At Fault Read online

  Produced by Bernard Koloski

  [Transcriber's note: There was no table of contents in the originalbook; one has been added in this project to ease the navigation.]

  At Fault

  by Kate Chopin

  Part I.

  I. The Mistress of Place-du-Bois. II. At the Mill. III. In the Pirogue. IV. A Small Interruption. V. In the Pine Woods. VI. Melicent Talks. VII. Painful Disclosures. VIII. Treats of Melicent. IX. Face to Face. X. Fanny's Friends. XI. The Self-Assumed Burden. XII. Severing Old Ties.

  Part II.

  I. Fanny's First Night at Place-du-Bois. II. "Neva to See You!" III. A Talk Under the Cedar Tree. IV. Therese Crosses the River. V. One Afternoon. VI. One Night. VII. Melicent Leaves Place-du-Bois. VIII. With Loose Rein. IX. The Reason Why. X. Perplexing Things. XI. A Social Evening. XII. Tidings That Sting. XIII. Melicent Hears the News. XIV. A Step Too Far. XV. A Fateful Solution. XVI. To Him Who Waits. XVII. Conclusion.

  PART I

  I

  The Mistress of Place-du-Bois.

  When Jerome Lafirme died, his neighbors awaited the results of hissudden taking off with indolent watchfulness. It was a matter ofunusual interest to them that a plantation of four thousand acres hadbeen left unincumbered to the disposal of a handsome, inconsolable,childless Creole widow of thirty. A _betise_ of some sort might safelybe looked for. But time passing, the anticipated folly failed toreveal itself; and the only wonder was that Therese Lafirme sosuccessfully followed the methods of her departed husband.

  Of course Therese had wanted to die with her Jerome, feeling that lifewithout him held nothing that could reconcile her to its furtherendurance. For days she lived alone with her grief; shutting out theappeals that came to her from the demoralized "hands," and unmindfulof the disorder that gathered about her. Till Uncle Hiram came one daywith a respectful tender of sympathy, offered in the guise of areckless misquoting of Scripture--and with a grievance.

  "Mistuss," he said, "I 'lowed 'twar best to come to de house an' tellyou; fur Massa he alluz did say 'Hi'urm, I counts on you to keep a eyeopen endurin' my appersunce;' you ricollic, marm?" addressing anexpanse of black bordered cambric that veiled the features of hismistress. "Things is a goin' wrong; dat dey is. I don't wants to nameno names 'doubt I'se 'bleeged to; but dey done start a kiarrin' decotton seed off de place, and dats how."

  If Hiram's information had confined itself to the bare statement ofthings "goin' wrong," such intimation, of its nature vague andsusceptible of uncertain interpretation, might have failed to rouseTherese from her lethargy of grief. But that wrong doing presented asa tangible abuse and defiance of authority, served to move her toaction. She felt at once the weight and sacredness of a trust, whoseacceptance brought consolation and awakened unsuspected powers ofdoing.

  In spite of Uncle Hiram's parting prediction "de cotton 'll be a goin'naxt" no more seed was hauled under cover of darkness fromPlace-du-Bois.

  The short length of this Louisiana plantation stretched along CaneRiver, meeting the water when that stream was at its highest, with athick growth of cotton-wood trees; save where a narrow convenientopening had been cut into their midst, and where further down the pinehills started in abrupt prominence from the water and the dead levelof land on either side of them. These hills extended in a long line ofgradual descent far back to the wooded borders of Lac du Bois; andwithin the circuit which they formed on the one side, and theirregular half circle of a sluggish bayou on the other, lay thecultivated open ground of the plantation--rich in its exhaustlesspowers of reproduction.

  Among changes which the railroad brought soon after Jerome Lafirme'sdeath, and which were viewed by many as of questionable benefit, wasone which drove Therese to seek another domicile. The old homesteadthat nestled to the hill side and close to the water's edge, had beenabandoned to the inroads of progressive civilization; and Mrs. Lafirmehad rebuilt many rods away from the river and beyond sight of themutilated dwelling, converted now into a section house. In building,she avoided the temptations offered by modern architecturalinnovations, and clung to the simplicity of large rooms and broadverandas: a style whose merits had stood the test of easy-going andcomfort-loving generations.

  The negro quarters were scattered at wide intervals over the land,breaking with picturesque irregularity into the systematic division offield from field; and in the early spring-time gleaming in their newcoat of whitewash against the tender green of the sprouting cotton andcorn.

  Therese loved to walk the length of the wide verandas, armed with herfield-glass, and to view her surrounding possessions with comfortablesatisfaction. Then her gaze swept from cabin to cabin; from patch topatch; up to the pine-capped hills, and down to the station whichsquatted a brown and ugly intruder within her fair domain.

  She had made pouting resistance to this change at first, opposing itstep by step with a conservatism that yielded only to the resistless.She pictured a visionary troop of evils coming in the wake of therailroad, which, in her eyes no conceivable benefits could mitigate.The occasional tramp, she foresaw as an army; and the travelers whomchance deposited at the store that adjoined the station, she dreadedas an endless procession of intruders forcing themselves upon herprivacy.

  Gregoire, the young nephew of Mrs. Lafirme, whose duty on theplantation was comprehended in doing as he was bid, qualified by apropensity for doing as he liked, rode up from the store one day inthe reckless fashion peculiar to Southern youth, breathless with theinformation that a stranger was there wishing audience with her.

  Therese at once bristled with objections. Here was a confirmation ofher worst dread. But encouraged by Gregoire's reiteration "he 'pear tome like a nice sort o' person," she yielded a grudging assent to theinterview.

  She sat within the wide hall-way beyond the glare and heat that werebeating mercilessly down upon the world out of doors, engaged in alight work not so exacting as to keep her thoughts and glance fromwandering. Looking through the wide open back doors, the picture whichshe saw was a section of the perfect lawn that encircled the house foran acre around, and from which Hiram was slowly raking the leaves castfrom a clump of tall magnolias. Beneath the spreading shade of anumbrella-China tree, lay the burly Hector, but half awake to thepossible nearness of tramps; and Betsy, a piece of youthful ebony inblue cottonade, was crossing leisurely on her way to the poultry yard;unheeding the scorching sun-rays that she thought were sufficientlyparried by the pan of chick feed that she balanced adroitly on herbushy black head.

  At the front, the view at certain seasons would have been clear andunbroken: to the station, the store, and out-lying hills. But now shecould see beyond the lawn only a quivering curtain of rich green whichthe growing corn spread before the level landscape, and above whoseswaying heads appeared occasionally the top of an advancing whitesun-shade.

  Therese was of a roundness of figure suggesting a future of excessivefullness if not judiciously guarded; and she was fair, with a warmwhiteness that a passing thought could deepen into color. The wavingblonde hair, gathered in an abundant coil on top of her head, grewaway with a pretty sweep from the temples, the low forehead and napeof the white neck that showed above a frill of soft lace. Her eyeswere blue, as certain gems are; that deep blue that lights, and glows,and tells things of the soul. When David Hosmer presented himself,they were intense only with expectancy and the color was in her cheeklike the blush in a shell.

  He was a tall individual of perhaps forty; thin and sallow. His blackhair was streaked abundantly with grey, and his face marked withpremature lines; left there by care, no doubt, and, by a too closeattention to what men are pleased to call the main chances of life.

  "A serious one," was Therese's first thought in looking at him. "A manwho
has never learned to laugh or who has forgotten how." Thoughplainly feeling the effects of the heat, he did not seem to appreciatethe relief offered by the grateful change into this shadowy, sweetsmelling, cool retreat; used as he was to ignore the comforting thingsof life when presented to him as irrelevant to that dominant mainchance. He accepted under protest a glass of ice water from thewide-eyed Betsy, and suffered a fan to be thrust into his hand,seemingly to save his time or his timidity by its possibly unheededrejection.

  "Lor'-zee folks," exclaimed the observant Betsy on re-entering thekitchen, "dey'se a man in yonda, look like he gwine eat somebody up. Iwas fur gittin' 'way quick me."

  It can be readily imagined that Hosmer lost little time in preliminarysmall talk. He introduced himself vaguely as from the West; thenperceiving the need of being more specific as from Saint Louis. Shehad guessed he was no Southerner. He had come to Mrs. Lafirme on thepart of himself and others with a moneyed offer for the privilege ofcutting timber from her land for a given number of years. The amountnamed was alluring, but here was proposed another change and she feltplainly called on for resistance.

  The company which he represented had in view the erection of a sawmillsome two miles back in the woods, close beside the bayou and at aconvenient distance from the lake. He was not wordy, nor was he eagerin urging his plans; only in a quiet way insistent in showing pointsto be considered in her own favor which she would be likely herself tooverlook.

  Mrs. Lafirme, a clever enough business woman, was moved by no unduehaste to give her answer. She begged for time to think the matterover, which Hosmer readily agreed to; expressing a hope that afavorable answer be sent to him at Natchitoches, where he would awaither convenience. Then resisting rather than declining all furtherhospitality, he again took his way through the scorching fields.

  Therese wanted but time to become familiar with this further change.Alone she went out to her beloved woods, and at the hush of mid-day,bade a tearful farewell to the silence.