo’ low-down trash—I means it!”
She jabbed the revolver toward him. He wanted to talk, but she flatly forbade it. He backed a yard, fumbled in his pockets, and dropped a roll of money to the floor!
“It’s all I’ve got,” he said. “I wish—”
“Shet up, sah!” snapped black Lulu. “‘Hahd luck!’” she sneered. “Now yo’ git away from heah, white man, and yo’ sho bettah go afo’ I shoots, ’cose yo’ sho cayn’t go aftahwahds!”
The young fellow turned and was gone into the thick, warm night.
LULU took up the roll of money, and began to count it. First she made it twenty-two dollars, and then she made it forty dollars. She was still engaged in trying to solve the glorious riddle when Floribel entered the room with a fat policeman puffing along behind her.
Floribel understood perfectly when she saw. She frowned at Lulu, and the black woman slyly thrust the money into her skirt-pocket and assumed the air of one who has just come through a trying experience.
“He—he sho done got away!” Lulu declared with remarkably well-feigned innocence. “He—he jest bust out at de do’, Missy!”
Remaining only to ask a few questions, the policeman laughed and left them. When he had gone, Floribel took her old servant heavily to task for the thing she had done. It was unthinkable, monstrous, almost unpardonable.
“Yo’ was hongry,” grieved Lulu. “Mah li'l’ honey dahlin’ lamb was hongry. Does yo’ fohgive me, mah pet lamb sweetness?”
“Yes, I forgive you. But I can’t touch food bought with stolen money—twice-stolen money!”
Oh, the pride of those Batesfords!
Lulu quietly argued that the fruit of her robbery was better than charity money, and her mistress admitted it without question.
“But I’d starve before I’d accept either,” said Floribel.
“And ’en let cha’ity put ouah bodies in de groun’!” tearfully, a little reproachfully, Mammy exclaimed.
The white woman straightened. “Let charity bury us?” she questioned with a sort of mild, patrician vehemence. “Not as long as the river buries for nothing. For I am a Batesford.”
At that the old servant also drew herself up straight. She produced the green roll and looked at it contemptuously. With a few quick movements of her thin hands, she tore the bank-notes to pieces and threw them to the floor.
“Please de good Lawd,” she said bravely, “I is a Batesford too!”
And then they sat down and cried softly together. They cried for the old home that was home no longer to them, and for those who were gone; cried for the gnarled and friendly oaks, and the sweet cape-jasmines and roses, and the wild-flowers, and the mocking-birds and thrushes.
An elderly man with a smoothly shaven and mean upper lip and the chin-whiskers of a goat stood just beyond the slightly opened outer door and watched them; and as he watched them, he marveled and marveled. He had overheard the latter part of their conversation. What manner of person was this woman who chose the oblivion of the deep and dark and silent river, rather than to eat food out of the hand of charity or food bought with money that had been stolen? It was entirely out of the range of his understanding.
PENSINGER GALE had that day come upon Floribel’s name and address in the offices of a business firm. They had told him that she was young and rarely beautiful, but he had already known that.
“May I come in, Miss Batesford?” he asked.
Floribel and her servant rose. Gale pushed the door fully open and stepped across the threshold.
“Well, sir?” Floribel demanded.
“I’ve known you a long time, Miss Batesford,” said Gale, “and as long as I’ve known you, just that long have I admired you above all other women. If you'll marry me, I’ll give you back—”
“Stop!” cried Floribel angrily.
“I’ll give you back, in your own name—”
“Will you stop? There is no wealth, and there is no torture, that could bring me to even a consideration of marriage with you!”
Before Pensinger Gale could speak again, a strong hand shot out of the darkness behind him, seized him by the collar of his black frock-coat, and drew him roughly through the doorway. Following that, there was the sound of a swift blow; then there were the sounds of rapid footfalls, and then came silence save for the night noises of the city.
Floribel stared wonderingly, amazedly. She had recognized the Scotch gray sleeve of her burglar,—or whatever he was,—Lucky Jim Nicklin the Westerner. After a long minute, she went to the door and looked out. She saw nothing, for there was nothing to see.
“I’m glad,” she told herself in a whisper as she closed and locked the door, “that he got away. God bless Lucky Jim!”
Lucky Jim! There was slang about it, and yet there was music in it, somehow. She wished that Lulu hadn’t destroyed the money. Upon reflection, she told herself that Nicklin hadn’t really lied to her in that which he had said concerning “hard luck.” That was a point in his favor.
Lulu cut into her train of thought: “Missy, honey, I’s gwine fo’ to try to find some way to make money mahse’f. And so don’t le’s think no mo’ ’bouten de rivah now, chile 0’ mine.”
ANOTHER day came, and Lulu went forth in search of work. But nobody wanted her. She was too old, they said. At noon she limped to her mistress with the distressing tidings.
Floribel, hope dying hard within her, went out again that afternoon. At sundown she was so weak from hunger and weariness that she was faint. She almost fell when she was caught for a moment in a traffic jam—and it was Lucky Jim Nicklin that came to her rescue. He wanted to see her safely to her rooms; he wanted to lend her money; he wanted to take her to the city’s best hotel for dinner that evening.
And she wouldn’t let him.
“You can trust me, Miss Batesford,” he told her earnestly. “I’m white, and I’m straight. Please let me help you!”
“I thank you very much, Mr. Nicklin,” she replied, and her voice came weakly. “You mustn’t mention these matters to me any more.”
She saw that his sincere gray eyes were dim with pity for her, and she turned her golden-brown head to keep him from seeing that her own eyes were dim. If only she hadn’t been a Batesford!
Ten minutes later, Pensinger Gale approached her, this time on the street, with his bartering and insolent offer of marriage. Lucky Jim Nicklin sprang, as though out of the air, and knocked Gale down. Nicklin had become, in all truth, her guardian-angel. Again he offered her financial assistance, and again she refused it.
Night fell thick and warm and black. In their humble quarters, Floribel and her servant wiped the tears from their eyes and faced the issue as soldiers face an issue. They were virtually without friends in a world that did not, could not understand. They were fighters born, but there was, as they viewed the matter, nothing to fight. Nothing was left but the river. By doing that, they would be upholding the honorable traditions of the Appersons and the Batesfords, which were far, far dearer than life. Floribel made her decision and announced it to Lulu.
“We'll just drop out,” murmured Floribel.
It did not occur to her that she was selfish by including old Lulu, for Lulu had been with her always. It was not, anyway, conscious selfishness.
“We'll just drop out,” she said, “and nobody will ever know.”
“And nobody’ll evah know,” proudly echoed the negress. “Missy,” she went on, “yo’ allus ax me whut yo’ must weah. Now yo’ must weah de lacy lavendah, and weah yo’ li’l’ white shoes; and put on all yo’ rings and bracelets, and yo’ necklace whut yo’ daddy he gi’ yo’ on yo’ sixteent’ birfday. And ef yo’ will kindly take a chaiah, Missy, I’ll fix yo’ haiah all up nicey-nice. ’Cose we’s gwine fo’ to see Massa Olivah and sweet Missus Julia and mah blessed ole man John on de golden sho’—glory and halleluiah, de golden sho’!—and we’s got to dress up fine fo’ de ’casion, mah li’l’ pet honey lamb.”
WITH exceeding pains she did it; and as she did it, Floribel’s blue eyes glowed with strength of purpose, a last great strength, the strength she had inherited from her people. She had always looked better in lavender than in anything else—as do most fair women; and now she seemed much finer than she had ever seemed before, even in lavender, worn and pale as she was. Her beauty was striking now; it was tragic and yet triumphant, funereal and yet lightened with a hint of strange merriment; it was a loveliness far more spiritual than physical.
Old Lulu, when she had finished dressing her mistress, stepped backward and eyed her worshipfully.
“How sweet yo’ is, Missy!” she exclaimed. Her voice was thick. “Oh, Missy, le’s don’t! Le’s don’t!”
“But we must do something. Can you suggest anything else?”
Whereupon Lulu began very painstakingly to attire her frail, stooped form in worn black.
A few minutes before eleven o’clock, they put thin wraps about their shoulders, turned off the lights, and went silently out of the house. When they passed under street-lamps, Floribel gathered her wrap close at her throat and hid her hands and arms, that her jewelry might not tempt some denizen of the city’s night. They said nothing on the way to the sluggish river.
The long bridge, so far as they were able to see, was deserted. Floribel took her servant’s hand as they walked out on that great, black thing of stone and steel that had seen so many other little tragedies of everyday life, that great, black thing of stone and steel that has never, never given up a single one of its secrets and never shall. Below them the smooth surface of the river mirrored faithfully the stars that shone, pale and cold and feelingless, behind the light gray mist of the Southern midnight. It seemed very quiet, very peaceful, down there; there was no strife, no pain, no hunger, no bleeding for the heart, down there. The only sound that came to their ears was the song of a belated and sleepy boatman, and it came from afar and was faint; it was a snatch of a hymn, and it was curiously twisted:
“The sexton did not set me down
Away back by the door;
He knowed that I was old and deef
And seed that I was pore.”
On the center of the dark bridge they halted beside the low railing and peered downward. There was never a faltering movement, never a shudder nor a tremor. Spartans both, were these, this white woman and this black woman, who were about to give up their lives in defense of their principles. The black woman caught the white woman’s hand to her old and withered breast, and sobbed just a little, just a little.
“The stars are below,” whispered Floribel, with great calmness. “There is a beautiful thought in that, but I fear I can’t find words for it. There in the muddy river, Lulu—the stars—see them? I'll go first, Lulu, toward the mirrored stars, and you may follow.”
“Yessum, Missy Flo,” agreed Lulu. “But I’s got to talk wid de Almighty Big Massa one minute, Missy Flo; wait—”
SHE went to her rheumatic knees beside the railing, clasped her old hands and held them upward.
“Big Massa,” she implored in a low voice, while Floribel waited with her head reverently bowed, “please, Sah, have de pearly gates a-standin’ wide open fo’ mah honey lamb and me; and, please, Sah, have good Massa Olivah and sweet Missus Julia and mah ole man John a-waitin’ fo’ to welcome us to de last long home. Glory and halleluiah, de last long home! And Big Massa, please, Sah, may de soul o’ Pensingah Gale, de low-down snake-in-de-grass, be damned worl’ without end. Amen! Glory and halleluiah! Amen!”
She rose feebly. “I’s ready, Missy,” she said.
With her face turned upward and the dim starlight in her eyes, Floribel put her bejeweled hands on the railing and was about to climb over, when the figure of a man sprang out of the shadows, and her arm was seized in a firm grip.
“I’m not going to let you do it, Miss Batesford,” he said; and it was the voice of Lucky Jim Nicklin, her guardian-angel.
Floribel was not very much surprised at Nicklin’s sudden appearance, though there was certainly something of the mysterious connected with it.
“How came you here?” she demanded icily. “What right have you to spy upon me?”
“Spy?” questioned Nicklin. “That word doesn’t fit, exactly. But suppose it does. What right? Divine right! Any man has a right to protect any woman from what is crushing her.”
He continued: “I know Pensinger Gale very well. It was Gale that told me about you. He pointed you out to me. I thought then that you were quite the prettiest girl I’d ever seen; and I think it now, too. You had on lavender, the color that goes best with pride. I couldn't forget you, especially when Gale had told me about you. You see, my sympathy for you helped to start it. So I’m here, Miss Batesford, because I love even the dust under your feet and the air you breathe, and because I happened to know that you were figuring on doing just what you came here to do. I—er—I overheard you talking about it. And I’ve been here watching—this is two nights. A bunch of river-men are coming, and they’re drunk; hear them? Come—let’s go!”
“But what were you doing in my rooms?”
“I went there to leave a little bundle of bank-notes for you, in the hope that you'd use them,” answered Lucky Jim. “I meant to slip them under the door; but the door was standing open a few inches, and I decided to put them inside. When I saw the black woman, I was afraid I’d got into the wrong house, and I was a bit addled. I couldn't see you, because you stood in the other room and in the shadow. Then, when you’d told me your name, you ran for the policeman. Come—let’s hurry away!”
FLORIBEL shrank against the bridge-railing, and so did her servant. The river-men came on, singing, jesting, laughing, quarreling, and still Floribel clung to the railing and wouldn’t go. Nicklin stood as motionless as a post; he hoped the river-men wouldn’t see them.
But it was a vain hope. The five slouching figures halted at a point less than ten feet away, and one of them growled drunkenly:
“Le’s see what we’ve—uh—what we've got here.”
“You haven’t anything whatever here,” clipped Nicklin; “move on while the moving’s good!”
Floribel saw a dull flash of metal, and she knew that Lucky Jim had drawn a weapon.
“Run,” whispered Lucky Jim. “I’m pretty sure I can hold them here until you are safely away.”
At that instant, one of the river-men produced a small flash-light and pressed its button. The white rays fell full upon Floribel, and her necklace and bracelets and rings shone brightly. She caught her wrap together at her throat and shrank against the railing again.
“Move on!” Nicklin ordered again.
No attention was given to the stern command of the Westerner. The five, attracted by the jewelry they had seen, pressed closer. Lucky Jim leveled his revolver, and just then a black-jack made of a loop of leather and an iron bolt came flying through the air and struck him a glancing but painful blow on the temple.
At this, Nicklin sprang away from the two women and began to shoot. The little electric went out, and the blazes from Lucky Jim’s revolver spat upon the scene fitfully, like flashes from distant summer lightning. Two of the river-men went down, badly wounded, but the remaining three threw themselves at the Westerner. Just as Nicklin emptied the last chamber of his revolver, the weapon was seized and wrung from his grip. Vile oaths sounded in his ears, and hairy fists rained hard on his face and on his body. Then Nicklin took himself in hand and began to fight the desperate fight of a man who is both strong and determined.
The two women had run—not over twenty feet. In the semidarkness it was not possible for Floribel to see how the battle was going for her protector. She saw only a blot that writhed and changed its shape swiftly, heard only the sounds of blows and the coarse oaths of the drunken three as they were struck down again and again.
WHEN the struggling mass had become so small that she knew that Nicklin had but one left to fight, Floribel ventured nearer. Her heart beat rapidly with anxiety and suppressed excitement as she watched. A few more minutes, and one of the two fell hard and lay supine and motionless on the floor of the bridge. The other reeled to the railing and sank there in a limp heap.
Lulu’s teeth chattered. Floribel started forward and cried smotheredly, frightenedly:
“Mr. Nicklin!”
“Run!” came weakly from the heap beside the railing. “The police have heard the shooting, and they'll be here pretty quick. Your name in the papers, you know—you, a Batesford—and you can’t explain!”
Floribel knelt before him, with her eyes close to his eyes. His face was white and streaked with blood, and the front of his white shirt bore a dark streak down it; they had knifed him. It was an unusual and extremely gruesome sight for her. She regretted to leave him, for she knew that he had done that which he had done, and received his wounds, for her.
“Hurry away,” he said hoarsely, smiling faintly. “Go ahead! That’s a bully little girl. You can’t help me by staying. The police, you know—and the papers—and you can’t explain.”
He was right about it, she saw; but she just couldn’t leave him like that! She bent closer to him, and smothered a wild desire to kiss him, her champion; and she wished afterward—oh, very much!—that she had kissed him.
“I wont leave you,” she breathed. “I wont leave you. I couldn’t!”
She took up one of his battered hands and caressed it. Just then the sound of hurried footfalls came to their ears.
“They’re coming,” whispered Nicklin. “You're cut off from the city now—steal back into the shadows; if you don’t, you'll be arrested! You must, I tell you, you must! And in the morning, if you like, come to the city’s general hospital—”
Floribel dropped his hand, rose, and stared about her wildly. The policemen were almost upon them. Then old black Lulu seized Fioribel’s wrist and half dragged her to a point some thirty yards from the scene of the fight, and there the two women crouched in the thick darkness by the bridge-railing and watched.
There were two of the officers, and each flashed a light. Lucky Jim Nicklin too was unconscious now. One of the policeman ran to turn in a call for a patrol-wagon, and the other stood guard.
When the patrol-wagon arrived, the limp bodies were bundled into it with very little ceremony, and in another moment it had gone cityward. Floribel and her servant followed it stealthily; but it traveled faster than they could travel on foot, and they soon lost sight of it. They went back to their rooms because it seemed that there was nothing else to do. The river and hunger were alike forgotten now. Floribel Batesford could think of nothing except the man who lay either dead or badly wounded for her sake.
EARLY the next morning, Lulu and her mistress set out to inquire of policemen and passers-by the way to the city’s general hospital. There could be no rest for Floribel until she knew positively whether Lucky Jim Nicklin was still alive. They found the hospital without difficulty, and a doctor met them at the door.
“Have you a man here named Nicklin?”
“We have,” answered the doctor. “He’s been delirious, and he’s been calling for somebody named Floribel. If you are that person, and if you will be careful and not excite him, you may see him.”
So he wasn’t dead! Floribel took an unsteady but eager step forward.
“I promise,” she said.
Lulu sank into a veranda chair to wait, and her mistress followed the physician through the reception-room and a wide passageway and into one of the wards. There she found Lucky Jim; he lay inert and pale except for a spot of feverish pink on either cheek. He was awake, though his eyes were closed against the light. A broad bandage reached around his temples and covered the whole of his high forehead, and there were other bandages that were hidden by the white bedclothes. He looked weak.
“Somebody to see you, Mr. Nicklin,” softly announced the doctor.
The young woman sat down in a chair close beside the wounded man’s bed. She took up one of his limp hands, and he opened his eyes at the touch.
“Floribel,” he muttered dreamily, smiling as though the name were honey to his lips. “Floribel!”
“Yes, Jim,” she said in a low and throbbing voice, “it is I, Floribel.”
The light of delirium left Nicklin’s eyes and made room for the light of a great happiness. And yet, he still seemed so much unmanned, so very helpless! What if he should die! She bent toward him, and he noted that she had on lavender, the color that goes best with pride, the color that is almost pride itself.
“Listen,” she said low and tremulously: “you said that you cared for me—”
She choked. Again he smiled. He muttered a little indistinctly: “Yes. And I do. I’ll always love you, Floribel.”
“And I'll always love you too, Jim,” she told him.
She pressed his hand very gently, for it was bruised. Nicklin beckoned to the doctor, and the doctor hastened to him. Most people hastened to Nicklin when he beckoned, for he was worth a great deal of money.
“Send for a minister,” ordered Nicklin.
For if she were his wife, he could care for her! Within the hour, almost, they were married; and at the end of the very simple ceremony, Floribel fainted away.
When she came to, she herself was lying in one of the hospital’s high white beds.
NICKLIN’S constitution laughed at such things as knife-wounds—fortunately, his were not deep—and wounds on the head, and he was out of bed and active several days before his wife fully recovered,
When Floribel was able to leave the hospital, she left in a big new automobile that Lucky Jim had just bought; she sat by her husband, who drove, and Lulu and their baggage occupied the rear. With the big motor purring like a pleased chimney-corner tabby, they ran across some thirty miles of open country. Shortly before sundown they drew up before the beloved old house that stood on the highest point of beloved old and beautiful Cotton Blossoms Estate.
“This,” said Nicklin, with a wave of his hand, “‘is that surprise package I had for you. I bought it from Gale. I was looking for a plantation in the South, honey-dumpling, before I met you.”
Floribel turned to him with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. “Oh, Jim,” she cried sweetly, “what a perfectly bully fellow you are!”
Yes, she, a Batesford, said that. Love had done something that the old, cold iron of poverty never could have done.
Black Lulu stepped from the car, sank to her rheumatic knees in the sand, and raised her hands heavenward. “Glory and halleluiah to de Most High!” she shouted. Then she spied a barelegged negro girl who hung to the weather-beaten gate and smiled joyously at sight of her.
“You Susan Belladonna,” she called authoritatively, “you stop dat grinnin’ like a basketful o’ possum-heads, and open dat gate fo’ Missus Flo and Goddlemighty’s own Massa Jim!”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1957, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 66 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse