“That’s a pretty little trick,” he said suddenly.
Bettina ruffled the child’s short curls with her fingers. “She’s not a good little girl, I’m afraid,” she said gravely. “She gets into such mischief I don’t know what to do, sometimes.”
“What’s her name?” Pierce asked.
“Georgy, after my sister,” Bettina said.
“I am good,” Georgy said in a high little voice.
“Not when you run away down the road,” Bettina said.
“I went to find Papa!” Georgy told Pierce confidentially.
In his embarrassment Pierce did not speak. But Bettina said in the same grave voice, “We mustn’t go to find Papa. We just wait until he comes.”
Pierce could bear no more. “Send her away — I want to talk to you.”
Bettina rose silently and slipped the child to the floor and led her away into the dining room. The door closed and behind it he heard her quiet voice and the child’s high one, answering. He looked about the room and was deeply troubled. There was no doubt that Tom considered this his home. Above the simple wooden mantelpiece he had hung a small portrait of their mother. Their father had had one painted for each of his children. Pierce’s hung in his own room and he had supposed that Tom’s was in his. But Tom had brought it here, because this was his true home and not Malvern. Pierce looked at his mother’s face, a delicate irregular face, not beautiful — his father had had all the physical beauty — and too sensitive. What would she have thought had she known that she would preside over this house? Perhaps Tom had even taught these children to call her Grandmother. Lucinda was right — it could not go on.
The door opened and Bettina came back and closed it behind her. She crossed the room and closed the outer door, too. They were alone and for a moment after she sat down, he kept silent. Outside in the yard the boy was beginning to cut the grass again, and he could hear the soft swish of the blade.
“You have — three children?” he asked abruptly.
“The baby is asleep upstairs,” Bettina replied.
“What’s her name?” Pierce asked abruptly.
“Lettice, after my own mother,” Bettina replied.
Pierce cleared his throat. He was tired and it occurred to him that he ought to have postponed his affair because of his night on the train. He never slept well except at Malvern in his own bed. But here he was.
“Bettina, you’re a sensible woman,” he began.
“I hope so,” Bettina said quietly. Her black eyes were fixed on his face and the light from the window by which he sat showed them deep and dark. They held none of the golden lights of Georgia’s eyes.
“Now, Bettina,” he began and his voice took on the tone of argument. “I know you will understand why I felt I had to talk with you. You’ve been with us at Malvern and you know how things are. Mrs. Delaney is getting very worried about the children and how to explain to them — well, this house and you and — and these children and — and all that. We’ve always been unhappy about it, of course. As things go, I haven’t said anything. Young men usually have a fling, especially when they’re just out of the army. I didn’t want to say anything at first. I said to myself and I told Lucinda—‘it’s Tom’s own business.’ But now — well, it’s going on and it is time that things come to an end somehow. Tom ought to get married and settle down, you know.”
He stopped, looked at her and looked away. Her face was set in frozen quiet. She did not speak. He felt very unhappy. He resisted his awareness of her as a human being, but it made him uncomfortable.
“I don’t know what to suggest,” he said. “I still don’t feel I can presume to give orders to Tom — exactly. But I think I ought to tell you that when he marries and starts his own family, I’m willing to share Malvern with him or even build him a separate house on any of the land he chooses. When a man is well over thirty he has to get started.” He felt that he was right in his point and he gained confidence. “I want to see that you are treated well, Bettina, and I am going to suggest that you move away somewhere with these children of yours, and I’ll treat you very handsomely if you do so. You can go north if you like — I’ll buy you a house in some town there — and see that you get money every month as long as you live. I’ll even put that in my will.”
He felt that he could not be more generous and he leaned back in his chair, as he had often seen his father do. She sat in the same pose, her hands on the arms of the Windsor chair. She looked like Georgia, but her mouth was not so sweet. Something about the firmness of that well-cut mouth disturbed him. This was not an obedient woman and doubtless Tom had spoiled her. It always made a colored woman proud to belong to a white man. He pursed his lips and decided to be firm himself.
“That’s my proposition,” he declared.
She leaned forward a little, clasping her hands on her elbows. “I don’t feel it is for me to decide, Mr. Delaney.” Her voice was so pure, so cold, that it seemed empty of all feeling. “If — your brother — tells me to go, I will go.”
“Now, Bettina, let’s be sensible,” he complained loudly. “Tom isn’t going to tell you to go. We won’t pretend. I want you to help me persuade him that it’s the best thing.”
“Maybe it isn’t.”
They were beginning now really to talk. He had penetrated that cold shell of hers.
“Bettina, you know it is,” he insisted. He tried to keep anger out of his voice. “Surely you want what’s best for Tom — as I do.”
“You said Mrs. Delaney—” her voice trembled and sudden tears swam into her eyes. Something hurt and quivering looked at him out of those shimmering depths.
“Let’s put her aside — damn it all, I love my brother, too. I’m only going to talk about him. Tom deserves legitimate heirs, Bettina. He’s going to be a rich man some day, if he stays by the family.”
“I don’t just think of property,” she said in a low voice.
“No, nor I,” Pierce said swiftly. “But think of Tom when he’s old! He ought to be surrounded by children of his own—”
“These are his,”—she broke in.
“Of his own kind,” Pierce went on, “children who can be in his house and who can stand for him. Bettina, don’t think I don’t feel for you. I feel very sorry indeed, but you know how things are in this world. You can’t change them and I can’t change them, however much we might wish things were different. And I don’t mind saying that if they were different — if you hadn’t been — well, what you are — I wouldn’t have felt it was my business. But you know how things are — I can’t help it any more than you can — it’s just how things are—”
Just how things are — just how things are — with this phrase he beat her down. He saw her head droop, and the tears flowed over her lids and down her cheeks and she wrung her slender hands together. He saw her hands — it had often amazed him to notice that her people always had beautiful hands.
“I reckon I can go away,” Bettina sobbed.
He rose. “Of course you can,” he said cheerfully. “And I’m going to make it easy for you—”
What he had not counted on was Tom’s coming. He had thought it was the middle of the morning but the clock had run onto noon. He heard the gate click and saw his brother come into the yard and pick up the little girl and come to the door.
“Wipe your eyes,” he ordered Bettina and she obeyed.
But Tom was at the door and in the room. He had to face his brother. “Why are you here, Pierce?” Tom demanded. He put the child down and she ran to her mother and Bettina laid her cheek on her hair, her face turned away.