They undressed in silence and climbed into bed together and suddenly Bettina clung to Georgia. “I know I’m right,” she whispered. “I’m right — but tell me I am!”
Searching for words to comfort her Georgia laid hold on truth. “You’re free anyway, Bettina. If you don’t like it you can always move on.”
Bettina’s hold relaxed. “I hadn’t thought of that, Georgy — it’s true. If I don’t like it, nobody can hold me.”
They fell asleep, their arms wrapped about one another as they had slept always since childhood.
Lucinda knew before the day had begun that Bettina had left the house. She knew by the look on Georgia’s face. Georgia came into the big bedroom in the morning, tiptoeing, drawing a blind against the sun, glancing at the bed, opening the drawers softly to fetch clean garments.
“Why do you keep looking at me?” Lucinda asked sharply from behind closed eyelids.
“I’m not sure if you’re awake, ma’am,” Georgia answered, in the softest of voices.
Lucinda did not speak again. But she heard Georgia go into the boys’ room and call them and help them wash and dress. That was Bettina’s work. Bettina was gone!
She sat up in bed, smiling, listening. It was much the best way, of course. If Bettina had run away, it would save trouble. But she would not ask a word. It gave her tremendous power to know and to say nothing. If she said nothing, no one would know how much she knew. Let them wonder why she did not speak.
She called across the hall through the half-open door, “Don’t bother with those great boys, Georgia — they’re big enough to take care of themselves. They don’t need anybody.”
There was a pause and then Georgia’s voice answered, “Yes, ma’am.”
A moment later she was back again. “Shall I bring up your breakfast, ma’am?” Her cream colored face was flushed and her eyes were miserable, but she held herself very straight.
“No, I’m coming down,” Lucinda said briskly. She tossed back the covers, and slipped from the high bed to the floor. “Go on away,” she commanded, “I don’t want anybody either — it’s too nice a day. I’m going to dress in a hurry.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Georgia seemed to drift from the room and Lucinda shut the door, smiling.
The day was shining bright, the air so clear that the Alleghenies rose like alps against the brilliant sky. Tom was restless with new life. He felt completely and finally well at last. He had waked and felt himself strong enough for anything, strong enough to beat down Bettina’s fears and leave Malvern forever. He wanted to be free of Malvern and free of his family. They’d go away somewhere, he and Bettina, and start for themselves — change their names, maybe! Let Pierce keep the name of Delaney, if he wanted it. He’d take Bettina’s name. No, they’d take a name for themselves that no one had ever borne.
By mid-morning he knew that Bettina was not in the house. Never before had so many hours passed without their meeting somewhere, in a passageway or a corner of the garden, or in his own room which she came to make neat. He waited there until long past the hour for the making of his bed. Then he went out and lingered about the halls until he saw Georgia steal in swiftly and he came back and caught her spreading his sheets. He closed the door and leaned against it.
“Where is Bettina?” he demanded.
Georgia looked at him with sadness in her dark eyes. “She’s gone to Millpoint,” she said simply. “You’ll find her in that little brick house we pass on the way to church — that is, if so be she was able to rent it.”
“We can’t live in Millpoint,” he said sharply.
“No, sir, but she can,” Georgia replied. She went on spreading the sheets, tucking in the corners hard and square, making his bed. He watched her an instant then turned and went out to the stables, saddled his mare and cantered down the road to Millpoint.
He knew the road as he knew the palm of his own hand. Every Sunday of his childhood he and Pierce and their parents had driven over it in the carriage, on the way to church and home again. He knew the brick house. It had belonged to a widow, a seamstress who had come to Malvern every spring to mend and sew the dresses the house women wore. His mother had never trusted her own gowns to Minnie Walley. Old Walley was a poor white farmer up in the hills from Malvern, but his daughter had bettered herself and they had all called her Miss Minnie instead of just Minnie. When she died the house had belonged to nobody, he supposed. He did not know when she had died — during the war, maybe. It seemed to him she had been there always.
He found Bettina behind shut doors, scrubbing the floors of a small sitting room. There was still furniture in the house, Miss Minnie’s furniture, plain deal stuff except for a fine rosewood sewing table by the fireplace.
Bettina was on her hands and knees, and she sat back on her heels when he came in. He closed the door and stared down at her.
“We can’t live here,” he said abruptly.
“I can live here,” she said sweetly.
“Where you live, I’ll live,” he said.
“No, Tom,” she replied. Her red lips were firm and stubborn.
“Do we have to go over all this again?” he demanded.
“No, Tom.”
“But you’ve run away from me!” he cried.
“Only run away from the big house,” she corrected him.
“Who says you can live here?” he asked.
“I can rent it for five dollars a month. I went up to Walley’s place and her son is there — home from the war without his leg. He’s glad to have the cash.”
“You haven’t five dollars a month,” he said cruelly.
She clasped him about the waist as he stood before her.
“You’re going to give me the money, dear love,” she said. “You’re going to house me and feed me and clothe me, because I’m your own. But I won’t marry you, for it would be wrong. I’ll live with you forever but I’ll not marry you and bring you down in the world to where I was born. I’ll kill myself before I do that, Tom.”
He groaned because she was so beautiful and so wise and because she was stronger than he.
“You’re going to stay at the big house and claim your birthright, my darling,” she said.
He stared down at her, his heart cold in his breast. “You deny me a home of my own. I shall have to live in my brother’s house all my life.”
She let her hands slide down his thighs and his legs and she bent until she was crumpled at his feet. “It was such bad luck for you to love me,” she mourned. “Bad, bad luck, my darling — I ought never to have let you love me.” She lifted her face, “Tom, promise me something?”
“Why should I, when you will promise me nothing?”
“Promise me, my dear—”
“Well, maybe—”
“If ever you see the white lady you could marry, dear heart — promise me you’ll marry her.”
“I’ll never marry, Bettina—”
Then for the first time she broke into weeping. “Oh me, oh me—” she wept.
But she did not weep for long. She wiped her eyes on the skirt of her blue homespun dress and tried to smile. “It’s noon, and I haven’t any food for you fit to eat—”
“What have you for yourself?” he asked.
“Some bread and milk. But some day soon I’ll have chickens, Tom, and fresh eggs for you — maybe a cow — and a little garden. You’ll see — but not today, my dear.”
“I’m not hungry—”
He stared about the disordered house, and wondered bleakly if he really were in love. And she caught the bewilderment in his eyes and begged him to go away.